DREAD SPAWN (HEAD WRONG)
Released at the height of Cold War paranoia, the 1984 film Red Dawn follows a group of high school students as they battle the Soviet army that has occupied their town. In 2008, MGM decided to remake Red Dawn, with a storyline faithful to the original, except that China replaced the USSR as the enemy. The remake’s American theatrical release date is November 21, 2012.*Dread Spawn (Head Wrong) examines how Hollywood could only set both the original Red Dawn and its remake in small town, predominantly white, middle America. How would the fantastical storyline of the Red Dawn remake function if the Chinese People’s Liberation Army were to invade New York City’s Chinatown instead and was met by multicultural, brainy high school students?
*In 2011, after shooting and editing the Red Dawn remake, MGM realized that the film would not prove profitable in China, and the enemy was digitally altered from China to North Korea.
Dread Spawn (Head Wrong) was shown in November 2011 at the Museum of Chinese in America in New York. The film will be shown in late 2012 at the Queens Museum in New York, Vanderbilt University in Nashville, and the Ninth Street Independent Film Center in San Francisco.