With every passing season, Hollywood proves itself to be increasingly intent on exclusively vomiting up horror films that are nothing more than brainless, spineless retreads if not outright remakes. Producers often turn to foreign films for material for the latter, trusting sovereign cultures with exotic narrative traditions to produce stories that are new to us, stateside.

So it's always interesting to see how the inverse of this process shakes out. What does it look like when foreigners endeavor to make a U.S.-inspired horror film? We're going to examine two recent films that fall into this category.

Argument: Even when technically nothing new is brought to the table, the visual, lingual, and cultural trappings of International Delight alone can be enough to make a competent but otherwise humdrum film feel refreshing.

Exhibit A: [REC], 2007
This documentary-style Spanish zombie film borrows most heavily from Snyder's DAWN OF THE DEAD (2004). It pulls off the documentary style much more convincingly than, say, the perhaps-unfairly-maligned CLOVERFIELD or Romero's justifiably-despised DIARY OF THE DEAD. It's more akin to THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT in both style and tone. Near the end, the creators lose the bearings of the zombie thread and turn to lift cues from this decade's indistinct mess of teenager-aimed demon-possession flicks. It's a shame that, in the manner of Hollywood, this straight-faced emulation comes off as swiping tricks rather than paying homage.

The setting is Barcelona; the setup involves a reporter and cameraman for a late-night cable show interviewing some firemen, hoping for action and ending up with a lapful of it. The long pedestrian opening that establishes the setup, carried by proficient acting and some anticipation on the viewer's part, is suspenseful. The rest of the film is harrowing, if not truly innovative, and there are a few genuinely shocking and gratifyingly brutal moments.

Lastly, in an unparalleled act of recursion, this American-imitative film was instantly snatched up for a U.S. remake in the form of 2008's QUARANTINE. The serpent eats its tail!

Exhibit B: DEAD SNOW (DA?D SNA?), 2009
Comin' atcha straight outta Norway, DEAD SNOW offers a classic setup: six easy-to-look-at libidinous young folks on a rural ski retreat are warned by a spooky old guy that they'll get more than they bargained for from the beautiful, treacherous mountains. (Given the setting, I wonder if it's possible to film something that's not gorgeous in Norway.) Stock character antics and Nazi zombie splatstick ensue. Fans of Raimi and Jackson will be particularly pleased.

The special effects bear mentioning for one reason in particular. The creature design for the zombies themselves is pretty much faultless, and most of the violence is executed very well, but you'll notice a trend: many of the gimmicks and body part props are bad. Remarkably bad. Flamboyantly bad. So bad in comparison to the zombie makeup, in fact, that I have to argue they are intentionally bad, a gleeful throwback to the heyday of burgeoning special effects, when Savini could do no wrong (even when his stuff looked preposterous). Framed this way, the unrealistic-looking organs and dismemberings become downright charming.

The primary difference between [REC] and DEAD SNOW is simple: [REC] takes itself muy seriamente, allowing itself no humor, limiting its plot to strictly logical developments, trying to convince us that it's original and so, so real. While the acting generally meets this standard, this means that occasional inferior special effects or plot points stick out like sore thumbs in fruit salad. (Highly self-important fruit salad, at that. I don't mean to denigrate legitimate attempts at realist horror but I wish more filmmakers were more sensible about their own limitations and would acknowledge that low-budget drama takes a certain rare deftness--it's best left to those who have it.)

DEAD SNOW, on the other hand, immediately establishes itself as a shameless, quirky pastiche. (I mean, come on: ZOMBIE NAZIS.) This admission is liberating; having shrugged off the goal of convincing, it's free to simply play. Countless visual and verbal references are made to the classic horror films that influenced the creators, so suspension of disbelief is unattainable. This film is best compared to SHAUN OF THE DEAD though, in fact, it picks up speed inversely. While SHAUN starts out very kooky and mellows into passable but mostly unfunny action, DEAD SNOW only gets funnier and faster while brilliantly recapturing Raimi's Three-Stooges-Plus-Blood shtick.

Although, for all these merits, I'm not sure this film would be particularly remarkable if it were born on U.S. soil. It's lent something magical by the language barrier, the landscape, the social acceptability of screwing in outhouses--or perhaps it's just the amusement I get in imagining a bunch of young Norwegians watching FRIDAY THE 13TH and DEAD ALIVE and deciding: that's what I want to do when I grow up, and then getting to see this as the end result.

[REC] is decidedly less darling in this regard, as the influences are less celebrated, more recent, and not nearly as geektastic. Still, it's an engaging and enjoyable change of pace.

Conclusion:
Try as they might to be purely derivative, foreign reimaginings will necessarily bring their own curious cultural baggage to the table. If we care to root past the lisped Zs and flaargen flaargens, we may be able to look at the films objectively, and uncover the very axiom that holds true for all filmmaking: if you're going to borrow, borrow from the good stuff. Borrow broadly, borrow creatively, and have fun.

Both of these titles are available on Region-2 DVD but appear to be languishing in U.S.-DVD-release limbo.