shifts the story to an American setting

Sweet fucking Jesus, I get so tired of this.

This is a horrible idea. The 2008 sweedish film is downright amazing in it's own right. The producers of this one are trying to remake the movie and the author/producer of the original say "Why not remake the book?" Interpretations vary but you get the gist.

Some stupid hollywood exec thought it would be a genius level move to remake a great movie into a mediocre one. Why? For the almighty dollar and the fact that they think the avg american won't/can't read subtitles.

Good luck recreating the eerie,creepy, passionate bond between the two children. Without that basic premise it's another campy crappy vamp flick with flashes of gore.

This doesn't look as bad as I thought it might be, but what the frak is the point? At best you can only hope to be as good as the original.

Maybe they've only seen the horrible US-subbed version, and figure they can do better (Get the UK version, kids. You know how.)

Thanks for letting me know that this is the director of the worst movie in the past 60 years. Now I know to avoid this one.

The trailer isn't as painful as I had expected, but I'm still mighty skeptical. The first film was so quiet, and I don't recall that investigation into the murders had much impact at all. It was, instead, a sneaky, creepy story about two lonely children finding each other. ("I've been twelve for a very long time.") This doesn't look like it's going to reach those heights.

An early review I read pointed out that they turn Eli into a girl and completely wipe that subplot from the film. No more gender tension and ambiguous sexuality: that's just too scary for American audiences. I mean, surely, the boy must fall in love with a girl, not another boy who plays a girl's role (but isn't transgendered, which just adds another layer to the whole thing).

That means not only am I not watching it, I'm a little disgusted by it. When you cut something like that from a film in the remake, you're making a statement about the audience and the movie, and this isn't a pretty statement to make.

@6 Brit In all fairness, the original barely touched on the ambiguous gender of Eli. I had taken the line "I'm not a girl" to imply that Eli had stopped thinking of "herself" as either boy or girl, but simply as a vampire, and, as wiki put it, the brief shot of a suggestive scar was completely lost on me, and I thought it was just Oskar being embarrassed at himself for peeping.

In response to Bridget, I probably won't see this, not that I go out and see all that many movies in the first place. But I was satisfied with the tale the Swedish version told, and I don't see any way they could "remake" it and visit Vampirism in a new way like LtROI did.

@R.Fife

I suppose that's one way of looking at it. I can't imagine watching the movie without noticing all of those things, though. That line especially deals with both the gender identity issue and the vampirism issue--it has double meaning. The kid playing Eli was also ambiguous in looks and dress for most of the film. The movie deals in subtleties between the lines and through the interactions of the characters--it has to be thought through and the pieces put together.

I guess if you didn't notice it in the film, it might not seem like a big deal to lose it, but I noticed it from the beginning and it was what made the experience so awesome for me. There are not a lot of queer-sexuality narratives in popular film. Keeping this one, or being brave and making it even more pronounced, would have been a great move on part of the American director... But he chose the easy, inoffensive and bland way out.

@1 NomadUK

Amen.

Seriously, if someone runs into culturally distinct element in a story/film/television that they're unfamiliar with, you know what you can do in this day and age? Hint: People tend to use it from time to time to avoid being fleeced by terrible films that Hollywood tends to crap out all over the place.

@Brit, if Eli's gender/sexuality was supposed to be ambiguous, it went completely over my head. Like @R.Fife, I simply assumed that she thought of herself as non-human, and so "not a girl". Of all the things from the original that are probably broken in the remake, this isn't one that I would notice.

Edit: Eli is also played by a young woman, Lina Leanderson. Is there anything in the film other than that one line to suggest she's supposed to be male/intersexed/whatever?

@jaspax

Er, the scarring from the castration, for one thing. And yes, Eli is played by a girl--but notice the clothing and the body language. Eli is not played as "feminine."

(I actually hadn't heard anybody not get it until now. Nobody I watched the film with or discussed it with missed it. I wonder if the majority of the audience had no idea about that whole subplot? Huh. Something for me to think about, I suppose, not sure what the social implications are there.)

Though it might seem like a small thing for me to be angry about, when you live to see people like yourself or even just other queer folks in movies and there actually is an opportunity and a director intentionally avoids it, it pisses me off. It happens every day, I know. It doesn't mean I have to like it, and it doesn't mean I'm not going to be offended by it, because it's not classy and it's not cool.

(Personally, I wish this remake was an adaptation of the book through a different reader/director's eyes, but it's just an adaptation of the original movie with even less of the cool stuff in it.)

@Brit, given that I hadn't ever interpreted the film that way, and that I'm still not convinced this is the intended reading, it's not something that I want to hold the director's feet to the fire about. But I can understand why you would feel differently.

(Also, "not the intended reading" is not necessarily a jab. Sometimes the unintended readings are the best ones.)

@jaspax

Since the original director was adapting the book, where it's explicit, I think it's safe to say he was doing it on purpose. If he didn't want to reference the gender-ambiguity that's in the base text, I doubt he would have included the castration-scarring scene or those lines. Those are two very easily skipped, short moments.

Either way, though, a theatrical release here of the original movie would have been a better idea than a remake, I think. *g*

@Brit:

Since the original director was adapting the book, where it's explicit, I think it's safe to say he was doing it on purpose.

Aha. I didn't know that--I haven't read the book, and the Wikipedia plot summary doesn't mention anything. Good to know.

I saw the original shortly after it was released, in my local indie house and was absolutely blown away. As were my two friends. We couldn't stop talking about it the whole night after. We got the scar, the words, we loved the atmosphere, the kids, the subtlety, the quiet. It was gorgeous, dark, tender, frightening and lovely to behold. And then one of my friends bought the book, read it, shared it, I devoured it, passed it on again and discussed the differences and how much we liked the expansion from the book and how the movie didn't lose anything in its adaptation.

When we heard it was being remade, we all agreed that it was pointless. Just release the original to a wider audience. I don't get why people are so eager to read subtitles while watching Jesus Caviezel get beaten and crucified but anything else, oh lord no, remake that shit, please. I tried to watch the trailer just now and the music started pissing me off. And what will happen with the cultural things? That was a major part of the story, the Swedes in the pub and how they interacted. No, I will not be seeing this.

@14 I actually had to dig, quite a bit, through the wiki, and it is mentioned in the movie article in the screenplay sub-section.

The blurring of gender is not exactly new with vampires (if not to this degree), so honestly I'm going to lay my lacking to catch this at both the director's feet and my likely distraction with reading subtitles and not focusing on every little nuance.

And, I hate to be crass, but I will be. The scar, in that quick shot, could be mistaken for short hair. The reaction that elicited from me was one of "wow, those Swedes can get away with stuff we'd never even dream of in an artsy movie." Perhaps the "scar" should have been a little more of a pronounced deformity.

And yes, Brit, as they said in Multiplicity "You know how when you make a copy of a copy, it's not as sharp as... well... the original?"

@jaspax

Oh man, read the book. The translation is pretty good, and it's got so, so, so much more going on. You'll love it. I picked it up after the film and liked it even more. (Plus, most bookstores are carrying it right now.)

@R. Fife

Yes, this. I think American audiences could have handled some good subtitles or even (though I'm not a fan of them) a dub of the original with a theatrical release.

Want to simultaneously horrify and amuse people?

Throw out the idea of an American remake of Slumdog Millionaire. (I'll spare you the horrible (and funny) changes in plot my friends and I came up with.)

Also, if you haven't noticed, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is up for a remake, which has drawn some "huh?" reactions from people since the original Swedish version is still in the theaters.

And concerning Let the Right One In (why do the voices in my head keep singing that to the tune of Let the Sunshine In?), I haven't seen that movie yet, but I've been tempted to read the book for a while.

Yeah, if you haven't read the book, you're just not going to pick up on that aspect of Eli. It's too briefly shown/mentioned. And honestly, I'm not sure if it's really worth drawing out. I mean, the fact that s/he's dead is really the weirdest part.

On a related note, a friend who's in the biz was annoyed by the fact that you can see Eli's breath in the original. I would never have thought of it, but it would be a really subtle way of conveying his/her nature.

My impression of the movie was that it was a metaphor for a child molester recruiting another child as the first one (the older man taking care of the vampire) aged out of the desired range.
The "beaver shot"? I thought it was just a take on some mythological sideways vagina thing. Didn't think it was appropriate and would have cut that scene.
I just got the book, so I'll see what they made the movie about.
As for the warm breath of the vampire, she has been at inside room temperature for a while. Sweden gets really cold in the winter, so no wonder it's breath smokes.

Loved the original movie, picked up the book shortly after watching it (about a year or so later, ran into it on TV after having heard positive buzz when it first hit theatres) and liked it a little better, but I'd agree that the movie didn't leave much out. I'd rather see a US version of the movie be based more on the book than just a remake of the other movie (a copy of a copy, as mentioned above). Could benefit a little from increased production values, maybe?

(I also didn't get that "she" wasn't from watching the movie. I interpreted Eli's line "I'm not a girl" to mean "I'm not a human" as opposed to "I'm not female".)

@ conspiracytheorywackadoodle, now that's going to earworm me...thanks.

I'm actually looking forward to this one. First of all, I'm a huge fan of Chloe Moretz - loved her in Kick-Ass - and she's the only child actress out there now that I'd trust with this role.

I loved the original film, and have never read the book, so while the ambiguousness of Eli's gender did cross my mind, it was subtle enough in the film that I thought it was something I was bringing to it, not something being made an explicit point.

I'm not someone who thinks that just because it's an American adaptation that it's automatically horrible. Swedish films aren't inherently better. :) And let's remember that while there are plenty of great European films, there are just as many crappy ones. "Let The Right One In" is one of the better ones, but doing an American version isn't a bad thing in and of itself.

Example #1 - The Office. While I love the UK version, I also love the American version, because the themes of both are universal. The humor was changed to be strictly American, and it works.

Example #2 - The Full Monty. There's the British film, and there's the Broadway musical version which sets the story in Buffalo, NY. I love the musical, and think they did a great job of staying true to the themes of the story (blue-collar men feel useless when their blue-collar jobs are taken away) while altering it for a different culture.

Lastly, lets remember that trailers are often misleading. This movie might be more subtle than the trailer gives it credit for. You can edit a trailer to make ANYTHING more exciting. Have you seen the trailer for Gone With the Wind with Vampires? :)