Fan Rant: Because Who Watches a Whole Movie Anyway?

by William Goss Jul 9th 2008 // 12:02PM

Filed under: Horror, Thrillers, Sony, Movie Marketing, Remakes and Sequels, Fan Rant, Trailers and Clips

Anyone who watches a considerable amount of movies has a tendency to champion the occasional gem, a title bound - nay, fated - to be overlooked by the masses. As you may have noticed, we here at Cinematical are not immune to such behavior.

On other occasions, fans of films that are being remade will find themselves violently, vocally opposed to the idea of a tainted classic or fave, whereas cooler minds step in and point out that their precious original will exist no less in its wake.

With that said, I'm about to spout off on why I think American remake Quarantine is primed to squander the considerable merits of its source material, [REC].

(Now, what nitpicks I have are about to wander off into moderate spoiler territory, which is actually my greater concern. Ergo, any of you planning to catch either film in the near future might be best served by directing their browsers elsewhere, including away from the newly released trailer for Quarantine.)

As for the twelve of you who I know have either managed to see [REC] or who just plain don't care -- come on in, the water's whine...


Mind you, what qualms I have with Quarantine so far are specific to its marketing alone, as the film's first poster and teaser trailer each flaunt what are the final frames of the orignal film, which is presumably the same ending that this version will have. While the American film is apparently playing up a conspiracy angle that seems to seal the deal on an unhappy ending, the Spanish film jumps right into things and remains gloriously unpredictable down to its nerve-jangling, considerably less telegraphed climax.

Now, just a few days ago, myself and one of our fine readers were discussing this exceedingly narrow-minded marketing technique -- after all, if one film could've been sold without terribly much spoiled prior, why couldn't the other? Some would argue that these don't qualify as spoilers for those who haven't seen the film, but I for one would be let down if I did find myself waiting 99% of a film for a money shot I knew was coming.

Along these lines, we theoretically discussed how a campaign like this would be just as prone to ruin some of the more potent jolts. Sure enough, not a week after discussing what might become of one sublime scare beat in particular, along comes this new trailer (courtesy of Yahoo! Movies), which naturally manages to reveal it along with what appears to be every other critical plot point.

I admittedly could be wrong -- all of my expectations could be subverted by other significant changes that have yet to become apparent, and the remake could be better or worse off for it. But all hopes and (serious) doubts aside, my concern comes back to this: had I never heard of [REC] and had I eventually seen Quarantine after being lured in by a trailer like that, I would likely be disappointed by what little was left to be discovered for myself, the ticket-buying sucker.

What's worse is that, for all its visceral accomplishment, [REC] is ultimately a film that works around a gimmick, so once anyone gets back around to THAT film, what's to stop them from saying 'big whoop'? And better (worse?) yet, what's to stop any other marketing machine from being so numb that it sabotages its own product for the sake of the gross?

The horror, the horror, indeed...

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Tags: featured, horror, john erick dowdle, JohnErickDowdle, quarantine, remake

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