From February 6, the ICA will be showing a season of New Spanish Horror. The perfect antidote to Valentine’s Day, there will be screenings of two exclusives starting with Timecrimes, directed by Nacho Vigalondo, which features a menacing looking fellow, rather reminiscent of the terrifying kid in the potato sack mask from The Orphanage. Except this time it’s a guy in a dusty old-man coat and a pink bandage mask. Oh, and he has a penchant for killing people in a forest. Add in time-travel, a laboratory with some highly suspicious goings on, and a central character with a potentially fatal curiosity, and you’ve got yourself what should be a satisfyingly twist-filled thriller. Production company United Artists certainly seemed to think so. They’ve hired body horror genius David Cronenberg to remake Timecrimes over in Hollywood. So now is your chance to make up your mind on the original before the remake appears on screens later this year.
If that isn’t enough to keep you on the edge of your seat (and then some), try Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego’s King of the Hill. This one promises to be a tense thriller set in a Spanish middle-of-nowhere forest where a couple find themselves the unwitting participants in the target practise session of a mysterious local. The more they try to escape, the further they find themselves in trouble. Lopez-Gallego has recently been connected with the upcoming A Jealous Ghost where he’ll be directing Kirsten Dunst, also due for release later this year.
The big cheeses in Hollywood seem to be keeping a very close eye on the directors and their work. My personal favourite film of last year (and the sole reason I lost two weeks of sleep last March), Juan Antonios Bayona’s The Orphanage, had the rights for the Hollywood remake bought before the original had barely hit our screens. And it’s not the only one to face a speedy remake; 2007’s Spanish nerve shredder [REC] was also recently remade into Quarantine, which began production only two months after the Spanish original was completed. The Orphanage remake will benefit from the tender loving care of original producer Guillermo del Toro, who will be producing the remake as well. One assumes so he can keep a beady eye on what they do to Sergio G Sanchez’s original screenplay.
Del Toro is probably the most well known Spanish director in Hollywood, crossing over in ‘93 with Cronos and continuing with movies like, Mimic, Blade II and a couple of Hellboys. He made a return to Spanish language to do two of his most popular and certainly his most highly acclaimed movies (coincidence?), The Devil’s Backbone and the beautiful fantasy tale Pan’s Labyrinth both of which were set towards the end of Franco’s reign and the Spanish civil war. Rumour has it that Del Toro is booked up until 2017, having been attached to mega projects including The Hobbit and The Hobbit 2; an adaptation of Frankenstein; his very own version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; and a remake of the classic children’s story The Witches by Roald Dahl. Hollywood clearly has no intention of letting Del Toro out of their clutches.
Meanwhile, Bayona has been signed up by Universal studios to direct the forthcoming Hater due for release in 2010.
So what’s all the fuss about these Spanish language directors and their horror movies? When talking about the impending remake of The Orphanage at the Sitges Film Festival, Bayona explained that “The Americans have all the money in the world but can’t do anything, while we can do whatever we want but don’t have the money… The American industry doesn’t take chances, that’s why they make movies that were already big hits.” No matter what you think of the remakes, as far as the makers of the originals are concerned, they can do wonders to create renewed interest in their films. For those Spanish directors and producers, these films can open many a gilded door and if getting a foot in that door is what they want, this is a great way to go about it.
Hollywood remakes are definitely no rarity, and in the ‘current climate’ (as much as it pains me to coin that phrase), studios would prefer to back a film that has some guarantee of making a return at the box office. Add that to the recent resurgence of Spanish horror and the reluctance of some cinema goers to sit through a subtitled film (don’t even get me started on that one…), its no surprise that the likes of The Orphanage and [REC] are being remade and that directors like Bayona are tempted by the bright lights of Hollywood.
