Scary Excavations: Some horror remakes rise from grave, some would be better if left buried

By: Kierston Johnston

Sometimes a new look at an old movie can be a great thing. Sometimes people should just leave well enough alone. New movies and new effects can bring an old movie to life, others are just money grabbing duds. This is a list of the best and worst horror movie remakes. 

SCREAMS:

Invasion of the Body Snatchers. (1978)

The indie horror flick from almost two decades earlier, this movie leaves you paranoid and not wanting to trust anyone that looks at you funny. The classic story is an alien invasion movie about extraterrestrials who come to earth and replace humans with unemotal copies. The movie adds all of the effects and acting that the older version was incapable of.

Evil Dead (2013)

OK, so it’s kind of a no brainer this classic wasn’t exactly something that needed a reboot, but it honestly doesn’t even matter. A stereotypical plot of a bunch of kids going to a deserted cabin and conjuring up some sort of evil that kills them all. While the old movie pretty much started the whole genre, the new one blends special effects, gore, dark suggestion and amazing acting to please any horror classic horror fan.

The Fly (1986)

Most known as the first and best body horror movie, this is the remake of a very little known movie about a man who made a teleportation device with one fatal flaw in the system, a fly. The device mixes his DNA with the flies, making him slowly turn into a fly while losing his humanity and sanity as well. The effects are amazing for the time, and the acting really sells the whole turning into a fly thing, somehow.

DUDS:

House of Wax (2005)

So to start of our list is an extreme dud that left fans of the original with a bad taste in their mouthes. The 1953 version was a psychological thriller, but the 2005 version was a dumb slasher with the biggest name in it being Paris Hilton. The new movie has little to nothing to with the original except for the name. This movie makes every supernatural fan cringe that Sam Winchester is the star.

Nightmare on Elm street (2010)

Wait, they remade this movie? Yeah, they did, and they REALLY shouldn’t have. They lost all of the campy humor and amazing scares that made the first movie so amazing. I guess you could argue that the acting is better, and so are the effects, and, yeah, they are. BUT that’s what made the original so amazing. The 2010 version tried feebly to make this classic darker and scarier than the original, but to no avail.

Psycho (1998)

Why, oh why, would ANYONE try and remake this? The money snatchers to made this shot for shot remake were out of their minds! The wooden performances and the desperate modernization of the film broke the hearts of classic horror fans. What made the classic version so amazing was that it was a classic. The black and white,  the twist ending and the eerie music was all but lost in the remake. Oh yeah, and who thought it was a good idea to cast Vince Vaughn as the crazy Norman Bates? Yeah, the guy from Dodgeball.