"There is sin and evil in the world, and we're enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might. Our nation, too, has a legacy of evil with which it must deal."
-- Ronald Reagan, in the 1983 "Evil Empire" speech, quoted in Matt Reeves' "Let Me In"
It was the pre-nuclear winter of our discontent. The Cold War was at its coldest since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Jonathan Schell's 1981 New Yorker series about the catastrophic climatic effects of a full-scale nuclear war became a best-selling book, "The Fate of the Earth," in 1982. By 1983, with the escalation in rhetoric between Ronald Reagan and Soviet leaders, movies like Lynne Littman's "Testament" and Nicholas Meyer's "The Day After" -- one a bleak art-house drama; the other a network television nightmare -- were dealing seriously with the prospect of American life in the wake of atomic armageddon, as if to prepare us for the inevitable.
It was one of the darkest periods in modern American history (being too young to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, I recall only the aftermath of 9/11and the invasion of Iraq with comparable feelings of doom). And the snowy, barren landscapes of (where else?) Los Alamos, New Mexico, provide the Americanized setting for Matt Reeves' "Let Me In," a remake of Tomas Alfredson's magnificent Swedish horror film, Let the Right One In" (2008).
I know, I thought the same thing: Why do we need a remake of "Let the Right One In," when it was was done so right the first time? But then I started hearing incredibly good things. From Stephen King, who called it "the best American horror film in the last 20 years." From John Ajvide Lindquist, author of the novel and screenplay for "Let the Right One In," who wrote:
"Let The Right One In" is a great Swedish movie. "Let Me In" is a great American movie. There are notable similarities and the spirit of Tomas Alfredson is present. But "Let Me In" puts the emotional pressure in different places and stands firmly on its own legs. Like the Swedish movie it made me cry, but not at the same points. "Let Me In" is a dark and violent love story, a beautiful piece of cinema and a respectful rendering of my novel for which I am grateful. Again.
And from Kathleen Murphy at MSN Movies. From Roger Ebert. And then from Bilge Ebiri, who posted an interview with Matt Reeves his blog, mentioning that they'd talked about "why Ronald Reagan plays such an important role in his movie." Well, that did it for me. Before I could read that, I had to go see the movie.
It seemed in advance like an inspired concept -- to set the movie in a time when the President of the United States himself was an ancient, withered and unaging vampire, bleeding the middle class ("trickle down" indeed!) until it shriveled to a fraction of its previous size while letting federal spending and the national debt bloat to unprecedented grotesque proportions, greasing the gullets of voracious industrial fat cats with oily deregulation schemes, letting the filthy rich suck on the body politic... Oh, sorry. Got a little carried away with my golden memories there.
Anyway, it turns out that's not what the movie is doing with the Reagan-era setting at all. As Reeves told Ebiri:
There's an early chapter in the book that talks about the town where the story takes place, Blackeberg, which is where the author, John Lindqvist, grew up. It was a planned community, built over a few years, and it had no real history. And the book says, "They had no church, which is why they were so unprepared for what was to come." Which is a great way to hook a reader! Now, the story takes place in the 1980s, and that made me think back to my own childhood. There's an interesting parallel in the U.S. with that kind of planned community, in all of our suburban communities, and tract housing. We had our own version of that. In the 80s, it's what we called Spielbergia. [...]
The American version wouldn't be a "godless" community. These were communities connected to faith. Especially at that time, in the Reagan era -- right when Reagan was giving his Evil Empire speech. So, at that time, we thought of evil as something that was other - the Soviets -- while Americans were fundamentally good. Now, imagine, what would it be like to be a 12-year-old in this world, a kid bullied so mercilessly that he gets these dark thoughts. Being in that community and having those kinds of feelings: Are you evil? In the book, he's obsessed with serial killers. So I had to find a way to translate the essence of that story into this place that I remembered. At the same time, I knew I wanted to be really faithful to the story.
He is. As a horribly burned man is brought into the hospital at the beginning of the film, we see and hear Reagan on a TV in the reception area talking about evil at large: "We know that living in this world means dealing with what philosophers would call the phenomenology of evil or, as theologians would put it, the doctrine of sin." Speaking to a gathering of the National Association of Evangelicals, Reagan denounces communism as "the focus of evil in the modern world" -- which puts an decidedly American spin on this modern vampire tale.¹
The despondent, faceless mother of 12-year-old Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) -- we never see her face -- has given her life to Jesus and bottles of wine, at least since her separation or divorce from Owen's father, who only appears as a voice on the phone, further accentuating the boy's loneliness. The movie doesn't say whether her religious devotion is normal or an expression of emotional problems, though Owen's dad leans toward the latter view. Whatever the case, throughout the apartment, Jesus watches from the walls, aware of every sin.
Owen also watches. From his bedroom windows he looks down on the snowy courtyard and into the windows of inhabitants across the way, sometimes using a telescope to get a closer view. This "Rear Window" angle is also new to the American version, yet another way of reinforcing the characters' chilly sense of isolation from one another. The wall between his room and Abby's (Chloe Moretz), the one he hears strange sounds through and upon which he and his friend will tap Morse code messages, is a mural of a lunar landscape. It's always night-time in Owen's room.
(Spoilers to come.)
The film's visual imagination is superb -- though I think we could use just a few seconds less of the nightmarishly sped-up CGI during a few of Abby's attacks. All we need is an impression, and the longer it goes on (even if it's only a matter of seconds) the more the effect weakens and looks phony. But -- and I never would have expected this from the director of "Cloverfield" (which used the gimmick of a consumer videocam to cut down on the visual effects budget) -- the movie contains quite a few dazzlingly cinematic shots. A few of the most notable: the way the snow freezes in the air, caught by the strobing lights of emergency vehicles in the opening scene; a figure glimpsed from a distance in the light of a hospital window... who is revealed (in the same long shot) to be on the outside of the window (patterned after a shot in the first movie, but with subtle differences); an extended take, with the camera locked down in the rear interior of a car as it skids into a collision on an icy road...
One of the visual motifs of "Let Me In" mirrors its storytelling technique and the flawed vision of its characters, particularly Owen and the police detective (Elias Koteas). Like them, we can never quite see who is who, and where things are headed. Images are seen, mostly in the dark, through distorted lenses (peepholes, telescopes, mirrors, masks); through windshields and windows blurred by ice, snow and condensation; underwater or through eyes that have been physically damaged. Vision itself has been traumatized.
Some memorable scenes from the original movie are staged as mirror images, like the first appearance of the young vampire Abby on the jungle gym in the courtyard begins with Owen and his knife approaching the tree on the right instead of the left. Likewise, Owen and Abby are often seen as androgynous adolescent mirror images, living side-by side, each with one opposite-sexed "parent." The movie plays with this pattern, and shows how behaviors are passed down through the generations (I'm reminded of the alcoholism, abuse and cancer inherited in David Cronenberg's wintery masterpiece, "The Brood"), even more explicitly than the Swedish film.
Early in the film, we see Owen wearing a mask, brandishing a kitchen knife and approaching his own image in the mirror: "Are you a little girl... ?" -- something he repeats with the tree and a pocket knife when he first encounters Abby. As in the first film, we don't know what this signifies at first, but we find out that he's mimicking the bullies who are picking on him at school and ritualistically acting out his revenge fantasies.
Abby, who has been 12 for a long time, is, in fact, a little girl -- but she offers to help Owen because, as she says, she's a lot stronger than he thinks she is. After he follows Abby's advice and stands up for himself, hitting one of the bullies with a metal pole when he threatens to throw Owen into a hole in an iced-over pond, he is nearly expelled from school. But then there's a scene that is dramatically different from the original, in which the most aggressive bully is, in turn, bullied with the same taunting language (calling him a "little girl") by his older brother. This pattern culminates when, after the death of Abby's "father" (Richard Jenkins), Owen sees a strip of photo booth pictures showing the two of them at roughly the same age. By the end of the film, Owen will fill that role in Abby's life, a fate that is both horrifying and apt.
Which brings me back to Stephen King's proclamation. The best American horror movie in the last 20 years? What's the competition? "Let the Right One In" is from Sweden. "The Descent" is from New Zealand Great Britain. "Sean of the Dead" is British. "Memories of Murder" and "The Host" are South Korean. "Audition" and other "Asian Extreme" films have come from Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, etc. What have the great American horror films been since, say "Silence of the Lambs" (though I know that movie has its detractors)? I'd nominate "The Corporation," but it's Canadian. Perhaps "Ghosts of Abu Ghraiib" and "Standard Operating Procedure," or "American Casino" or "When the Levees Broke"? What am I forgetting?
_ _ _ _
¹ A political footnote: George W. Bush also invoked "evil" in his address to the nation on September 11, 2001:
Good evening. Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts.... Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror.
I believe that the use of this inherently religious terminology (in the context of 9/11) -- something FDR did not feel the need to do in his ""date which will live in infamy" speech, asking Congress to declare war on Japan after the bombing of Pearl Harbor -- was a tone-deaf mistake of the greatest magnitude. Bush was speaking not only to residents of the USA, but to the whole world, and his language failed to adequately take that into account. In that moment, Bush lost the "war against terrorism" even as he was declaring it. And every time he repeated it, he exponentially multiplied the original error until the world's solidarity and support was shattered. No matter how often thereafter Bush would claim that he was not declaring war on Islam, the damage (reinforced by the administration's self-undermining actions) was done, and would prove to be irreversible. A more powerful condemnation under the circumstances would have avoided applying the label to an act that was meant to be religiously polarizing. It only helped frame the conflict the way al Qaeda wanted it framed to begin with.
For a list of backgroud links and quotations regarding the above, see my annotated comment here.
76 Comments
Personally, I would nominate Ti West's House of the Devil as the best American horror film of recent years.
I definitely noticed the whole cycle of violence element of Let Me In, but I honestly thought it was mishandled. The scene where Owen watches the bully's older brother pick on him, using the exact same language the bully used with Owen, was a little too on-the-nose for me. It was like, I get it, guys. You don't have to underline it five times, I could already see what you were doing there.
I'd be curious to hear what people think about Chloe Moretz's performance as Abby. She seems like a talented young actress, but I thought she was miscast. She wasn't able to project a sense that she's much older and more experienced than she let on, something the actress in the Swedish version did to unnerving effect. Moretz's Abby just seemed like,well, a 12-year-old to me, just as clueless and naive as Owen. There was too much smiling, too much emotion, I never got that sense that she was manipulating Owen (which is I think the intention of the story) so much as maybe she generally cared for him. Which makes the story much less interesting.
Strong seconds for "House of the Devil," one of my favorites of the last few years in any genre.
I have to agree that Moretz was miscast, or misdirected. Her performance just didn't feel right to me. I never believed she was the character she portrayed, and I often felt she laid the sweetness of Abby on a little too thick without enough of the creepy predatory instinct the character called for.
Although I agree Reeves has a hell of an eye, far too much of this film visually felt like a copy of the original. I was also disappointed the cop character was elevated over the supporting cast of locals. At one point I became convinced we were going to discover that Koteas' cop was actually Owen's father because the film seemed to be doing its damnedest to follow every convention of a mainstream American film, complete with beginning the film halfway through the story (geez, that gimmick is so tired).
So no, this certainly is not even in the top of horror for the last 20 years, but as far as remakes goes it's not bad.
Abby is supposed to be a 12 year old stuck at 12. Eli was a different character....a very old woman stuck in a 12 year old body (as per the two directors). So Moretz played it perfectly.
"What am I forgetting?"
Not sure you would agree with any of these, but here are a few favorites:
CANDYMAN (1992) dir. Bernard Rose
SESSION 9 (2001) dir. Brad Anderson
WENDIGO (2001) dir. Larry Fessenden
THE DEVIL'S REJECTS (2005) dir. Rob Zombie
GRINDHOUSE (2007) dir. QT and Robert Rodriguez
I was wary of seeing LET ME IN, but I just might make a trip to see it based on your recommendation.
I don't know if I'll get roasted for this, but The Blair Witch Project is a damn good horror film, one of the only ones to leave me genuinely "creeped" in the theater. Seeing it a few times over the years its power to leave one in the dark is compelling, even though I can see why people have problems with the approach or the performances. But if there is one that clicks more-so for me it's that one.
Other favorites... hmm... 28 Days and Weeks Later are British... maybe Army of Darkness but that's a comedy... Perhaps Cube?
If you want a good speech about evil, go no further then the final speech of "He's Alive" of The Twilight Zone.
@Jack - Cube is Canadian.
I'd throw Lucky McKee's May into the mix. Superb horror filmmaking.
Uh, what about INLAND EMPIRE? Aka. the best haunted house anybody has constructed in the last 20 years? (...!)
Alternatively/ more overlooked Lynch, there's Lost Highway. Or, more to my liking, the Twin Peaks feature Fire Walk With Me...
And does Donnie Darko count? Or is just more generally "fantasy"?
Another pick may be American Psycho but the director is Canadian and it's actually more of a comedy, dark as the moon on a moonless night. Likewise, "Black Swan" didn't much work for me as a horror movie but as black comedy, it's an impressive feat.
And, oh, that reminds me, what about Aronofsky's Pi?
Or The Social Network?
Or No Country for Old Men?
"Trickle-down";
feeding the sparrows by feeding the horses.
I had the same problem with the CGI Abby scenes that I had with the attacking cats from the original. But those are small points to make regarding exceptional films like these. A lot of people blindly say the book is always better than the film but here are two adaptations (of the same pretty good book) that are superior to the source material.
Winter's Bone isn't a "horror" film in the traditional sense but it was one of the most terrifying film experiences I've had at the theater in a long time.
David Fincher's "Seven" is probably the last great American horror film that comes to mind, though it's certainly debatable whether "Seven" belongs to the genre at all. In any case, thank you for a beautiful review of what sounds like a beautiful film. I've been admittedly avoiding this one for awhile (perhaps owing to my steadfast allegiance to Alfredson's "Let the Right One In"), but I'm definitely looking forward to seeing Reeves' take on it now.
Ah, yes, and "Zodiac" too, even though it could be considered more of a drama, it is also about the horror of obsession and the horror of not knowing.
So, yeah, I'd see Fincher has become our sort of horror filmmaker. "Fight Club" too is at least partially horror.
Maybe what this means is that there are few American films that are, I guess you could say, "straight horror." Or "obvious horror." We see filmmakers making movies that are somewhat horror and somewhat... something else: drama, comedy, fantasy, sci-fi, film noir and/or crime picture, Western.
If you look at "Let Me In," it has elements of the romantic drama intertwined.
So I suggest broadening the definition a bit.
Great piece, Jim. Your article has made me really eager to see the movie. I liked the original a lot and I was weary of the whole "remake" idea. But I also really enjoyed CLOVERFIELD and I'm curious to see how Hammer's newest film compares to the studio's early work.
I think American horror films have been in steady decline for the last 20 years (some would argue 30 years and I'd agree to some extent) so the pickings are incredibly slim. Thankfully the genre is still thriving in other countries. I personally think Brad Anderson who directed SESSION 9 and THE MACHINIST is probably making the best American horror films right now. He's been spending a lot of time working on interesting TV shows lately (FRINGE, THE WIRE, RUBICON, etc.) but I wish he would make more films. It looks like he has some new projects planned for the future that could be interesting but we might have to wait until 2011 or 2012 until we see another horror film from Anderson.
Hrm, and now I want to see this. I was in the same boat, thinking it would be at best the same movie over again, so why bother. Call me cynical, but this is a U.S. remake of a recently made foreign-language film; it's a pleasant surprise to find that someone cared about anything other than the box-office receipts.
As for competition, I agree the U.S. is way behind as of late, although there are some good nominees above. Maybe I'm alone on this but I'd also throw in 'Orphan,' which is not only startlingly good but a lot riskier and more frankly horrifying than I thought an American major studio horror film was (literally!) allowed to be in this day and age. I don't know what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting a movie where *that* happened ("that" being, oh, several things). And it doesn't get hung up on its shock value, either--it works so well I forgot to keep wondering how they were getting away with using child actors in scenes like this and became totally absorbed in the story itself. It's no 'Pet Sematary,' where the movie is so ghastly, tasteless and unconvincing that you eventually can't think of anything else.
And now it occurs to me that I might end up describing this much the same way. All right, you broke me.
"Orphan" surprised me as well; it's twisted, funny, visually captivating, and even manages to use certain cliched elements of the story to its advantage. Definitely the best (and, perhaps, only) boundary-pushing studio horror film in recent memory.
@ Dan. Of course she comes across as genuinely caring for him. She is suppose to. This is because in the source material Eli is NOT grooming, the protagonist. They tweaked the American and it doesn't really fit. Its like the film is going in two different directions at the same time. The swedish film focused more on the alienation, a prominent theme in Swedish cinema but this focuses more on the dichotomy of Abby's characters. How much does she love him? How much is she manipulating him? These things aren't really answered and its suppose to give her a little bit of ambiguity. I would say she truly cares for him, may even deeply love him, and I don't think this is a bad thing. Then again I am a sucker for the love story for the most part. I don't like to see Abby as pure evil, she has emotional needs.
Kenny,
I think that's where my feelings on the films (especially the original) differ from many fans' feelings. Logically, I can't see any truth in their relationship. Abby/Eli isn't actually a pre-pubescent girl. She's much, much older and not even actually female. So why would she care deeply, romantically for a creepy little boy?
I see the character of Abby/Eli as sort of like a pimp, doling out protection and fake love as a means of making the merchandise feel reliant on her.
One suggestion: They're both lonely, living with a single parent who's not quite there for them. Which is not to say that she's not also, whether she knows it or not, seeing a kindred spirit who she may need in the future. Indications are, her "father" was once as Owen was...
"Indications are, her "father" was once as Owen was..."
Kinda my point. It's clear this behavior is a pattern, and not just the happenstance of two kindred spirits finding each other. She ensnares needy, young, morally flexible boys like Owen and "The Father" and makes them her "familiars," her Renfields, in exchange for protection and what I can only assume is fake love.
My sense is, if their connection was real and not a manipulation on Abby/Eli's part, then the film wouldn't go to the trouble of making the point that she's done this before. Which is a creepy idea, but then in the American version, the actress seems to play it warm (relatively speaking, for the film) and genuine, and their "romance" is played without the sick irony I detected in the original. Which I think is a cop out, and lets the audience off the hook of having to grapple with the deeper implications.
I think I see what you're saying -- that it's easier for the audience for the American version to read the film as having a "happy ending." I didn't see it that way myself (having already been exposed to the Swedish film). I think Abby's mixed motives are quite interesting, understandable and disturbing. Maybe she's just a better actress when it comes to convincing Owen that she really cares for him, and it's all part of the manipulation (since she becomes his friend only after things are clearly going very wrong with her procurer); or maybe she really does care for him and wants them to look after one another for many, many years to come. Heck, it's just a typical marriage, isn't it? One partner's a vampire and the other one provides the blood. (That's my view of romance.)
Jim, let me be the last to defend Mr. Bush, but surely you don't mean that the word "evil" is an exclusively religious term.
No. My conception of "evil" has to do exclusively with what human beings do and their ways of rationalizing that behavior. Bush, however, used "evil" in a deliberately religious context (which in my view was inappropriate, reckless, irresponsible and self-defeating under the circumstances), even quoting the Bible: "I will fear no evil..." As far as billions of people were concerned (Muslims and Christians and Hindi and Jews and Buddhists, et al.) he equated Islam with "evil." And that was a stupid, stupid thing to do.
Can't say as I agree with you, Jim. If 9/11 wasn't evil, what is? If fools in the rest of the world think that he was equating 9/11 with Islam, too bad.
When is Islam going to go clean up its act anyway? What self-respecting religion would allow someone like Bin Laden to belong to it, and commit acts in that religion's name?
Sounds like an imaginative movie though, other than the politics.
That was more or less Bush's attitude, but he was speaking on the world stage in his capacity as President of the United States on day of the attacks -- a momentous occasion -- and for the reasons I mentioned I think it was a myopic approach, with unintended consequences we are still paying for. (As for your other questions: How do religions generally "allow" people to "belong to" them, or punish them when they commit acts of violence? I suppose if bin Laden was Roman Catholic the pope could have excommunicated him, but Islam -- and Judaism and Protestantism, etc. -- has no central authority like the pope. What about the history of terrorism and violence between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland? Or between Zionists and Palestinians in the Middle East? I don't think it's as simple as telling an entire religion to "get its act together.")
Well, he called it as he saw it, for which I don't fault him - probably because I saw it the same. Subsequent events were another matter, but you elects your president, you takes your chances.
No, Islam doesn't have any central authority. That leaves the religion open to being hijacked by the Bin Ladens of the world. Since no religion does much for me, I find such a situation even less tolerable than most.
Meanwhile, if Muslims don't want to be thought of as terrorists, they need to "get their act together." They can either find a way to take back their religion, or they can let suicide bombers and their ilk be the ones to put a face on the religion.
Jim, do you consider the simultaneous murder of 3,000 people who were sitting at their desk getting ready to start their workday an act of evil or not?
That's a stupid, insulting question, but I'll just go right ahead and answer it: Yes I do, and if I were President of the United States on the day it happened, giving a televised address to a worldwide audience from the White House, it's the last word I would use in public. All it accomplished was to state the obvious and hand al Qaeda a huge propaganda victory -- just the first of so many dumb moves that soon had the world believing George W. Bush was the a greater threat to world peace and stability than bin Laden (or, later Saddam Hussein -- though the two had nothing to do with each other). As Jon Stewart said at the time: How badly do you have to be screwing up to lose a PR war against Islamic terrorists? A real leader does not just say the first things that come into his head without considering the consequences.
Jim, after a 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, I don't have a problem with any President calling it like he sees it, and using a value-judging word like "evil" or "infamy." I don't care what Al-Qaeda thinks, the Muslim world thinks, or the international community thinks: if you pull something that vile, you're dead. Sooner or later. Doesn't bother me if the President says so. Don't care what the rest of the world thinks.
That may sound totally jingo-istic, and on most things I *do* care what others think, but not on something like this. If that means you think I'm stupid too, I'm sorry, because I don't like people to think that about me, but there it is.
I didn't call anybody "stupid." I pointed out that the question somebody asked was stupid and insulting (and he meant it to be). Many people feel the way you do, but the problem with the "evil" rhetoric is the unintended consequences. Framing the issue as "good vs. evil" (with the religious overtones that go with those words) just helped the enemy's recruiting. Why would you want to do that? It violated one of the first rules of conflict: Know your enemy. If you don't understand who you're fighting, you won't know how to win. Nine years later and multiple strategies later and we're still in Afghanistan...
Well, if you thought it was a stupid idea for Bush to call them/their actions evil, I figured I might qualify for agreeing with the notion, even after nine years of hindsight.
I guess where we're really differing is in the religious overtones. I'm about the least religious person I know - all religions annoy me about equally - and I think I picked up my ideas on good and evil from King Arthur, Robin Hood, and Tolkien years ago.
For what it's worth, I've always figured evil = malevolence, willfully harming others out of selfishness, arrogance, intolerance, etc. I think the dictionary accommodates that view, and goodness knows (pun not intended, but I'm going to leave it in) that Al-Qaeda's actions certainly fit the notion.
Know your enemy is good, and unintended consequences are to be avoided, but I don't believe framing the issue in terms of good vs. evil has anything to do with that. Most people would define the Nazi agenda as evil, and I think Al-Qaeda is comparable. I really do think playing the Nazi card is legitimate here! How often do you hear people say they can't believe it took the Allies in WWII so long to understand the Holocaust was going on? Doesn't that sound like someone should have called it "evil" sooner? I believe international terrorism is comparable in its intolerance and murderousness. So why not call it what it is? That's knowing your enemy, isn't it? If the rest of the world disagrees, then we've started the discussion.
Sorry if this isn't as coherent as I'd like, but I've had friends go to Afghanistan and Iraq to defend what they (and I) think of as right and "good." It's a subject I doubt I can keep my emotions out of...and I'm not sure I should try.
Here's what I'm saying: As President of the United States you're speaking to a worldwide audience, including a billion or so Muslims who have been told for years (by bin Laden, al Qaeda, other extremist religious leaders -- the Pat Robertsons of Islam -- and despotic political leaders, mostly in countries where the media is entirely controlled by the state) that the West wants to wipe out Islam. Muslim terrorists attack the US and Muslim leaders worldwide condemn the attacks (except for those extremists who cheer them). The last thing you want to do is to confirm the view that this is the start of a Holy War -- because that's what al Qaeda wants Muslims to believe. Bin Laden's chief beef with the US and Saudi Arabia was that the Saudis allowed US military bases in the land of Mecca, which he viewed as sacrilege. So, that's how they recruit suicide bombers -- people (mostly Muslim men, many of whom are already suicidal from living in these repressive regimes) who are told that they are guaranteed a place in Paradise if they become martyrs for their religion. So, what does Bush do? He uses "evil" -- a loaded word in religious culture, particularly in the Islamic Middle East -- and then quotes from the Judeo-Christian Bible! He's just mobilized millions of Muslims to jihad because he's made explicit -- not in an American's understanding of the words, but in an Arabic understanding -- that he sees this as a religious (rather than criminal or political) conflict. That proved to be a very irresponsible and ignorant thing to do. But then, it turns out few in our government knew enough about Islamic culture to understand the gap in perspectives. We were sending the wrong messages from the very beginning, and in so doing put our own military at greater risk, by motivating and recruiting those who would fight them for the next nine years and counting. If you ever get a chance to watch the Frontline episode on how the State Department finally figured out how we were losing the war for "hearts and minds" to the insurgents by not understanding that we were sending the wrong messages, you should. It's mind-blowing. "Control Room" is another excellent documentary on the subject.
Regarding the right's Trickle-down economics: don't piss down our backs and and call it trickle-down.Now, that said,"Let Me In" is a well-done horror film. It certainly is one of the best mainstream horror efforts in some time. Jim, I agree that "The Descent" was one also one of the best in recent years. In fact, I can't think of two other horror flicks that were quite as effective (though I did think that Sam Raimi's "Drag Me to Hell" was a gem of a parody).
As good as "Let Me In" is, however, I'd have to say (as you also briefly pointed out) that it too easily mistrusts its audience, indulging in wildly thrashing moments of CGI bloodletting. This is where the film needed to stay in mood piece mode rather than going for video game graphics just to keep the kiddies interested. It was disappointing, and, to my mind, kept the movie from being the great one it could have been.
That lone quibble aside, "Let Me In" is, once again, doubtlessly a superior film in a genre that has given us innumerable movies with nothing to offer but rote sadism and the sight of hysterical nonentities continuously running away from some menacing pursuer. Though a lot of critics haven't pointed it out, a bit of "Carrie" has rubbed off on this film, too. Perhaps this is the reason it has struck a resonant chord with Stephen King?
-Oliver
I thought 'The Descent' was a British movie?
I loved your opening but have carefully filed the mid-section away for post-viewing read...
A minor correction: "The Descent" is a UK film, not a New Zealand film.
David Fincher's "Seven" was, as far as I'm concerned, one of the great horror films of the last 15-20 years. Looked and felt like a police procedural, but emotionally, it was pure horror. I also consider David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive" a horror film. And a great one.
Things I noticed the second time around (SPOILERS):
Owen's transparent mask used in his serial killer role play resembles 'the Father's' face - visual foreshadowing.
The first scene in the locker room has distorted echoes that sound like eerie howling, subtly creating a sense of foreboding. Other sounds: Abby's constant low stomach growl throughout first Rubik's cube scene (before the loud growl) and tunnel scene, fluttering of wings when she jumps from hospital. (In the book, Eli can produce membranous wings; her face, teeth, fingers and toes also morph from normal to monster form.)
The lyrics of the pop songs relate to their associated scenes - some very clever choices.
Abby has a predatory gaze and is appearing to be considering Owen as a meal before he shows her the Rubik's cube.
Abby's 'uninvited bleeding' resembles a traditional depiction of Jesus' bleeding from the crown of thorns, even more than the '08 film's Eli does. Intentional or not?
Aside: Religious rhetoric in presidential speeches has a long history.
FDR's radio address to the nation on D-Day: "And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. ... With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy."
Nice article, Jim. I too was surprised by how excellent Let Me In was--I feel like it took Let the Right One In's "love story with disturbing overtones" and subtly flipped it into a "horror story with false romantic overtones." Definitely a worthwhile remake.
As for American horror films of the past twenty years...
Jacob's Ladder (1990)
Misery (1990)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991) (best of the 90s)
Candyman (1992)
Fallen (1998)
The Blair Witch Project (1999) (2nd best of the 90s)
Stir of Echoes (1999)
Final Destination (2000)
Session 9 (2001)
The Ring (2002) (best of the 2000s)
Identity (2003)
Hard Candy (2005)
Bug (2006) (probably the scariest on this entire list)
Teeth (2007)
Paranormal Activity (2007) (terrible, but effective)
1408 (2007)
Orphan (2009)
So while I agree that most of the best and scariest horror films of the past few decades have come from foreign shores, Americans haven't done too badly for themselves.
At the moment, I vote Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon as the best American horror film of the last 20 years, except it might be better classified as a comedy about horror. Had a few frights, though.
You sold me. I'm going to try to see this as soon as possible. The dialogue between Bush and Reagan's use of the term "evil" is especially intriguing.
"An Inconvenient Truth" or "Collapse", maybe?
I was also struck -- and I have no idea what to make of it -- with the repeated questions about gender: "Are you a little girl?" "What would you do if I wasn't a girl?" The word "girl" seems to resonate throughout this film in a way that the Swedish version, with it's bully's homage to DELIVERANCE, didn't use.
Sure, "evil" is a religious term, more specifically, Christian, with its personified "good guy," Jesus, and personified "bad guy," Satan. In between is You, the Viewer.
Omer Mozaffar tells me there's no Islamic word for "evil," although lip-service Christians and lip-service Muslims have been bandying Satan against each other for some time -- while not bandying that poor misunderstood persona among themselves.
I was cognizant enough as a kid to compare the Cuban Missile Crisis with the later "9/11". It was scarier, as Khrushchev and Kennedy did have men with their fingers poised nervously over their respective buttons until the end of it, if not afterward.
5 or 6 years ago I met one of the American officers who'd had his finger on the button at the Titan Missile base in Green Valley, Arizona. He was now a retired Air Force general. He related that he'd met one of his Russian counterparts, now a Colonel, who had also had his finger on the launch button at the time.
The Russian told him that their radar detected a fast-flying unidentified blip. He was ordered to fire. He couldn't push the button, just couldn't. 56 seconds later, they determined that the blip was a commercial jet liner that hadn't made radio contact. So, we came within 56 seconds of nuclear annihilation. There were more than enough nukes to do that even then.
"9/11" is still surrounded with a smoky pallor of high suspicion, a good deal of it reasonable. And we can't deny that it wound up making the Bush family, among other weapons and oil dealers, richer than ever. Taxpayers are still flushing billions a month into their gilded toilets.
Anyone who wants to know what kind of person could sit in a bunker with their finger on that button should check out Frederick Wiseman's excellent documentary MISSILE.
I often recommend the brilliant British horror film SEVERANCE, which points out the deadly consequences of spreading war-related products all over the globe. Among American films, I'd say ORPHAN hit home. It's a manic deconstruction of our national obsession with babies and children, guaranteed to make you think twice about people who collect kids the way some people collect pets.
Guh. Now I feel like I missed something, particularly the "Are you scared, little girl?" stuff, which I viewed in a more sexual light than I probably should have (but then again, Owen is a bit of a voyeur). Maybe the Reagan stuff didn't connect with me because "Evil Empire" was orated five years before I was born. I missed Reagan entirely (Thank the maker), and didn't see his relevance to the movie at all. The whole "Is there evil?" thing seemed unresolved, a dangling preposition.
I also couldn't stop conjuring the original film or the book. Oy. How near-sighted of me.
Just to reinforce the list-making, here are the best American horror films I could think of from the past 20 years (with varying degrees of "good" and "horror"):
The Blair Witch Project
Candyman
Jacob's Ladder
Lord of Illusions
Planet Terror
The Ring
The Sixth Sense
Stir of Echoes
Tremors
Wes Craven's New Nightmare
In the spectrum of evil, Nixon is in Edward Teller country, criticizing nothing in particular.
Reagan is scary because you think of him as your grandfather, so he is in the Reverend Powell evil. You would think of Teller or Nixon as the uncle no one in the family cared to talk about.
Unfortunately, scientists around the world decided classifying Pat Buchanan was too much work, because the second they managed to find a label, he made such a cogent argument, they hated him slightly less.
...also Frailty, which I remember as being somewhat of a riff on Night of the Hunter.
Jim,
A lot of people have been complaining that the CGI looked phony. This is a case where people (including you) are too quick dismiss something without enough thought.
Abby does not weigh the same as a normal 12-year old girl. Read the book. She is very light. She can even fly. So it makes sense that when she attacks someone, she looks the way she does.
I think we should all give Matt Reeves a break. I liked "Let Me In" more than the original. I'm tired of hearing people whine about the whole remake nonsense. We should be focusing on how beautiful and tragic this story is. Sure, neither film is perfect. If only these 2 movies could f##k and have a baby, then we would have the perfect movie.
In case you forgot, here's what I said: "I think we could use just a few seconds less of the nightmarishly sped-up CGI during a few of Abby's attacks. All we need is an impression, and the longer it goes on (even if it's only a matter of seconds) the more the effect weakens and looks phony." That she doesn't weigh much has nothing to do with what I said. Horror is often more effective when it is just suggested rather than made explicit. This was just a minor reservation I had about a movie I think very highly of.
Thanks, Jim, as if my to-watch list isn't long enough already. Now you've gone and got me excited to see LET ME IN.
I'm as liberal as they come, but one of my hobbies is reading up on Cold War history. And the more information that leaks or gets declassified from both sides, especially stuff like the Mitrokhin Archive from the KGB, the more I realize that Reagan was kind of right--if perhaps for some of the wrong reasons. That's the biggest shock to me, because I grew up thinking Reagan was some crazed warmonger who was going to start WW III. I don't like the man or his ideology, but his administration's assessment of the Soviet threat and a lot of his policies turned out to be more astute than most of us knew then. One other big thing I've learned is that Jimmy Carter--posterboy for soft liberal humanitarian--actually started a lot of the hardline initiates that Reagan later branded as his own. Not just the covert war in Afghanistan, but also the expansion and modernization of U.S. nuclear forces.
Speaking of nuclear horror, I'd like to endorse TESTAMENT which is almost Bressonian in its minimalism and surprisingly unflinching for the sort of TV movie it starts out seeming like. Also Peter Wakins' early and banned THE WAR GAME. And there's a thoroughly bleak 1980s British TV production called THREADS. And that British cartoon about old folks in the countryside waiting for fallout death WHEN THE WIND BLOWS.
THE DESCENT is a British film, not from New Zealand. But that aside, I also nominate Ti West's THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, as well as Rob Zombie's THE DEVIL'S REJECTS - both are horror films of immense power that draw their inspiration from distinctly "American" horror cycles - exploitation/revenge fantasies, and 80's babysitter/slasher/occult horror films. Having seen LET ME IN, I think it's definitely the best American horror film since THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, but of the entirety of the past 20 years? That leaves out a whole lot of worthy entries in the genre, many of which are pointed out by everyone else...
On LET ME IN specifically, though, I too found myself intrigued by the slight interplays of Reagan-era America and the heartbreaking horror of the story, and how it really seemed to transport the film to another level that made a case for its existence (as opposed to being unnecessary but still engaging) all on its own. At least for me.
Yeah, wow. It's not easy to come up with the best American horror film of the last 20 years. There were many that I loved, but all foreign. Here is the best I could do, stretching the limits some.
The Devil's Rejects
Lost Highway
Last Days
The Ring (yes, the American remake)
The Silence of the Lambs
Skeleton Key (I thought it worked in spite of a dismal lead performance by Kate Hudson)
Spider
Synechdoche, New York
Hmmm...I enjoyed all of those but to call any the best horror flick since 1990 seems to indicate a fairly weak 20-year crop.
I think you're stretching it more than a little, but if "Synecdoche" counts, I'd definitely throw in "A Serious Man."
Glad you enjoyed the film...I thought you might, although there was always the possibility that you'd view it as a bit of a redundancy. I was very impressed with both the Swedish and American films (I saw them back to back within a day), and actually felt that although "Let Me In" covered a lot of the same ground, it also brought some brilliant new sequences and improvements.
Best American horror film of the past 20 years? That's a tough one. Over the past decade, most of the best horror films, such as Inside, Ils (Them), [REC] and Let the Right One In, are all European.
However, the best American horror film of the past 20 years, IMHO, is Douglas Buck's short film "Cutting Moments," the opening section of his emotionally devastating Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America.No one who has seen it can possibly forget what happens.
As for a feature length horror film, I think Sam Raimi's horror comedy Drag Me to Hell was a bit underrated. Not to spoil it, but the opening scene was one of the most genuinely frightening scenes I have seen in a movie in a long time, simply because it gleefully dared to "break the rules" concerning damnation (those who have seen it know what I'm talking about). That one, along with Exorcist III, The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity and The Strangers (hated by many but it got to me) are my American nominees.
Glad you mentioned Drag Me to Hell. What a great movie. That was a major oversight on my own bit of list-making. I love how, like Evil Dead 2, it is simultaneously hilarious and terrifying. And, its trashing of the morality of bankers is still resonating in the years after it came out. In fact, I believe it's the only non-documentary I've seen that took a stance on the current "economic crisis."
Obviously I don't have a way of proving this, and I'll admit that I wasn't taking notes or anything and I don't have a perfect memory, but...
I recall thinking that, although Let Me In had some striking imagery and well crafted sequences, I didn't care for Reeves' framing in places, which was often too tight for my tastes. Occasionally it seemed appropriate, like in the car murder scenes, because it took place in a cramped, claustrophobic location. Considering, however, that Reeves spends a lot of the movie trying to wring atmosphere out of the sparse, chilly New Mexico locale and the dour little apartments, you'd think he want to step back a little bit and give us space to look around.
I also, as I did with the original, took issue with some of the more elaborate set pieces, particularly the finale in the pool. Here's this sullen little mood piece of a movie, and suddenly it turns into Evil Dead 2 for a few minutes. The massacre at the end is, you know, cool and entertaining, but also crass and over-the-top in a way that undercuts the rest of the film.
Jim, a note on the little sidebar about President Bush's handling of the world evil post 9/11. You mentioned that "As far as billions of people were concerned (Muslims and Christians and Hindi and Jews and Buddhists, et al.) he equated Islam with "evil." And that was a stupid, stupid thing to do."
Now, I am by no means a defender of President Bush, but you (correctly) champion looking at what people actually say rather than how others may interpret it. It is actually my belief that President Bush HIMSELF did not equate Islam with evil. I have read many insider accounts of the events of those horrible 8 years called the Bush administration, and there seems to be ample evidence that while Bush considered al Quaeda unequivocally evil, he also firmly believed in Islam as a religion.
The problem is that Bush's approach was always, as you said, so myopic, that he didn't realize that using phrases like "evildoers" repeatedly would begin to blur people's perceptions of who exactly he was talking about...until all that was left to notice was the common link that they were all Muslim.
To the poster who sarcastically asked whether murdering 3000 people could be called evil (and of course it could and should), I would argue that if Bush had limited his use of it to that act and its perpetrators, no one would have a problem...the problem is that between the years 2001 and 2004 (probably beyond, but especially these years), he used "evil" or "evildoers" to describe not just Al Qaeda, but the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, Iraqi insurgents, Sunni rebels, and even people wrongfully detained at Guantanamo Bay. Either Bush was too dense or in fact diabolically shrewd in his equating of the words to the American people...they created a Pavlovian sense of recognition when heard, so that it's no wonder in the illegal lead-up to the Iraq War, almost 75% of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11,
In that first 9/11 speech he not only framed the issue as "good vs. evil," he lent credence to the view that this terrorist act had legitimate religious significance, confirming the views of those who wanted to frame it as a justified strike in a Holy War. He compounded the strategic error in the same speech when he quoted from the 23rd Psalm. (D'oh! How blind can you be?) It was just unforgivably myopic not to understand how billions of others around the world would interpret that, coming from a self-proclaimed born-again Christian. Then he would turn around and say that the US wasn't at war with Islam. And, to most of the world, he was speaking out of both sides of his mouth -- clearly somebody with a hidden agenda who spoke in codes. He played right into the hands of al Qaida and gave them an invaluable recruiting tool. (He didn't give them a bigger one until he decided to go into Iraq, only confirming that, despite his denials, he was, in fact, mounting a Holy War against Islam.) Of course, it also didn't help when he said he believed God had chosen him to lead this fight.
Chiming in on the list of best American horror films of the past 20 years:
If "Seven" is considered a horror film, then yes, "Seven", hands-down.
I also very much like Bill Paxton's "Frailty", which is kind-of a Gothic horror movie (and contains perhaps the best pure jump moment I've seen since "Wait Until Dark").
And although it's very one-note, I just can't deny the elemental power of "The Strangers"...I made the mistake of watching it at home, alone, in a house I'd just moved into. Needless to say that was a sleepless night.
Another movie I thought was extremely underrated was the American remake of "Dark Water", with Jennifer Connelly. Maybe not a strict horror film (more psychological horror), but really well done nonetheless...the mixed reviews and tepid reaction baffled me.
The best American horror films of the last five years:
The ecoligical, environmental horror of The Last Winter. The exploration of PTSD and the transference of violence (genetic and otherwise) in Rob Zombie's Halloween 2. And a small shout out to My Soul to Take: Wes Craven doesn't have his whole heart in this one but it's an interesting look at the cross-section of psychosis and spititual beleifs nonetheless.
Oh, I'm going to have to add Exorcist III to the short list of truly great and powerful horror films from the past two decades. Talk about a sleepless night on the couch after the figure with the autopsy instrument made its appearance, at the end of a long, static shot that climaxes with a completely unexpected zoom. The rest of the movie was creepy, but that one shot haunted my dreams for weeks. (It also scared the hell out of everyone else I knew who saw it.) Only the sudden appearance of "the bum" behind the dumpster in Mulholland Drive can top it. And Rob Zombie's Devil's Rejects disturbed me on all kinds of levels. At least it was leavened with the sharp wit of Sid Haig's killer clown, who had some (intentionally) hilarious dialogue.
I remember Jim Emerson having bones to pick with it, but Tim Burton's adaptation of "Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street," I think, qualifies as one of the great psychological horror films of recent years.
I must say that your reasoning here does not make a lot of sense, Jim. To view Bush's quoting of a biblical passage, commonly used in times of conflict, as a Holy War declaration is quite a leap, and a ridiculous one at that.
"As far as billions of people were concerned (Muslims and Christians and Hindi and Jews and Buddhists, et al.) he equated Islam with "evil."
By this you seem to take it for granted that the 19 hijackers were accredited representatives of the Islamic religion. What other conclusion can I reach from that statement?
As for the word "evil", its underlying concept remains the same whether used in a religious context or not.
I'm sorry, Jim. I can't wrap my mind around how you seem to present this argument as if it was self-evident, when its grounds, as far as I can tell, consists of a series of baseless presumptions and misrepresentations. Very poorly thought out.
By this you seem to take it for granted that the 19 hijackers were accredited representatives of the Islamic religion.
I don't know how one acquires religious accreditation, but what you're saying is exactly the message many Arabs and Muslims thought Bush was conveying when he used the word "evil" and quoted the Bible, showing no awareness of his audience. You're making the same mistake he did, so locked inside your own culture you won't understand how others interpret things. If you study the period, learn a little about Arab and Muslim culture and politics, then maybe you'll be able to "wrap your mind around it."
I'll give another example that really hit home for me. When the State Department (years after the invasion of Iraq) finally decided to study Iraqi culture (they didn't even have the translators they needed to begin with, so unimportant did they think it was to communicate with the Iraqis whose country they were invading and occupying) and the Arab media, they were perplexed that people would be angry when the US was trying to help. But if you understand that the majority of people don't think US soldiers should be there in the first place, then you have to understand that that, even if they're building hospitals and schools, there's no such thing as a good image of a uniformed US soldier in an Islamic country. That doesn't "make sense" by our standards, but that's the reality we're dealing with.
We are in an alternate universe when Pat Buchanan is an early voice for not interfering with other cultures.
Pat Buchanan is sensitive to cultural members.
In view of that frightening reality, do you think Buchanan, despite his actions and statements, has more character then that of all the leaders of the Tea Party combined?
Contrary to your patronizing assumption, Jim, I do not reside inside a cultural incubator. My awareness of the Islamic world and culture is sufficient enough to conclude that your attempt to project your own nonsensical interpretation of the speech as an accurate representation of how many Muslims viewed it lacks any basis. Can you point me towards any opinion polls, editorials, government press releases from the Muslim world that claim to have read the statement as Bush's declaration of a Holy War, then or now, aside from maybe Al Qaeda and its sympathizers?
Here's what I said:
So, he started with "evil" and the biblical quotation on the very first day and only multiplied the error with what he did and said afterwards, framing the conflict in religious terms -- his "crusade," his "mission from God" -- which is exactly what bin Laden and al Qaeda wanted him to do. In case you've forgotten, here as requested are some reference sources about "faith-based" politics and Islam, from the Bush organization to the Cordoba Project:
Let's start with this quotation, from an essay cited below:
NYT Magazine: The Faith-Based Presidency: http://j.mp/bdJpe2
Bush's use of "crusade" and "mission from God": http://j.mp/cSIDCm
NYT review of the documentary "With God On Our Side": http://j.mp/aR0yCk
A Distant Mirror of Holy War: http://j.mp/dgFCLm
USAWC Strategy Research Project: "Winning the War of Ideas: Assessing the Effectiveness of Public Diplomacy" by Colonel Michael P. Wadsworth, US Army (2006): http://j.mp/aSpTe2
How America's Post-9/11 wars have undermined US national security (Security Policy Working Group report): http://j.mp/ckkVDZ
CNN: 2002 Poll: Muslims call US ruthless, arrogant: http://j.mp/cXSOW3
A Christian perspective: "Dangerous Religion: George W. Bush's Theology of Empire": http://j.mp/b57Czn
Losing Hearts and Minds: World Public Opinion and post-9/11 US Security Policy: http://j.mp/bORZz6
I thought "Sleepy Hollow" was an excellent horror flick. Great colours, actors and gore. Probably the best Tim Burton movie that's not about Ed Wood.
You put a lot of effort into the response, Jim, but you failed to address my question.
This discussion sprang from our differing views on Bush's first post-9/11 speech, in which you blasted him for his tactlessness in not considering how the Muslim world would interpret his condemnation of a TERRORIST ACT as evil, a word which you insist has an exclusively religious meaning within the context of the speech. This in turn is supposed to represent a Christian call to arms against the Islamic faith. I stressed the words "terrorist act" since you appear to hold as valid the idea that a condemnation of an act of terror committed by Muslim extremists is the equivalent of condemning the Muslim faith, if that is how some Muslims see it.
"As far as billions of people were concerned (Muslims and Christians and Hindi and Jews and Buddhists, et al.) he equated Islam with "evil."
Once again, we are talking about a condemnation of a terrorist act here. This tactic, by the way, is straight out of Beck's playbook.
As for the links, you appear to be arguing that there is a case to be made for the view that we are in fact engaged in a holy war, given Bush's long-established religious convictions, and the number of evangelicals (admittedly high; about 1 in 5) in the US military. If my sole source of information was the editorial page of the New York Times, I would be forced to conclude that the United States was a theocracy under the Bush years. Let us pretend for a moment that the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were religiously motivated. Given how quickly the first invasion was put on the backburner in favor of the second, it seems strange that the Bush theocrats would preoccupy themselves with overthrowing a decidedly secular dictatorship.
If you have not made yourself familiar with the Al Jazeera network, I urge you to do so. It goes a long way in explaining why any citizen of, say, Indonesia, would view as not-at-all ridiculous the possibility of being subject to a US invasion by the simple virtue of being a Muslim country.
The 70% U.K. poll does not surprise me in the least, given the entrenched presence of radical Muslim extremists in the country and the not-insignificant support they enjoy.
Yet all of this sidesteps the issue we were discussing. Did Bush, as you say, lose the war on terror as he was declaring it, by daring to condemn a brutal act of terror as evil?
Is the condemnation of a terrorist act by Muslim extremists equal to a declaration of war on the Muslim faith?
And please don't complain that I am twisting your words because the argument you are presenting does not make a lick of sense otherwise.
Well, I like to be thorough. But I think we're talking right past each other. I said it was a tactical mistake to frame the terrorist attacks in terms of "evil," a theological term, since the religious implications were so sensitive at that moment. When he then proceeded to quote the Bible (and again repeated the use of "evil"), he was sending a message about how HE viewed the battle as a "crusade" (another loaded word he later used), and that God had chosen him to lead it. Now, you and I and other Muslims and Christians and Jews and atheists may say, "But it was extremists who did this" -- and Bush said the same thing in other speeches. But he was George W. Bush, outspoken born-again Evangelical Christian, speaking as President of the United States, in an official, public capacity, and that changes everything. He kept returning to this unnecessarily polarizing "good vs. evil," "you're either with us or against us" rhetoric that was sending a very different message, in what many read (quite rightly) as religious code -- one that was easy for al Qaeda to exploit. He just handed them more ammunition, from 9/11 on. As the essay I quoted above says:
It's also bad politics. That's why I don't think your argument makes a lick of sense. To you, what Bush said and did from that day forward has no other implications than what you want it to mean. But it quite plainly didn't. So, to answer your questions:
Did Bush, as you say, lose the war on terror as he was declaring it, by daring to condemn a brutal act of terror as evil? Yes, because in characteristic fashion he never acknowledged the mistake and instead compounded it, as I said, with his subsequent statements and actions.
Is the condemnation of a terrorist act by Muslim extremists equal to a declaration of war on the Muslim faith? Yes, when the President of the United States -- who identifies himself repeatedly as a born-again Evangelical Christian -- frames it in explicitly religious terms by invoking God and the bible. If he'd treated it as an act of terrorism instead of an "act of war," if he'd avoided appearing to pit Christianity against the faith of the terrorists (focusing instead on their politics and tactics), then he could have made a better case that HE did not see this as a religious conflict. But by the time he was invading Iraq (for no good reason, since Saddam and al Qaeda were at odds), it was easy for Muslims who already distrusted Bush to see it as clear evidence of a holy war. Why else, as you say, would the West intervene, under the flimsiest of pretenses, to occupy a Muslim country? Which is why Muslims who had always hated Saddam came streaming across the borders into Iraq to defend their fellow Muslims.
I'm not saying Bush didn't have plenty of help creating the appearance of a holy war among Muslims. But he stoked the flames again and again.
Just saw the movie and liked it, but can anyone help me out here: when Ebert says, "the U.S. version adds one surprise that comes at a useful time to introduce frightening possibilities," what exactly is he referring to? Is it what happens to Elias Koteas' character? I haven't seen the original in about a year and a half, so maybe I'm forgetting something.
I think he's referring to the photo Owen picks up that reveals a likely 12-year old version of "The Father" w/Abby, something only very implicit in the prior version.
I only just saw this movie so I came back to read this. I actually enjoyed the 1983 setting because the movie "Let Me In" reminded me most of was E.T.!
(Yes, I know E.T. came out in 1982 but you have to admit there are quite a few parallels between the two films...)
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