Last year, I had the chance to see a film that was almost universally well-liked by anyone who laid eyes on it. Especially during a year where the hype for another certain vampire film was building to a fever-pitch, Tomas Alfredson‘s Let the Right One In turned the genre on its head a bit, and delved into an incredibly moving story about growing up and falling in love. With a perpetually 12-year old girl who rips out people’s throats for nourishment.
Of course it was inevitable that someone from the U.S. snatch it up for a remake, and we found out late last year that the lucky winner would be Matt Reeves – the director of Cloverfield.
The LA Times actually got a chance to speak with the director about the project – which is now called Let Me In and seems to be coming along smoothly – and found out that the script has the story set in Colorado, where location scouts are digging around as we speak.
The money quote:
[Reeves] recently finished a second draft of the script, currently set in Reagan-era Colorado, and is scouting locations, looking to maintain the original story’s chilly, snow-swept environs. The film is scheduled for a fall 2010 theatrical release.
Okay. I could almost live with the idea of this being remade, with the not-nearly-as-cool title, with the fact that a guy who basically directed an hour and a half-long chase scene is in charge – but to think that Colorado is an equitable substitute for the cold nothingness of rural Sweden is absurd. I’ve been to Colorado. Yes, it’s cold. But it’s not desolate. Perhaps there isn’t really a spot in the U.S. that could carry that wasteland sort of feeling, but that was a major part of the original film’s appeal. The intense cold and feeling of isolation was a character itself. So why not make it in Alaska? Or Montana? I suppose shooting in the Pacific Northwest is out of the question…
Anyway, it may seem nitpicky, but Colorado is just too safe. Watching the horror unfold in an exotic place heightened that sense, and it seems like the production is curbing itself by placing it in a really well-known, highly accessible, very livable state.
Please, please, please don’t set this at a ski resort.
Still, it’s set in the early 80s, so at least we’ll still get the bad sweaters, though, huh?
What do you think?
Related Topics: Cloverfield, Horror, Romance
