Rod Lurie has a film on the CHUD Essentials list (Deterrence). Now he’s remaking a movie that could have been a contender (oh snap, pun intended) for that list – Straw Dogs. And he’s remaking it for the House that Shitty Movies Built: Screen Gems.
I have to admit I don’t understand the point of remaking Straw Dogs*. Just make another movie about a guy and his wife who get harassed by creepy locals until the dude snaps and takes violent revenge – it isn’t like Disturbia is technically a remake of Rear Window, even though the most basic concepts of the films are the same. But I guess someone at Sony did some market research or something and found that Straw Dogs has some name recognition. It can add three percent to Friday night numbers!
Lurie started as a film journalist – you would think if there were any group averse to remakes it would be journalists, since we have to deal with them. He’s not a terrible director by any means, but his name isn’t one that fills me with instant faith in this remake. The writing duties are being handled by Reed Steiner, a guy who wrote a bunch of Nash Bridges episodes.
Honestly, two things make me sour on this from the start: one, the action is being moved from England to the US, which means we’ll have our hero menaced by a bunch of lame and boring rednecks. Been there, done that. The other thing is the fact that Screen Gems is producing – never before has a studio been so single-minded in its pursuit of garbage.
*I mean this beyond the obvious ‘What the fuck are you going to bring to this movie that the great genius Sam Peckinpah didn’t? And do you really think you’ll make a film as rough as the one he made? You fucking jerk.’ sort of thing.