Boy, you have inadvertantly hit on something that drives me insane. Namely, the remaking of great overseas films by Hollywood. You totally nailed it with Insomnia and The Vanishing, but it seems EVERY time they try this it's an abortion. Look at La Femme Nikita! BOY what a dog of a remake! I'm also kind of annoyed by the remake of Red Dragon, actually, although that wasn't half bad. I suppose I'm just sore because William L. Peterson never gets his due and Mann is a great and underrated director, and Manhunter was a totally non-hollywood suspense masterpiece for its time that showcased the process of crime detection in the coolest and understated way. I love Brian Cox as Lector, too, his performance is the antithesis of Hopkins, and I like the underplayed thing a lot.
Back to your comic book comparison (sorry, had to get that Manhunter swipe in there), I guess I'm not reading the right kind of comic books! I'm a big Love and Rockets fan, and am a huge Daniel Clowes fan from way back in the Lloyd Llewellyn days, Eight Ball, Ghost World, all that. HATE comics also rule. I really don't have many of the super hero ones save some X Men comics from the 60's but I'll take your word for it that I would have liked it better had I been into them heavily, as this makes perfect sense. Take a horror fan to The Ring (and here we might actually have a decent remake, although I haven't seen the Japanese original yet) and they are going to like it a lot better than Mary Poppins fans. Sorry if I came off like a blowhard, but years ago I got to see a DePalma retrospective (the most recent film of that time was Carrie, I believe), and I was totally blown away by the body of work he'd done that I hadn't even heard of. Ever since then I've been hoping for a return to the genius split screen and candid angle DePalma of old but it's just not really materialized. I like M. Night, too, and loved Signs. He's a welcome addition, don't get me wrong. Okay. Done ranting now. I just harken back to genius days of old for some of my fave directors, and can you blame me? I might have to pick up Thief on DVD just to feel beter!