The American remake of Let the Right One In started production this week, which I knew because I felt a great disturbance in the force. I’m still not convinced the movie needs an American remake — especially one renamed Let Me In, which is not the same — but Richard Jenkins’ presence (as the Håkan character) gives me a sliver of hope. A tiny, tiny sliver.
I was wild about the original film, but I’m skeptical that an American version will tolerate the same level of silence, particularly at the hands of Cloverfield director Matt Reeves. Part of what made the original so evocative was how little the characters said to each other, how much of the development was internal and implied. Are there contemporary American movies that do that? I certainly can’t think of one.
But maybe, maaaaaaybe this will be okay. Again, Jenkins is a major plus, and if they had to re-situate the film on U.S. soil, New Mexico actually seems like an acceptable fit: A lot of the original film’s mood came from the desolate, uniform, minimal surroundings. The crunch of snow underfoot, the wisps of vapor characters’ breath left in the air, the starkness of an iced-over landscape — Oskar and Eli’s environment was not particularly hospitable, which emphasized how isolated and vulnerable the two were. An off-the-beaten-path neighborhood in the Southwest can (I hope!) capture that same feeling of lostness and insignificance that made the original’s setting seem so haunting.
PopWatchers, put me in the skeptical column. Where do you fall on the “hell to the no” to “a thousand times yes” spectrum?
Image credit: McPhee: Karwai Tang/Alpha /Landov; Moretz: Chris Hatcher/PR Photos
Comments (1-30) of 53 Add your comment
Why do this? American “remakes” of foreign films (even TV shows) for the most part, suck!!! Is it just because some people don’t like subtitles they feel they need to make it? lol
This film doesn’t need an American remake. It is great on its own and I’m afraid the remake will just mess up the entire tone of the original. I will probably end up seeing it just to see what they come up with. You are right though, American movies are not able to hold long silences so it’ll be interesting to see if they even attempt it
Agreed.
Re-makes can’t affect originals. The idea that they can is preposterous.
The picture you printed says it all: the Disney channel presents “Let the Right One In.” Blerg
There isn’t enough “Hell to the no” in the charted universe for this.
Exactly.
Third you, man.
..it might end up decent enough. I’ll go see it.
Urgh!!! I hope they don’t ruin this film. I totally agree that I just don’t think an american director can tolerate the silence. That is what made the original such a gem.
Yeah. No.
It’s bad enough they screwed up the subtitles on the DvD, now they have to pretty it up and dumb it down?
Another one I’ve heard they’re redoing is “Death at a Funeral,” which is one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in years. Have no idea why they have to mess with that one- a British film no more than a couple of years old?
Have we no decent screenwriters with an original idea in their heads that everything has to be a sequel or a remake?
Americans always RUIN brilliant ideas by thinking they can di it themselves. America please come up with your own ideas instead of stealing “foreign” ideas.
Yes, like when they ruined the Office.
State of Play, anyone?
While watching the original, I knew that a Hollywood remake would not be far behind, and it upset me because it was so close to perfect the first time around, and more Americans should be able to appreciate this kind of film.
On the flip side, at least they’re remaking a really good movie as opposed to dreck. I’m not expecting ‘Let Me In’ to be as good as the original, but it will probably be better than ‘New Moon’ or most of the other junk that is churned out.
This is a tiresome argument. Yes, the remake will suck. But who cares? You can still watch the original AND the original filmakers make a nice US-based payout. You think Michael Haneke cared that Funny Games tanked here?
he did. he directed it.
The problem with crappy remakes is that, no matter how hard you try to forget them, they always pop into your head whenever you’re fondly remembering the original. And I really don’t want my memory of “Let the Right One In” to be tarnished. Same goes for Nightmare on Elm Street. I love Jackie Earle Haley, and the preview looks decent enough…but if these movies suck, it’s gonna be hard to forget.
If they try to duplicate the original, there’s now way this could be any good. That said, there’s a lot of stuff in the book that the original hinted at, but didn’t use. If the American version is its own thing, it could be okay (though still not as good).
No. No. No. No. No. Just no. Why? Why? No. No. God, no. Please, God, no. Please? No. No.
There’s nothing wrong with trying. If it’s good, we’ll have two good adaptations of a great novel. What’s so wrong with that? If it sucks, it’ll suck, and that won’t affect the Swedish one. And anyway, even a bad re-make will give the Swedish one attention it might not otherwise have gotten. Everyone needs to calm down.
I care because the budget could go to an original idea and give us a new, exciting movie to think about rather than take a perfectly good, highly original concept (silent Swedish child vampire) and move it to America just because American’s can’t be bothered to read sub-titles. What is inspiring about that? Our artists and writers are already forced to dumb down everything they do, and they are forced to re-interpret rather than create. Is this what we’ve become?
Idiocracy has become real life my friend. I think the guy who plays the lead is named Upgrayedd. Oy.
Alright, we all dread remakes of foreign films, but we must consider that horror remakes are not necessarily horrible. Horror is a shifting genre, and often is a direct commentary on society, given that Sweden and America have two different takes on society, the depiction will be different. Better? No. Let the Right One In (US) is basically a film made for those who will never see the original. We can demean those anti-subtitlers, or we can sit back and say, with pride that we will not watch the film, because we’ve seen it before, only assuridly better. I realize that cinema is much different than theater, but we could very well look at it as basically another production with another take on the novel. And it was a novel first, which actually invalidates our angst over a remake, as the first film was merely a distilled version of the book, the us version may be just the same. Any fans of [REC] know the angst over Quarantine, and in the end they both stand on their own, and are both scary and well made. [REC] gets points for being first, while Quarantine gets points for making money for their distributors. End.
Great points Lelenad!
Thanks for making me feel better about the remake (abeit an unnecessary one).
You’re wrong about using [REC] as an example. The reason why [REC] was so terrifying was because it was filmed in such a manner that the actors (save for one or two) in the film didn’t know what was going to happen next. There was a lot of improv. That way, when they jumped, *we* jumped, for their jumps were real. Quarantine, by contrast, was a slavish remake, and you CANNOT duplicate spontanaiety effectively.
As for Let the Right One In, you can always hope for the best, but for every Dawn Of the Dead remake, there’s about thirty Day Of the Dead remakes.
Read the book and loved the movie. I must say I am very much looking forward to seeing this movie. I will always have a good place in my heart for LTROI as does Matt Im sure. Im going to see Let Me In with a fresh look and not a comparitive one.
Also, Kodi Smit-McPhee is a great casting choice.
Hollywood has ALWAYS remade movies, for better or worse, that’s not gonna change and I don’t get worked up over it. I loved, loved, loved the original. I loved that girl with her soulful eyes, the lonely, bullied boy, the unpredicable plot, it was all so absolutely perfect, it’ll always be on my list of all time faves, so bahring on the remake!!!
Already the casting of the Lina character has me worried – she is far too pretty for the role. Lina is supposed to be a castrated boy, or at least ambiguous enough to keep us wondering what Lina means when s/he says “I’m not a boy.” I’ll remain open minded about the remake, but am not too hopeful that it will do justice to the source material (both movie and book).
Oh Satan NO NO NO! I knew they were doing this but now that you published pics of the tykes playing the characters I can only imagine how horrible this is going to be! Disney-fied to the max. Owen Gilberman can say what he wants, the original is one of the superior films of last year and needs to freaking remake. Ugh!
Wrong. This is a horrible idea. The original is fantastic.
Americans need to learn to read subtitles.
On the one hand: disneyfication. On the other hand: film rights money to John Ajvide Lindqvist and his publisher Ordfront, which puts out fiction, but also a bunch of politically progressive books. (Radical by American standards, less so by Swedish.)
There’s something like 10 million Swedish speakers in the world, which means that for a Swedish author to be super-successful, he/she has to be translated into other languages — especially English. So anything that brings more success to Lindqvist and his publisher is fine by me.
And heck, maybe people who see the remake will then seek out Lindqvist’s books.
Boo. And I’m resisting the urge to go off on a tangent, old lady from the Princess Bride style.
Yeah, but wasn’t the original made in some foreign country? Of course it needs to be remade. This is Amurricka – subtitles are for communists!
(sarcasm, obviously…)
The original is like a year old, talk about running out of material Hollywood. What a bunch of hacks.
Shouldnt be done! Same with an OLDBOY remake, it will just make me cry tears of BLOOD!
They should make a lame overproduced Hollywood trailer that will attract the masses, and then just show the original when they (re)release it in theaters.
the original is a movie id never see again so if this one can improve on that, then i say go for it!
if for some reason there will be a remake , Isabelle Fuhrman(Ester in Orphan) needs to be in it as Eli.