12 Awful Hollywood Remakes of Foreign Films We Wish They Never Made

If, like us, you enjoy watching foreign movies, you’ll appreciate how creative, unusual and thought-provoking they can be by broadening our experience of cinema and exposing us to new film making styles and genres. You’ll also understand how nerve-wracking and infuriating it can be to see your favourite foreign movies to get the dreaded ‘Hollywood treatment’. From blatant plagiarizing of the source material to losing the spirit of the original and making silly changes to the plot and characters, Hollywood has a checkered history when it comes to reimagining classic films from around the world. So here are 12 of their worst attempts!

1. The Vanishing (1993)

The Original: Spoorloos (1988)

Probably the biggest boo-boo the remake made was that it did away with the original’s hauntingly grim ending in favour of a much less memorable, happily ever after final act.

12. Quarantine (2008)

The Original: REC (2007)

Let us be clear, Quarantine is a pretty solid horror movie. It’s claustrophobic, decently cast and boasts enough scares to excite its audience. Where it falls down though, is how brazenly it copies the source material almost verbatim, aside from changing the ending (for the worse). In short, it’s impossible to enjoy Quarantine if you’ve seen the quite excellent REC.

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