Cloverfield Director To Remake Let The Right One In

[JeetKuneDo]

You guys are making me want to check and see if The Exorcist is available for streaming on Netflix...


edit! It is!

 

[CrimsonMist]

Reeves wanted to go toward a "love story" more than a "friendship" like the book. He even strongly emphasizes Romeo and Juliet.

And what I loved in Reeves's film is how he really used both to the film's advantage. Because Owen really just needs a friend, someone to be there for him. Then Abby comes, and he gets that someone, and it eventually, perhaps on a superficial level in my analysis of the film, leads to a love story, but there was a great undertone of Abby having these ulterior motives for him. Study him, understand him, and then use him for all he's worth. And I think by going for the love story, these ulterior motives become far more evident, and thus more horrifying(making the scene where Owen shuts the door on the cop much more powerful), than the original going to for a pronounced friendship with ulterior motives.

I enjoyed the book a lot. There was some CREEPY stuff in there! And some of the writing was very poetic to me. Agree there was some extra stuff that the story does not miss. Definitely agree about the "bar people" going away in LMI. Didn't miss them at all.

The only part I found creepy was Haken being a pedophile, mainly where he tries to kill the kid in the locker room, ass naked with a hard-on. I truly didn't care for anything else that went on in the novel because of how it was written. All the stuff that the films cut out were probably for the best, and I think had they been cut from the novel, would have made the novel a more enjoyable read.

 

[Kurosawa]

Well, I saw the Exorcist at an impressionable age and I haven't worked up the courage to sit back down and watch that film again. Such was the effect of that movie on me. I've been a horror junkie since i was atleast 3. Lugosi's Dracula scared the piss outta me, yet I continually go back to it. Murnau's Nosferatu(in one of it's many public domain forms with a nightmarish free-jazz score) scared the piss outta me and I continually go back to it. The Exorcist scared the bejeezus out of me and for the longest time, i REFUSED to go back to it. Now, it's just me being uncertain if I WANT to.

I thought it was incredibly atmospheric and creepy, and that's what really gave it the scare factor. Just this sense of unending, unseen dread that swallows you up. It wasn't, from what I recall, all that gross. And even now, just seeing picture of Linda Blair gives me the willies. I can't say that for Nosferau or The Omen or even Rosemary's Baby, which was good, but didn't paralyze me with pure terror.

But I will agree with your last statement. What makes it even more ridiculous is that Kermode doesn't even review Let Me In on it's own terms, or as an adaptation. And I still think it's ludacris that he hates John Boorman for somehow trashing The Exorcist by making a sequel to it. Because somehow, all of the power of the original doesn't exist anymore due to an inferior sequel. If anything, that just means the original isn't that good, then. By his logic, Joel Schumacher totally ruined Burton's Batman films. What a load.

Kermode may have a PHD in Modern English and American horror literature, and may be a revered film critic, but that doesn't mean **** at all. My film professor went to NYU, has a master's degree in film making. And you know what? Of the work of his I've seen, it sucks. At the end of the day, it's subjective opinion. Not factual.

The only film I can say that about is Audition. It's a great film but I've never watched it but once, and I don't think I could watch it again.

And yeah, there are always highly respected film critics who I still disagree with almost always, like Vincent Camby, who blasted many of my favorite movies.

I find most of the opposition to LMI to be the typical "foreign films are superior to stupid American films" spiel. I find that attitude pretentious.

 

[kedrell]

The Exorcist isn't about that. It was about a film that challenged the faith of a priest, and the strength of a mother. The "gore" inwhich you speak of compliments the fear factor and amazingly tight atmosphere of the film.

The Exorcist is an essential to any movie lover's collection. It is not only one of the best horror films, it is one of the best films, period.

End of.

Well I certainly do not consider myself a "movie lover". 90%+ of all films ever made I just couldn't give a **** about and they don't appeal to me. I consider myself a connoisseur of a small select type of films(superhero films mostly with the occassional comic book film or genre film that happens to appeal to me...like LMI & LTROI). My days of trying everything in moviedom are far, far behind me as I have learned exactly what I do like and what I don't. Out of the hundreds of new films put out per year, I probably see only 5 of them.

 

[Why Are You Crouching Spock?]

The Exorcist isn't about that. It was about a film that challenged the faith of a priest, and the strength of a mother. The "gore" inwhich you speak of compliments the fear factor and amazingly tight atmosphere of the film.

Exactly. For the majority of the film, there is no gore. And some of the creepiest parts are subtle. e.g. During the beginning of the movie a homeless man sitting by the subway asks Father Karras "can you spare a dime for an old altar boy father" in a slightly creepy (and beautifully shot flashing light as a train passes by) manner. It isn't till about an hour later Pazuzu (the demon possining regan) repeats the line casually. The movie builds up the idea of a elemental force than simply a ooga-booga monster. Even when you see the ooga-booga monster done up in makeup, it's done is flashes peppered throughout the movie, again punting the idea of an elemental force than simply a big roar monster, spitting goo.

[YT]Agrke9hpfQY[/YT]

 

[JeetKuneDo]

Just finished The Exorcist. Very good. A lot of this movie has entered pop culture. So the impact may have been lessened somewhat due to that. Almost nothing surprised me. (Same thing happened to me when I saw Stagecoach...it's been copied so much it looked like a long string of cliches to me.) But I enjoyed it. The acting could have been better from the young priest. Nice to see Lee J. Cobb make an appearance.

What struck me about it was how it took a while to build. I liked that. That just doesn't work with today's audiences though. Let Me In suffered from some "it's boring" due to being a character driven tale. How anyone could think LMI is "typical Hollywood" I have no idea.

And what I loved in Reeves's film is how he really used both to the film's advantage. Because Owen really just needs a friend, someone to be there for him. Then Abby comes, and he gets that someone, and it eventually, perhaps on a superficial level in my analysis of the film, leads to a love story, but there was a great undertone of Abby having these ulterior motives for him. Study him, understand him, and then use him for all he's worth. And I think by going for the love story, these ulterior motives become far more evident, and thus more horrifying(making the scene where Owen shuts the door on the cop much more powerful), than the original going to for a pronounced friendship with ulterior motives.

That's an interesting take. I think you've got something there. The contrast between a possible manipulation and love is stronger than the contrast between manipulation and friendship.

I happen to belong to "Team Abby" for several reasons....but it's also cool that the "other possibility" is out there for other viewers.

The only part I found creepy was Haken being a pedophile, mainly where he tries to kill the kid in the locker room, ass naked with a hard-on. I truly didn't care for anything else that went on in the novel because of how it was written. All the stuff that the films cut out were probably for the best, and I think had they been cut from the novel, would have made the novel a more enjoyable read.

Yeah...a naked zombie with a hard-on chasing Eli around was something that was destined to not make it to the screen. The attempted rape in the book was particularly disturbing to me.

It may be LMI itself which allowed me to like the book so much. I've fallen in love with the characters so much that I wanted to know more about them....even though they aren't really the same characters in the book. It's interesting that I really never considered buying the book after seeing LTROI.

The only film I can say that about is Audition. It's a great film but I've never watched it but once, and I don't think I could watch it again.

For me, it's Hard Candy. Awesome flick...but I'm not sure I could handle it again.

 

[zanos]

I initially heard about this book over a year ago, and couldn't decide whether I should watch the film or read the book so I did neither despite alot of rave reviews. Now that the US version is out my curiousity got the best of me and I ended up watching the original film on youtube in dubbed english, or at least an hour of it. I would have watched the US version if it had been available anywhere but it wasn't. Halfway thru the film, I got the same feeling I always get whenever I watch something really low budget and artsy, and this time it was no different. Foreign and independent films often end up in the same category for me, I don't know what it is, but they all suck. If I didn't know better I would have thought the kid playing Oskar was acting out the role of a mildly ******ed kid. It was this more than anything and really awkward dialogue which turned me off to the film. I kind of gave up after an hour and found the book to read instead.

The book, "Let Me In" actually started off quite well and was much better than the film. But that was before I realized I'd been taken. By the half way point my opinion of the novel began to change rapidly, and by the end I felt very much like I read an unfinished first draft of someone's book. The first thing I realized after finishing was that there really much of a story, but just a bunch of isolated ideas pieced together. Secondly what little story there was, was constantly interupted with completely irrelevant characters that were shoved into the story for no practical purpose and just conveniently disappears when they are no longer needed. Why does the character of Tommy and the detective exist? What is the purpose of the drunks who take up 30+ percent of the book? Do we really need the small subplot of Oskar paying a scheduled visit to his irresponsible divorced father, who likes to drink a little too much? Instead of concentrating on writing a focused story, the author is constantly cooking up all these silly characters and tangents he takes you off on, which add nothing to his main characters or the overal story arc, which is, or at least should be the relationship between Oskar and Eli. A great example of what I'm talking about is the revelation that Eli is a boy and not a girl 70% of the way thru book. Why alter the gender of one of his main characters? As typical with alot of things that are presented to the reader this is never explained or expanded on. I have no other explaination for why the author felt it necessary to constantly introduce plot points into his story, but never follow thru on them, other than to say that this is simply bad writing. If he had cut out all this ridiculous extraneous stuff it would have made for a much tighter plot, albeit a very simple one since Lindqvist was so busy on irrelevant characters that he seemed to have lost sight of what his book should have been about.

The only film I can say that about is Audition. It's a great film but I've never watched it but once, and I don't think I could watch it again.

And yeah, there are always highly respected film critics who I still disagree with almost always, like Vincent Camby, who blasted many of my favorite movies.

I find most of the opposition to LMI to be the typical "foreign films are superior to stupid American films" spiel. I find that attitude pretentious.

Audition was an absolutely terrible book btw.

 

[JeetKuneDo]

I initially heard about this book over a year ago, and couldn't decide whether I should watch the film or read the book so I did neither despite alot of rave reviews. Now that the US version is out my curiousity got the best of me and I ended up watching the original film on youtube in dubbed english, or at least an hour of it. I would have watched the US version if it had been available anywhere but it wasn't. Halfway thru the film, I got the same feeling I always get whenever I watch something really low budget and artsy, and this time it was no different. Foreign and independent films often end up in the same category for me, I don't know what it is, but they all suck. If I didn't know better I would have thought the kid playing Oskar was acting out the role of a mildly ******ed kid. It was this more than anything and really awkward dialogue which turned me off to the film. I kind of gave up after an hour and found the book to read instead.

The book, "Let Me In" actually started off quite well and was much better than the film. But that was before I realized I'd been taken. By the half way point my opinion of the novel began to change rapidly, and by the end I felt very much like I read an unfinished first draft of someone's book. The first thing I realized after finishing was that there really much of a story, but just a bunch of isolated ideas pieced together. Secondly what little story there was, was constantly interupted with completely irrelevant characters that were shoved into the story for no practical purpose and just conveniently disappears when they are no longer needed. Why does the character of Tommy and the detective exist? What is the purpose of the drunks who take up 30+ percent of the book? Do we really need the small subplot of Oskar paying a scheduled visit to his irresponsible divorced father, who likes to drink a little too much? Instead of concentrating on writing a focused story, the author is constantly cooking up all these silly characters and tangents he takes you off on, which add nothing to his main characters or the overal story arc, which is, or at least should be the relationship between Oskar and Eli. A great example of what I'm talking about is the revelation that Eli is a boy and not a girl 70% of the way thru book. Why alter the gender of one of his main characters? As typical with alot of things that are presented to the reader this is never explained or expanded on. I have no other explaination for why the author felt it necessary to constantly introduce plot points into his story, but never follow thru on them, other than to say that this is simply bad writing. If he had cut out all this ridiculous extraneous stuff it would have made for a much tighter plot, albeit a very simple one since Lindqvist was so busy on irrelevant characters that he seemed to have lost sight of what his book should have been about.

I enjoyed all three versions very much. That's fair to not like the little subplots...and I agree the story does flow better without them. That's probably why the first movie dropped some of them and Let Me In dropped even more. Maybe that's why I liked LMI the best of the three.

But the zombie Hakan chasing Eli around in the book was VERY effective I thought. Creepy.

 

[JeetKuneDo]

The National Board of Review just put LMI on their "Top independent films of 2010" list.

Top Ten Independent Films:
(in alphabetical order)
Animal Kingdom
Buried
Fish Tank
The Ghost Writer
Greenberg
Let Me In
Monsters
Please Give
Somewhere
Youth in Revolt

The Social Network dominated. http://www.deadline.com/2010/12/awards-the-social-network-wins-national-board-of-review/

 

[GoblinWhirlwind]

I first watched LTROI, and then read the book. I loved the movie, the relationship between Eli and Oskar. Eli is not a wicked vampire, she is not The Master looking for domination, she's simply a girl that was probably in the wrong place at the wrong time that now feeds not because she's a monster, she just wants to survive. I did not care a whole lot for the book, mostly because I like Eli being a girl, and without any backstory. I myself thought the rape zombie Hakan was pretty stupid, did not like that at all. It felt like something just thrown in, like a bad boss fight in a game that you just want to be over with. I doubt I'll ever read the book again, and the viewpoint of the movie is how I'll think of it.

 

[JeetKuneDo]

Shameless self promotion time!

The movie got under my skin so badly that I wrote a song for it.

It's from Abby's point of view...but my voice is all I had to work with. I tried to mimic a bit from the score at the beginning.
If you've got 3 minutes you were planning to waste sorting your socks, give it a listen. (lyrics listed there if you can't make out what I'm singing)

http://www.musicxray.com/xrays/74265

 

[Mr. Para-Normal]

Is this movie worth seeing when it comes to Redbox or something. I was going to see it in theaters but all of my friends who saw it said it was garbage. Is it really that bad or was it a movie where it will go over some peoples heads.

 

[rashad]

Is this movie worth seeing when it comes to Redbox or something. I was going to see it in theaters but all of my friends who saw it said it was garbage. Is it really that bad or was it a movie where it will go over some peoples heads.

The film has an 89% rating on RT.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/let_me_in/

There is nothing garbage about LMI. Watch the film for yourself. It's definitely worth it.

 

[corby]

Is this movie worth seeing when it comes to Redbox or something. I was going to see it in theaters but all of my friends who saw it said it was garbage. Is it really that bad or was it a movie where it will go over some peoples heads.

you need new friends

Spoiler

haha just kidding

 

[zanos]

The film has an 89% rating on RT.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/let_me_in/

There is nothing garbage about LMI. Watch the film for yourself. It's definitely worth it.

The american version must be a completely different film from the swedish version and the book if that's the case.

 

[Sentinel X]

I went to go see this movie opening weekend but they weren't even showing it (I live in a small college town, so I guess not too much options) but I really want to watch this one. Hell, I can't even find a bootleg ....I guess I will have to wait all the way until dvd release

Shameless self promotion time!

The movie got under my skin so badly that I wrote a song for it.

It's from Abby's point of view...but my voice is all I had to work with. I tried to mimic a bit from the score at the beginning.
If you've got 3 minutes you were planning to waste sorting your socks, give it a listen. (lyrics listed there if you can't make out what I'm singing)

http://www.musicxray.com/xrays/74265

Hey, that was pretty good if you did that all by yourself

 

[JeetKuneDo]

Is this movie worth seeing when it comes to Redbox or something. I was going to see it in theaters but all of my friends who saw it said it was garbage. Is it really that bad or was it a movie where it will go over some peoples heads.

I've had more than a couple friends claim it is "slow". Don't expect a bloodfest or a typical horror movie. It's as much a love story as it is a "horror". If it does happen to grab you, the story is amazing and will have you thinking about it for days. Found a YouTube video that seems to illustrate the emotion of the movie (for me). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikSIjuhRDBM&NR=1

The american version must be a completely different film from the swedish version and the book if that's the case.

That's fair. I think all three are pretty different. Mostly because the characters are so different in each.

Hey, that was pretty good if you did that all by yourself

Yep...just me. Amazing what you can do with a Pro Tools setup nowadays. I happen to play guitar, bass, drums, and keys too...so that helps as well. I just wish I could have gotten a good female singer. My voice is ok...I'm good at the backup vocals on that track...but I'm rarely pleased with my lead vocals. Ah well...what can ya do? I usually stick in a guitar solo to make up for it...but that didn't fit here.

 

[JeetKuneDo]

Picked up the prequel comic today.

Nice gritty artwork. A key difference in Abby. I get the feeling something is going to happen to her to set up how she acts in LMI.

 

[JeetKuneDo]

MSN put Let Me In on their "Top 10 Movies of 2010" list.

6. 'Let Me In'

A couple of years ago, "Let the Right One In," a Swedish horror film-***-juvenile love story about an eternally preteen vampire and a bullied loner of a schoolboy, placed on the MSN top 10 list. Against all odds, the American remake of the film -- relocated from the contemporary suburbs of Stockholm to the frozen winter days and long nights of 1983 Los Alamos, N.M. -- earns its place on the 2010 list as the rare remake that honors the original while creating its own evocative (and distinctly American) take. Director-screenwriter Matt Reeves' first feature, "Cloverfield," was (by design) nervous and jittery, a film charged by the adrenaline of panic. "Let Me In" couldn't be more different. The haunting atmosphere of stillness and silence is as formidable as its dark, wintry setting, and the icy chill cuts to the bone and to the heart. In many ways, Reeves' vision is both more feral and more vulnerable than the Swedish original: The angel-faced monster (Chloë Grace Moretz of "Kick-Ass") and devoted human boy (heartbreakingly lonely Kodi Smit-McPhee) are just a couple of kids in a predatory world, and their devotion is as genuine as it is inevitably tragic. Under the hush of snow glowing softly below the hazy streetlamps is a jumble of primal emotional drives -- to live, to feed, to connect, to survive, to sacrifice one's heart and soul (and blood) -- that erupt with a terrible and beautiful ferocity.

The bolded is as good a description of the movie as I've seen.

http://movies.msn.com/movies/year-in-review/top-10-movies/?icid=MOVIES1&GT1=MOVIES1

Good list...I've liked every one of them I've seen so far.

10-Sweetgrass
9-Exit Through the Gift Shop
8-Toy Story 3
7-Dogtooth
6-Let Me In
5-Carlos
4-The Ghost Writer
3-Winter's Bone
2-Black Swan
1-The Social Network

 

[JeetKuneDo]

Made a video for my LMI song.

[YT]iX8dL-WUie4[/YT]

 

[JeetKuneDo]

10 Most Beautiful Films of 2010

Also just realized my video link was boinked. Fixed it.

 

[JeetKuneDo]

Metacritic has Let Me In as the top reviewed horror film of 2010 and the 6th best reviewed wide release movie overall.

http://features.metacritic.com/features/2011/best-and-worst-movies-of-2010/

CNN's Best Films of 2010
http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/12/31/best.worst.movies.2010/index.html

The Projection Booth-Top 10 of 2010

http://projectionbooth.blogspot.com/2010/12/2010-year-in-film-10.html

 

[flickchick85]

Thanks for the updates, JKD. I'm not surprised that it's the top-reviewed horror film of 2010, especially when you consider the state of the horror genre in 2010, but it being the 6th best-reviewed wide-release of the year is certainly a pleasant surprise. And well-deserved, imo.

I'm looking forward to picking this up on blu-ray along with my other favorite underrated gem of 2010 (Never Let Me Go) on February 1st.

 

[The Dark Defender]

The Exorcist is one of the most overrated movies in the history of cinema. Overrated is an overused term but in the case of The Exorcist, it is the correct term.

Agreed completely.

Now that the year is over, I thought LMI was the best film of 2010.

 

[echostation]

this got heavily ignored at the box office and now at the awards?? Why??? if eel the poor promotion of it all had a lot to do with it. This film will be loved in a few years or may be DVD will help it, how is it doing on DVD? Is it out?