:: Copy-Cat Cinema ::

The days of "Scream" and "I Know What You Did Last Summer" are over, and the spotlight is now on the supernatural side of scary. American cinema has been riding the re-make railways and finding some mild success in doing so. More specifically, they are coasting the coat-tails of the creepy kind. A recent example is the first-person thriller, “Quarantine,” a re-make of the original Spanish film simply titled, “REC.”

The first notable success was “The Ring,” an American spin on the Japanese film, “Ringu.” And what is more bone-chilling than a stiff brunette crawling through your television? Being forever cursed by an equally stiff brunette in the re-make of Japan’s “Ju-on” called “The Grudge."


The wildly successful runs of these two films brought a barrage of American filmmakers clamoring for permissions to bring even more Asian cinema into an American light. Here is an incomplete list of such re-makes:

- “One Missed Called” (original: “Chakushin ari”)
- “Shutter” (original title retained)
- “Pulse” (original: “Kairo”)
- “Dark Water” (original title retained)
- “The Eye” (original: “Gin gwai”)

Asian filmmakers have a knack for instilling fear into their audience, and it is not through blood and guts, but through the mental gourd, a likely reason for the popularity in their re-makes. Imitation is the best form of flattery… but why does it have to be so scary?!?

:: SDAFFvietca ::