Boiling Point – Boycott Japan

Posted by Robert Fure (robert@filmschoolrejects.com) on January 28, 2008

Ok, not really. I’m not suggesting we stop buying Japanese goods. I am suggesting that Hollywood stop buying up every God damned piece of shit Japanese horror movie out there. One remake did good – yay. But nearly all of the others suck major ass and only make money because they were made for $50USD, give or take 5 million USD.

But now we’re at the bottom of the fucking barrel. The Eye? With Jessica Alba? Mmm. Alba. I digress. The Eye isn’t worth remaking. I thought that was the biggest snooze fest. I couldn’t keep my eyes open, nor could anyone else in the room. But here we go, a lame looking stale, tried and tired concept coming at us. Yay.

We’ve been served up bullshit like The Ring 2, The Grudge and The Grudge 2 and The Return which was basically The Grudge 3 and that utter annoying fuckhole of a shitfest Pulse which despite having that utterly amazing piece of ass Kristen Bell, managed to be one of the absolute most horrid piles of steaming fecal matter I’ve ever managed to sit through.

Is there an end in sight? Fuck no. Why be original when you can have some guy just pop in a DVD and write down what he sees and copy the subtitles. Change sushi to pizza and the bowing into cursing and you’ve got an American version of a Japanese flick. Now I’m sure if you tried, you could take a Bollywood Action Musical and turn it into a Hollywood flick and you might even manage to make some money the first time. But do we want Bollywood flicks? No. Why? Oh I don’t know, maybe the thousands of miles between here and there have given us different cultures. What? Human beings are different? Yes! In India, singing and dancing and all this crazy shit is awesome. They love it. Good for them. Here, we don’t give a shit. We want explosions and hamburgers – stuff India ain’t too keen on. And that’s alright.

So despite the subculture that loves Asian flavored flicks, the vast majority of American movie goers want what we like. We want comedies about farting and putting semen in our hair, we want 238 casualties of war and 58 explosions in a film, we want giant robots blowing shit up! Ok that last example is contrary to what I’m saying but give me a break!

Just because something plays well overseas doesn’t mean it will play well here. Japanese horror flicks focus on much different elements than the traditional American horror elements, thus there is a big disconnect. People seeing horror movies just wanted to be scared – they don’t care the backstory of the film, just the story of the film! Make a good original horror movie and it will make more than any Japanese remake, with very few exceptions.

I know I’m not the only one that gets pissed off by this bullshit, but maybe I’m the only one on the verge of snapping and demanding Hollywood boycott Japanese horror films being remade in America, but this shit is ridiculous. There are thousands of fucking guys out there writing original kick-ass horror movies and what do we get? Something already on the shelf at Blockbuster that we could watch as it was originally intended. Fuck that, I’m past my boiling point on worthless Japanese horror remakes.

Read more articles by Robert Fure