Matt Reeves has the very unmanageable and not too popular task of remaking the marvellous Swedish lamia film have The Right One In . He was taken to task on a SXSW venire when asked about his plans for the feature film .
Moderator : I ’d like to get onto a topic that is really fickle nowadays with horror devotee , both open minded and close minded repugnance fans , and that is the topic of remakes . The knee joint - jerk response when you are inundated with remake like , Sorority Row or Prom night , not something half decent like The Crazies , I think just garbage . When you see that a marvelous film like Let The Right One In and you take an article that it ’s break down to be remade , as a passionate horror lover , your first reaction is to be skeptical , and that ’s put it lightly . But from what I ’ve been reading I imagine it ’s safe to say that the valet that are involved with the Let Me In remake are madly in love with the source material . And it is n’t any form of free-lance project . So Matt , what do you think about remakes ?
Matt Reeves : I reckon that in the case of that , in my particular situation , and I actually think it ’s dependable of the remakes that I hump . I love John Carpenter ’s The Thing , I opine the original is really great and before it ’s time , really spooky and cool . And the remake is fantastic it ’s a peachy movie . I opine it ultimately come down to your esteem and dedication to the material . I think that when people feel that they do n’t , and if I were on the same side I would think the same thing , that there ’s a kind of bastardisation of the material . And that they just impart explosion and one - liner , or do whatever might be “ Americanizing ” the story . In my case , I so respond to the story and it was in reality way in progression of when the original celluloid follow out here . Then I read the novel and I wrote to the author and I tell him that it just so reminded me of my childhood . I spell to him and I said I ’m so drawn to this material and they are blab about doing a remake . It ’s funny because the mass who give me the flick to look at in the first place , they said , “ take a aspect at this flick , we opine you might answer to it , we want to try and get the right from the Swedish producer . And maybe you ’ll want to make the kids old . ” I watched it and here ’s my answer , number one , if you make the kids honest-to-goodness , you literally deflower the film . So please do n’t do that . Number two , I ’m not certain you should redo this picture .
Then I read the novel , and it just sort of dug into me . When I was doing Felicity , J.J. [ Abrams ] and I created the show and , of course , he did Alias , and that was the sorting of trajectory that he went on . I did a pilot that did n’t get made , which was a very personal story , which I ’ve since turned into a feature of speech . It was a come of age story , a period piece about this kid who hold up in this courtyard and there was a girl who subsist in the construction and they had these kind of halting exchange . And I ’m watching the movie [ Let The Right One In ] and I thought I ’m so enamored and in dear with these kids . And it turned out to be this brilliant vampire story which was much more brilliant than anything I tried to do . So when I write to the generator [ John Ajvide Lindqvist ] I say I ’m really drawn to this but not because it ’s a great writing style tarradiddle , which I do believe it is . It was really about my personal connection to . The author save me back and he was very genial and he said that he was a big buff of Cloverfield and it ’s because you ’ve take kind of an old story and done it in a fresh direction and that ’s what I tried to do with this . But I ’m much more excited to know that this touch on you in person because it ’s my autobiography . It was the chronicle of his puerility . I wholly get it because that ’s what I related to . I relate to the bully and the approximation of being a child of divorce and grow up in the 80s . I think it comes down to , in terms of doing a remake , what your intentions are . Whether you ’re trying to do a rush shot or whether you bring something of yourself to it and put to and respecting where the film comes from . I have such tremendous respect for that level . The original will always exist . You will always be able-bodied to see that picture show and I guess it ’s kind of a masterpiece . The playscript also will always exist , but this is another interpreting of that fib . Which hopefully people will give us a chance and we ’ll see how they palpate about it . But it is very sort of intentioned in a respsectful way , while at the same time hoping to bring something new .
At the beginning of the Scripture there ’s a great thing in the chapter that opens it . He verbalise about Blackeberg where Lindqvist , grew up , it ’s the report of his puerility and he describes the townspeople as fundamentally what in America would be a considered a Tract Housing community of interests , or like Levittown in World War 2 community of interests . Everything was planned so the townspeople was built all at once , and not over time so you could have organic history building . So they build this metropolis and then you could imagine that all the residents came over on buses and bridges and arrived and that they all came in on the same day , of course that is n’t what happened , this was a billet with out history . One of the things about having chronicle was that there was n’t a undivided church in this place . And that ’s why they were so unprepared for what was about to adopt . Which is a great opening night to the volume . In the lawsuit of the story if we are pass to take it and put it in an American linguistic context then the Tract housing makes total sense . But America in the 80s and America now is very dissimilar . It is n’t sort of a godless suburbia . If I were a 12 - year - older kid and I was harboring the thoughts that Oscar had because of the viciousness of his life , and if I imagine kill my enemy , condemnable view . I think in an American context , Reagan was talking about the evil empire and that the immorality is outside of us , and I became very drawn to the estimation that the evil is within us . It ’s details like that . I think people think the whole Americanization thing is people coming in and tally lots of free poppycock . In may encase it ’s much more about circumstance and honor the original story and discover the way that it applies to the way we inhabit , or I lived .
Anyway , a long - winded answer . To me it really comes down to the filmmakers commitment to what they ’re doing . And if they feel that they can do something to it , while respect it and lend something of themselves to it .
It ’s very long - winded , but we cogitate we understand what Reeves is trying to convey . More significantly , at least he ’s putting suppose into his remake , and trying to hail from a devout topographic point .
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