Lately, there has been a bad string of remakes in the horror genre with American directors trying to twist psycho-spiritual horror films into a context that is understandable and accessible to the American public. The problem with this is the art and beauty of foreign horror just does not translate into Hollywood’s conception of film.
The most recent addition is the to-be-released remake of Takashi Miike’s One Missed Call. The story is a bizarre amalgamation of spirituality and technology, in which, a missed call can predict the death of a character. The atmospheric horror-thriller is incredibly frightening, in its original format. Being that it is yet to be released, one can hope it does not go the same way as the sub-par American remakes of The Ring 1&2, Ju-on 1&2, Premonition or Pulse.
An example of the sin of American remakes of foreign films is The Wicker Man. The American rendition of The Wicker Man was easily one of the worst things that Hollywood has released…ever. Much of the religious zealotry of the story, which the original film was satirizing, was erased. Most, if not all, of the necessary plot devices were either thrown out or revised into making it more accessible.
Two of the victims through these attempts are the art and atmosphere itself. The Wicker Man, not being the derivative contemporary American horror flick, featured few deaths and even more uninhibited raw sexuality than a claimed “moral” society like America would allow. In the original, there was a Gothic side to the isolation and the perfect build up of tensions. The remake had none of the tension building, or raw sexuality of the original as well as erasing any wit that went into the story.
Premonition in its original Japanese form made even an everyday activity, like getting educated on world events via newspaper terrifying through the idea of fate. The Sandra Bullock version erased that atmosphere and tension, making the story more comical due to the poor writing and even worse acting. Ringu and the rest of its brothers in storyline: Ringu 2, Ringu 0 and Rasen, were intelligent and eerie. To go along with the Japanese remake failings, The Ring and The Ring 2 added a completely unnecessary focus on the love story and threw out most of the visuals that made the Japanese originals creepier on a lower budget than the big budget American “box office hits.” The Grudge, The Grudge 2 and Pulse also spent too much time building on relationships, which were not entirely integral to the story, which stole from the tension anyway.
If remakes of foreign horror films are to be done right one of the things to do is get the right people working on it. John Carpenter and Mick Garris are two examples of acceptable choices for directors and/or producers. Next, get the right people to play the roles. People like Sandra Bullock or Nicholas Cage should never be cast in this style of film. Lastly, do not over gloss it with special effects. Paying more attention to the story rather than how pretty water, blood or fire looks will pay off in the end. Making something accessible to a new audience is fine, if it, at the very least, keeps the feel and atmosphere.