European feel/art house feel?

[CyberGhostface]

I feel that "Let Me In" is film in a way to make it more appealing to general American Market who don't like to watch subtitled or dubbed foreign movies.

As I've said before elsewhere, Let Me In is a slow-moving 'arthouse' horror film starring children made for adults with minimal violence and gore. Stuff like that doesn't appeal to the general American market, and IMO, is far more likely appeal to the audience that doesn't mind watching foreign cinema in the first place (which makes its existence in the first place rather questionable).

Although I'm against remakes of foreign films in general, there are numerous foreign films (such as Oldboy or The Chaser) that I could see being popular for American audiences if they made it in English and cleaned up the "objectionable" content (such as the morally ambigious protagonists, the disturbing sexual content and less-than-happy endings). But LTROI is not the type of film where you could make it in English, take away the "objectionable" content and have a success with those phobic of reading subtitles.

[danielma]

Although I'm against remakes of foreign films in general, there are numerous foreign films (such as Oldboy or The Chaser) that I could see being popular for American audiences if they made it in English and cleaned up the "objectionable" content (such as the morally ambigious protagonists, the disturbing sexual content and less-than-happy endings). But LTROI is not the type of film where you could make it in English, take away the "objectionable" content and have a success with those phobic of reading subtitles.

True...I mean just look at The Departed...huge success with the mainstream. I think it just depends on the Universal appeal of the Story. I mean you take Oldboy for example...if you were to remake the very simple premise of "Man locked away for 15 years, then released to find out why"...that premise does have universal appeal I feel...granted the content would be changed drastically...but the premise itself would draw people in

Which is why I found it really weird that they decided to remake LTROI...its essentially an Art House film that they tried to sell as being something they wanted to introduce to a wider audience...I mean I love LTROI, but in terms of it selling to a widespread mainstream audience...well I just never saw it happening. Even if the story is relatable. Its why I found the choice of LMI sticking so closely to the structure of LTROI as being a weird fucking choice...especially coming from the book. We're gonna remake this Art House film to appeal to a Wider Audience...yeah doesn't quite compute.

Now as for LMI...it does maintain some of the art house stylings of LTROI in terms of its pace...however I feel that everything else was very much American about it. As in the Bluntly Hitting You Over the Head tone of the film, the stylized camera flair, the constant "you should feel this emotion" music. Hell even in the final scene of the Cop where he is approaching Abby's resting spot, with the music building as he walks closer to his doom...that is SOO standard horror trickery. The pacing is very reminiscent of the original film, but the style and tone of the film is much more American then it is European.

[DavidZahir]

I suppose the only thing that strikes me as particularly "arthouse" about LMI is the unrelentingly serious tone. At the same time I don't disparage the techniques used in the film overall just because they've been used successfully in other flicks.

The music was beautiful, but sometimes a tad much, I admit.

The lighting in the courtyard and the gym both seemed to me very naturalistic, but rather saturated (in keeping with the tone of the film overall). Sodium lights in one, reflecting against snow. Flourescent lights in the other, reflecting against blue-ish walls and lockers.

[bore]

The lighting in the courtyard and the gym both seemed to me very naturalistic, but rather saturated (in keeping with the tone of the film overall). Sodium lights in one, reflecting against snow. Flourescent lights in the other, reflecting against blue-ish walls and lockers.

Those were just two examples, the colorfilters are used through the entire film to set the theme of the specific environments. It's a pretty overused trick. When I looked at Aliens a while back I noticed that it is used heavily there too (But with a weaker filter so it isn't as prominent there.)
For a pretty extreme example one could compare City of Ember with Reign of Fire. In CoE it's used to make the pipeworks down below look cold and scary compared to the rest of the town. In RoF they have turned it around to make the underground look like the safe place and the surface is the cold scary place.
Sure, on could go through each scene in the movie and give an explanation to why the lighting is at it is en each scene but the red/blue colortheme have been so damn overused in movies that I find it more likely that they just slapped it on because "that is what we always do".
Makes The Matrix look pretty revolutinary in it's way. Green color to show that it is a fake reality was a new one.

[Sumsi]

To some extent yes, but since we have LtROI to compare it to it is also very easy to spot some of the hollywood cheese. (Like the "cheap" color filters and and the "I tell you what you should feel"-music.)
I guess that is inevitable. I don't think the people who work in the movie industry even think before they apply those tricks. It's just something they do to all movies.


Cold and hostile. (And awfully blue.)


Warm and cuddly. (Despite being outdoors.)

The teal/orange color pattern reminded me the most that we have to deal with kind of an american movie.
The pictures speak for themselves:












I guess the trend started when "The Matrix" came out where they put everything into a green tone.

[CyberGhostface]

According to Cracked's article, the Coen Brothers' Oh Brother, Where Art Thou was the first film to significantly use digital color correction in such a fashion.

[jetboy]

I didnt like how LMI used those colors because it made it seem like their was no reason for it to be wintery. In LTROI the snow was essential. And it looked like snow.

[ABBA]

One of the fears when "Let Me In" was first announced was that it was going to become 'Americanized' by aging up the leads and playing up the romance. This did not happen, as 'Let Me In' maintained the European styling of LTROI, despite the location. That's exactly why LMI isn't an "American film". Because, like it or not, that's what most people think of when you call a movie that.

LMI is neither mainstream or dumb.

And of course the other political reasons for calling LMI that don't apply either....that "a US studio stole it from Sweden!". It's pretty obvious what the angle is to those type of posts. A Brit studio doesn't fit the agenda. Setting the movie in the US, hiring a partial US cast (though two of the main four actors are NOT from the US), and hiring a US director does not make Hammer a US studio any more than setting The Karate Kid in China with a Chinese lead actor makes Columbia a Chinese studio. Icon studios did not become Mayan because they filmed a movie in Mexico with a cast speaking Mayan.

In many ways you could argue that the British Film industry is merging with the American Industry anyways as there is so much cross-pollination between the film companies.

[ColBlair]

Can you say it's 'European' because of the pacing and story structure? Many thought the film would've been Americanized (besides the music and color scheme) but it wasn't.

I thought it had an old school feel to the film. It had a classic horror feel to the film than most horror films that were released recently.

[ColBlair]

I have to make an argument here. Color tricks were used before that I believe as well cause Tetsuo II (1992) did the same thing, especially with James Cameron's movies as well. He was known to use colors to enhance the mood of his films such as Terminator 2, The Abyss, Aliens, and the first Terminator. B-Movie filmmaker Albert Pyun did color filters too to enhance his films such as Mean Guns and Crazy Six. Both are good films to watch and they were made in between 1997 and 1998.

I like the idea of color filters, I believe it enhances the film and gives it a lot more style. I'm an artist so seeing different colors come to life is one of my favorite things to see. Especially in the film Tron Legacy.

To some extent yes, but since we have LtROI to compare it to it is also very easy to spot some of the hollywood cheese. (Like the "cheap" color filters and and the "I tell you what you should feel"-music.)
I guess that is inevitable. I don't think the people who work in the movie industry even think before they apply those tricks. It's just something they do to all movies.


Cold and hostile. (And awfully blue.)


Warm and cuddly. (Despite being outdoors.)

The teal/orange color pattern reminded me the most that we have to deal with kind of an american movie.
The pictures speak for themselves:












I guess the trend started when "The Matrix" came out where they put everything into a green tone.