I bounce between apathy and outrage when it comes to Hollywood. Some days I’m too cynical to get worked up when every single film gets remade, but on others I find my blood boiling when a well-received modern foreign film gets an American version. Today is one of those days.
Lat den ratte komma in is a Swedish film that won the Tribeca Film Festival feature competition last week. It’s a unique sounding film: a young boy who is bullied falls in love with a strange girl… who turns out to be a vampire. The movie is getting raves as a beautiful, atmospheric and occasionally gruesome piece, and it’s a film I’d love to see. In the original version. But I’m apparently not like my fellow Westerners, so risen from the dead Hammer Films has acquired the remake rights. The good news is that the original film will be released by the superheroes at Magnolia, so anyone interested in global cinema will have a chance to see the movie.
I always imagined that the return of Hammer would have me more… excited. Or interested. Or less annoyed, at any rate.