Well, this is the fastest turnaround I've ever experienced between falling in love with something and then finding out that Hollywood is going to destroy it. Just two days ago I saw Let the Right One In, the Swedish teenage vampire love story that took home the Best Narrative Feature award at the Tribeca Film Festival and will debut in theaters next month. Moody and wintry, with a slow pace that offsets the effect of a lot of blood and gore, Right One could never have been made in Hollywood, and that's a good thing. You've got to turn to Scandinavia to see tweens get their heads cut off, after all.
And that's probably still the case, even though Cloverfield director Matt Reeves has signed on to the American remake of Right One. He'll write and direct it for Overture Films, says Variety, which at least gives me a little hope. Overture is a small distribution company, and won't be looking for the same kind of box office that, say, Twilight will bring in. That means Reeves might be able to cut loose a little bit, and keep some of the terse spookiness that makes the Swedish film so satisfying.
Or, hey, maybe he'll just have the 12-year-old vampire character cut off the Statue of Liberty's head and have another big opening. He's such a untested, inexperienced director that it's impossible to gauge how good a job he'll do with this. There aren't really any American directors I would trust with this story, but Reeves wouldn't be high on the list regardless. He may pull off something fresh and unexpected, true. But he'll still be remarking a movie that really doesn't need it.
