Making an English remake of a movie in another language for those who have problems with subtitles is something that could be considered a bad idea, although there have been a lot of Hollywood remakes of foreign films that have turned out wellin a trend that started in the 1960s with hits like ‘The Magnificent 7’ (1960) and has become increasingly common since the 2000s, with some good ones, like ‘The Ring’ (2002) and ‘The Departed’ (2006 ), but the worst of all has been largely forgotten.
The definition of unnecessary remake
One of the films that did not need new versions was Pascal Laugier’s ‘Martyrs’ (2008), one of the most powerful and remembered horror films of the 2000s, which slowly built a very remarkable ending under its cinema scheme. torture pornin which the story took the genre to the extreme, representing the systematic brutalization of the heroine at all times, until taking it to the category of art. For better or worse, it is a classic among the many examples of “French extreme horror” that appeared in the 2000s.
The new version of ‘Martyrs’ was put in the hands of brothers Kevin and Michael Goetz and was co-produced by Wild Bunch, the French production company behind the original, and Blumhouse, Jason Blum’s production company that has been behind a large number of films. gender in recent years. In the new one, heThe torture scenes were watered down to the point of having no impact and the final revelation was made much earlier, something that gave some interesting information, but made the central dilemma of the film lose meaning: the meaning of the martyrs.
The remake was a fearful failure, with hardly any collection and a lousy rating on Rotten Tomatoes, below 10% positive reviews, but it stands to reason. The director of the original, Pascal Laugier, said at a press conference at the 2018 Sitges Festival, presenting his film ‘Ghostland’, that the feeling of him in front of the new film “It was like watching my mother get raped.” In its interview with Espinof during the festival he explained why:
“I was never able to do anything to take the reins. I wasn’t even aware that they were doing this horrible remake. I didn’t get anything for that movie, I had no control over the rights to a possible remake.”
“I found out about its existence because a friend told me about it and I couldn’t watch it for more than twenty minutes. It’s horrible. Hollywood can’t do a remake of a movie like that. It’s too transgressive. They try to make it clean, it loses all the meaning. I think that no one will ever see that movie, it will be lost out there. Nobody Gives a Shit About the ‘Martyrs’ Remake”.