Facts

“The Experiment” is a 2010 remake of the German movie “Das Experiment”. It stars Adrien Brody and Forest Whitaker, and it was directed by Paul Scheuring, the creator of the TV series “Prison Break” . More about “The Experiment” on Wikipedia and IMDb.

“Das Experiment” is a 2001 German movie starring Moritz Bleibtreu, based on a book by Mario Giordano, “Black Box”, about a real-life occurence, the 1971 Stanford prison experiment. More about “Das Experiment” on Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

Commentaries
I saw the remake first and was not impressed. I thought it was a bland waste of an interesting story. Then I watched the original, the German version, and I got a totally different opinion. This time I cared about the fate of the main character. The remake felt like a standard mediocre movie which never intends to hook your emotions, and that’s too bad because the story really calls for emotional engagement. The book these movies are based on is named “Black Box” – I’m not going to spoil anything, but that black box is an important emotional element in the story. Some say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I guess the ones who made the remake never got over their admiration for the original. It’s a movie based on a movie based on a book, and probably, details got lost along the way. Nonetheless, the story of a social experiment turned bad is interesting indeed, especially since it’s based on a real event.

Bottom line
Raw truth: of these two, “Das Experiment” is the one worth watching. The remake is fine, but weak enough to seem a rather useless endeavor.