5 Terrible Horror Remakes

In recent years, culture critics and laymen alike have lamented the rash or remakes and sequels hitting theaters, but this is not a new phenomenon at all. Remakes have long been a part of Hollywood, just as stories have been told and retold throughout history. When handled appropriately, remakes can put an interesting new twist on a story that audiences know and love, while drawing in those who are unfamiliar with the source material at the same time.

Unfortunately, there seem to be far more remakes that fall far short of that goal than there are those that achieve it. This is a list of five unfortunate remakes that just can't hack it. 

5. Psycho (1998)

Just one year after he found great success with Goodwill Hunting, director Gus Van Sant decided to undertake a truly staggering task; namely, remaking Hitchcock's master work, Psycho. At the time of its release, the original film caused quite a stir in Hollywood. Back in 1960, the Production Code was being reworked and Hitchcock pushed the boundaries of both sexuality and violence with this truly groundbreaking film. As far as Van Sant's Psycho goes, I think that Roger Ebert put it best, "The movie is an invaluable experiment in the theory of cinema, because it demonstrates that a shot-by-shot remake is pointless; genius apparently resides between or beneath the shots, or in chemistry that cannot be timed or counted."

4. Carrie (2013)

With source material from Stephen King and Brian de Palma, Kimberly Pierce had a lot to live up to with her remake. Despite those who were immediately skeptic, this film had a lot of things going for it: killer cast, improved visual effects technology, and a renewed relevence as bullying has moved to the internet and become a topic of debate within the national conscience. Unfortunately, even with all these elements working in its favor, the remake falls flat. One need look no further than the bloody finale to see that the remake doesn't do a whole lot to make the story its own, and it is all the worse for it.

3. The Omen (2006)

Some horror fans, like our very own Spencer, believe that this remake came out of nothing more than a not so clever marketing scheme. Released on June 6, 2006, the reimagining of The Omen was mostly just bland. The movie itself does nothing to disuade us of this theory. The story itself remains almost entirely unchanged, while the scenes themselves become bogged down with heavy-handed symbolism (a drinking game where the only rule was, "Take one sip when you see the color red prominently featured in a shot" would get you sloshed by the end of act one). Still not convinced? Just watch this trailer.

2. Halloween (2007)

Every one of the classic slasher franchises has been reworked or rebooted in the last decade or so, all to fairly mediocre results, but Rob Zombie's reimagining of Halloween is by far the most egregious. When John Carpenter created the iconic "Shape" at the center of Halloween and Halloween II (and several sequels that were to come after) he never intended for Michael to be a character for the audience to empathize with. He was evil incarnate, a force as unstoppable as fate. In Zombie's take on the movie, we spend the better part of the two hour run time learning about why Michael is the way he is. The second half of the film essentially regurgitates the end of the original film at a heightened speed that means all of the tension and emotion that John Carpenter painstakingly buils is nowhere to be seen in this movie. Side note: If you watch the Director's Cut you get a pretty gruesome—and wholly unnecessary—rape scene that just serves as disgusting icing on the turd pile. 

1. The Wicker Man (2006)

I would be remiss if I didn't save the number one slot for a movie that has become so wholly the subject of mocking and sarcastic internet memes. Based on a British film from the early 70's, The Wicker Man tells the story of a police officer who is drawn to an island inhabited by practitioners of a pagan religion in search of a missing girl. This film is a perfect example of a movie that was so completely a product of its time that it isn't suited for another context. The original film clearly plays on growing paranoia about Free Love and hippie movements around the world, with Sargeant Howie repeatedly observing and being shocked by the rituals being carried out by the people of Summerisle. He berates Lord Summerisle about how backwards his beliefs are and how irresponsible it is to teach them to people, and at the hour of his death sings the twenty-third psalm. The reincarnation, starring Nic Cage, removes all of the relgious/societal tension and makes the strange choice of making the people on the island primarily women. Making this matriarchal society the source of all the disdain not only leads to some (absurd) scenes of Nic Cage punching and kicking women, which are a bit troublesom to try and parse out, particularly since they were a conscious addition for this film. There is genuinely nothing about this film to take remotely seriously.