Watch: Das Experiment vs. The Experiment

Sometimes you watch a movie you think you are going to enjoy and it ends up being a mediocre flick. A movie that had potential and a very interesting premise, but you were left disappointed. Then you find out it was a remake and the original happens to be available on netflix instant right now. Well if you are like me, then your first priority in life now becomes to watch the original and compare the two.

2010's The Experiment

Adrien Brody and Forest Whitaker star in this movie based on the Stanford Prison Experiment. (for more on that click the link) The premise is that a bunch of people volunteer for a experiment on the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. The group of volunteers will be divided into prisoners and prison guards. They will then have to live out their roles in a mock prison for two weeks.  If the experiment lasts to the end, everyone will be paid $14,000.  There are rules for the prisoners to follow and the only big rule for the prison guards is that they are to use absolutely no violence to handle any situation that may arise.  Everything starts out normal as you would expect, everyone getting the fact that it is just  role-playing, however it doesn't take long for people to start getting a little too comfortable in their roles, and the situation heads south pretty fast.   

2001's Das Experiment

Nine years earlier, the German flick "Das Experiment" came out. Based on the same prison experiment. The original starred Moritz Bleibtreu as Prisoner #77 and Justus von Dohnányi as Berus the main prison guard protagonist. The Main plot remains the same being that both movies are based on the same true life event, however a lot of the similarities end there.



Like most cases I am really kicking myself for not having seen the original first. A lot of the "twists" in the story are seen coming a mile away in the American version of the film. Something I have found peculiar and often times annoying in American remakes is that the film makers often feel the need to over-explain the situation.  Everyone is doing what they were pre-destined to do because of a very specific back story or reason. The easiest target for this is Forest Whitaker's character. You realize within about five minutes of meeting his character how he is going to turn out, because the writing and over explanation of who he is as a person makes it a no-brainer.   Compare this with the German version, besides the main character, no one else really gets too much of a back story. Everyone else's character simply develops under the situation at hand. It makes it more interesting and more of a shock to see exactly what unfolds ahead. Because I did see the American version first however, much of the spoilers were already known going in, but I found it didn't matter when watching a superior film all that much.

The longer running time of the German version(114 vs. 96) also helped flesh out the story more. Situations escalated a lot slower and in a more realistic manner.  There was a lot more questioning and subtlety to the solutions before it became chaotic. The metamorphoses from rational thinking people just trying to get paid for an experiment, into power-hungry bullies with weapons.  Honestly I am not sure which movie kept true to the actual event more closely, but I am guessing neither.  Of course when it comes to making an entertaining movie, we should all know by now that "based on a true story" is something to be taken with a grain of salt, and you really have to pay attention more to the "based" part than the "true story" part.

The biggest element where I feel the German version excels over it's American counterpart is that the viewer is in regular contact with the scientists the entire time.  We can see and hear their horrified reactions and how much they become conflicted with the entire experiment when signs start showing that not only are things inside the mock prison going south, but they themselves, are starting to lose control of the situation.  Later on in the movie they even get involved a little more intimately with the experiment, which is probably where even the German version jumps the shark a bit too.

Overall, I highly recommend the German version, and make sure you see it first so it is not spoiled, and the American version is merely looked at by me as a companion piece I guess.  It is mediocre, but Forest Whitaker is decent I guess.  Even though you see where he is headed from the get-go.  So there you have it.  Have you seen these flicks? Only one of them?  Leave me a comment!