Sell Out

So, it's official. I'm a sell out. After years of bitching about the state of Hollywood horror movies, favoring independent and foreign pieces, I have finally seen the light.

When The Grudge came out with Sarah Michelle Gellar, I read the reviews which said it was okay, but not nearly as good as the original Japanese Ju-on. Even thought it was made by the same director and had key actors reprising their roles, most importantly the creepy kid who played Toshio, I believed, without a second thought, that the original had to be better. But being the impatient media whore that I am, I went to see the remake in theatres rather than wait for the release of the original on DVD.

Well, I after letting it sit on my shelf for months, I finally watched Ju-on. And heaven help me, it wasn't as good as the remake. Sam Rami did a brilliant thing as a producer on The Grudge: he gave the original film maker more of a budget to make the movie he had wanted the other attempts to be. It was, in a very real sense, not so much of a remake as a cinematic Mulligan, a celluloid do-over. And as such it worked. Some of the characters were changed slightly, and the timing and pacing was shuffled a bit. The end result made for a far more coherent movie, where the reason for the original haunting was better explained without being dumbed down. The reveal of the original murders was moody and creepy, and the addition of the object of jealousy (Bill Pullman as a university teacher) was inspired. The remake kept many of the elements that worked brilliantly from the first, but scrapped what didn't make sense and didn't fit. And while the ending of Ju-on had a creepy apocolyptic ending that I think worked amazingly well, it was the only way in which it topped its successor.

So now I'm a sell out. Hollywood can make good horror. Let's face it...The Ring was one of the creepiest movies to come out of a major studio in years. And while it was also a remake of the Japanese film Ringu, it had an American director who had never done a horror film before unless you count The Mexican with Brad Pitt. And it was a better, more stylish, and downright creepier movie than the one which inspired it.

Now to the reason this is all relevant. The Hollywood remake of the Japanese thriller Dark Water is coming out soon. I haven't seen the original, but it's by the same person who wrote Ringu, so it has to be scarry. If history is any indicator, this could be another case of more money and bigger studio equals better movie. I guess only time will tell, but remember that I said it here first.