So let me get this straight, Daniel Stamm, the man behind the awful, and I do mean awful film The Last Exorcism, is set to direct the remake of the great and I do mean great, French horror film Martyrs. If that isn’t a recipe for disaster then I don’t know what is. I’d love to speak to whoever made this decision because this is one hell of a bad choice.
As noted above, The Last Exorcism was awful, it was the worst film I saw all year and I was really hoping Stamm wouldn’t get a chance to direct again. Turns out not everyone hated The Last Exorcism because now Stamm is set to direct the Martyrs remake.
While talking about the film, Stamm was quoted as saying:
Martyrs is very nihilistic…The American approach [that I’m looking at] would go through all that darkness but then give a glimmer of hope. You don’t have to shoot yourself when it’s over.
He then went onto say that:
“Every time you think you know where it’s going, it goes somewhere else. It plays on things that are familiar — like two friends who can’t be separated, kind of a Forrest Gump and Jenny situation. But then it takes a turn, and in doing so asks interesting quesitons. ‘If you have a best friend in the world and she goes crazy, how much do you owe this friend to go down with them?’ It’s much more than a horror film.”
First off, I’m surprised Martyrs is even being remade. If you’ve seen it, you’ll know that it doesn’t seem like the type of movie that studios would want to bring to America. It’s pretty hardcore I’m not sure how well it would do with American audiences. Hopefully they won’t water it down.
With the hiring of Stamm (who dismissed the rumors of Kristen Stewart taking the lead role), hopes for this film have dropped even further, for me at least. I’ll still see it but I’m not sure I’ll enjoy it.
Your thoughts?