Twitch-O-Meter: Rebirthing your own movie

Honorary Mention: Roberto Rodriguez for “El Mariachi” and “Desperado”.

Yes, when Roberto Rodrigues’s “Desperado” was released back in 1995 it was considered to be a big-budget remake of his own no-budget “El Mariachi”. And of course there are many similarities, but Roberto did something rather more devious than a straight remake. He made “Desperado” in such a way that you can decide for yourself whether or not it is a sequel rather than a remake, so for that reason I won’t include him in my list of five.



5: George Sluizer for “Spoorloos” and “The Vanishing”.

In 1988 “Spoorloos” (literally meaning “Without a Trace") was released, and was hailed by many critics as the best Dutch film in years. It won awards and was even supposed to run for the foreign language Oscar but was disqualified for having too much French and English spoken in it, messing up its qualification as “a Dutch movie”.
Nevertheless this incredibly suspenseful thriller made enough waves to get remade five years later as a big-budget Hollywood production starring Jeff Bridges and Kiefer Sutherland. They even got the original director, George Sluizer, to film it! The new film also had the same English title as its predecessor, “The Vanishing”, but that’s where the similarities end. George was forced to glossify the characters and had to drop the bleak ending (Asian audiences should love the original!). With those changes the story unfortunately lost much of its subtlety, appeal and impact.


4: Ole Bornedal for “Nattevagten” and “Nightwatch”.

Danish writer-director Ole Bornedal’s “Nattevagten” from 1994 is an absolute delight to watch, a tight thriller with killer performances and great use of locations. Try to catch it if you can.
Now I could repeat George Sluizer’s story here word for word, but this remake’s inferiority is even more baffling because it’s so similar to the original! Helming his own Hollywood remake almost directly after the original, Ole changed little, with whole sections of it being the same as before virtually shot-by-shot. Gone are the relatively unknown Danish actors, replaced by such household names as Nick Nolte and Ewan McGregor (yes, he was sort-of known already then). And yet the original is better by no small margin, and it’s hard to say why. The remake just looks a bit forced, especially when compared to the original’s natural flow.


3: George Lucas for “THX 1138 4EB” and “THX 1138”.

Mention George Lucas in a “remake"-topic? How dare I!
But this is not about his famous inability to stop tinkering with his own classics, but something he made before that time. Now I could include loads of directors who recreated their short student movies as full-fledged big budgeters, but this one is special.
First, even though the 15 minute student version of “THX” wasn’t widely distributed it was well-known in some circles, singling out Lucas as a talent to keep track of. And rightly so: even though the 1971 full-length “THX 1138” divided critics and had several budgetary issues I still consider it to be big success and a minor classic.
Second… aw come on it’s George Lucas, how can I not mention him in a “remake"-topic?


2: Alfred Hitchcock for “The Man Who Knew Too Much” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much”.

One of the best examples of a director remaking his earlier works, this time the biggest difference in the two versions is in the movie techniques available at the time.
Hitchcock’s 1935 version of “The Man Who Knew Too Much” was a small-scale black&white British thriller with Peter Lorre being the biggest name in the cast, while the 1956 remake is a big-scale colour US blockbuster starring James Stewart and Doris Day. Both versions have their supporters who vehemently claim that “their” version is superior, which is the biggest compliment to Alfred Hitchcock I can think of. Few directors were (and are) able to sail both those seas with such confidence and success.


1: Shimizu Takashi for eh… several Grudges!

The absolute world champion of this topic must be Shimizu Takashi. He wrote and directed a very eerie ghost story called “Juon” which was released direct-to-video in 2000, although parts of the story were also used in an even earlier tv-series. It’s immense success helped start the wave of J-horror movies and led not only to the release of direct-to-video sequels, but also cinema remakes in 2003: “Juon” and “Juon 2”. When J-horror became fashionable in the west through the enormous success of Gore Verbinski’s “The Ring” (itself a remake of the Japanese “Ringu") the Juon-franchise was remade yet again, this time for the US-market with US-actors.
Astonishingly, the direct-to-videos, the Japanese cinema versions and the US-cinema versions are all by the same writer-director: Shimizu Takashi. Funnily enough he also managed to use the same two actors for the two ghosts every single time.
So, some of the “group of grudges” are not straight remakes but others are, and Shimizu rearranges bits whenever he likes. And there are even more Grudges currently being planned, with again Shimizu Takashi as writer and director. This makes him the undisputed king of self-remakes!

I have the nagging feeling I forgot some of the most obvious. Feel free to remind me!