1. Danny Bradley
LO2
For the assignment brief I have been asked to write an essay as to why production companies
produce remakes and all the important factors involved in producing a remake. A main example of a
production remake is the Hollywood remake of the Spanish film ‘Rec’ which is called ‘Quarantine. I
will discuss why the production companies have made a contemporary remake from the original
version of the film.
The film ‘Rec’ is filmed by using a handheld camera and throughout the whole film there are no non-
diegetic sounds only dialogue and diegetic sounds. The use of this style of filming is extremely
effective because it puts the audience into the film whereas other filming techniques which are used
in horror films make the audience simply just spectators; on the
other hand the first person style puts the audience into the film.
Also this style keeps the realism of the film which adds more fear
into the viewers, instead of secluding them from the intensity of
the film. One of the main factors as to why there was a remake
of ‘Rec’ was the language barrier because whilst watching a film
(unless you speak fluent Spanish) you don’t really want to try and
focus on the film as well as trying to read subtitles because you
can tend to miss bits of the film which can ruin the entire film for
you. So this influenced a major part of the remake another
reason as to the why there is a remake is that the film is shot in a
first person mode because of the popularity in video games in
this generation especially in first person shooters like ‘Call of
duty’ and ‘Left For Dead’ both of which use this style and both
are extremely popular, selling out on the first day of release. This
style is very popular for our generation because of the
technology which is used and the game play because a game or film these days isn’t good enough
just by viewed, the audience want it as realistic as possible to get themselves into the game and to
look around on the game as if they were looking around themselves in real life. So this is a major key
factor into why the film was shot in this unique style. Jaume Balagoro isn’t the only auteur who has
used this style of horror film, the films ‘Cloverfield’ and ‘Diary of the dead’, I believe that this is both
a coincidence and for the audiences pleasure. I think this because they must too have noticed the
rise in popularity in first person shooters so I think that they also chose to make the film in this way. I
also think they filmed it because of the horror films our generation grew up on (‘the ring’, ‘descent’
and ‘the omen’) it’s hard to find something original which is actually scary other than literally making
it seem as if the audience is in the film. So I think that this style will become very popular because
the audience are more involved in the film instead of just viewing it.
The reason to why the film was remade for an American or English audience is because whilst
watching a film with subtitles it’s hard to read them and watch the film at the same time, also the
majority of people will probably not speak fluent enough Spanish to enjoy the film without the
English subtitles. Rec had a much smaller finance compared to quarantine however the overall box
office there was only £8,000,000 difference between the both but the budget on the other hand was
a big difference of £11,000,000 so we expect a high class production from this budget.