10 Horror Remakes That Are Actually Worth Your Time & Money

This past Halloween, my friends Jess, Kate, and Lor had a costume party (I went as Chief Brody from Jaws, in case you're wondering). At one point in the evening, Jess decided to throw a horror movie on in the background, settling on The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. However, when I noticed that she was talking about the 2003 remake, I badgered her into not putting it on, and in the fallout, no one could settle on an appropriate movie. This says two things. 1) I am not much of a party guest. And, 2) my reputation as a remake hater precedes me. Granted, I do generally roll my eyes at the thought of an idea-starved Hollywood throwing more and more of my childhood favourites into the Platinum Dunes meat grinder. But, that being said, there are a number of horror remakes that I do enjoy, and some that I downright adore, even more than the originals that inspired them. I even find myself looking forward to 2013's remakes of Carrie and The Evil Dead--the former because of the talent involved, the latter because of the back-to-basics approach and wild gore seen in the film's red-band trailer. So, in the interest of proving that I'm not just a snobby old-school purist, here are ten horror remakes that I would happily recommend, in no particular order.

DAWN OF THE DEAD (2004): Zack Snyder's ultra-grim, fast-moving variant on George Romero's 1978 masterpiece ditches the original's biting consumerist satire, and is most definitely the poorer for it. But this update switches out social commentary for new spins on the zombie apocalypse setting, like the friendly game of "Spot-The-Celebrity-Zombie-Lookalike" and the much-maligned, but frankly scarier, running ghouls. Snyder's spin on the material lacks the dramatic weight of the original, but it's still a gory, hair-raising crowd pleaser.

FRIGHT NIGHT (2011): I still prefer the 1985 original with William Ragsdale, Roddy McDowall, and Chris Sarandon, but that doesn't mean I didn't get a kick out of Anton Yelchin, David Tennant, and Colin Ferrell in this Las Vegas-set revamp (ouch!). The sharp script by Buffy vet Marti Noxon wisely maintains the original's tongue-in-cheek tone, and the 3D in the theatrical release was surprisingly effective. The '11 version loses points for its reliance on CGI over practical effects, but gains them for Ferrell's sly turn as a himbo bloodsucker named, of all things, Jerry.

THE THING (1982): What modern-day horror fan doesn't love John Carpenter's gooey, apocalyptic update of the Cold War classic? Besides featuring Rob Bottin's most accomplished effects work, the '82 model also features a bearded Kurt Russell at his most badass, and has one of the cinema's great bleak endings. You could argue that this is merely a new, more faithful adaptation of the short story "Who Goes There?" By John Campbell, which inspired the 1951 version as well, but as long as we all agree to skip the unfortunate 2011 version, we'll all get along just fine.

DRACULA (1979): As I said about The Thing above, John Badham's romanticized take on the classic chiller is also a new adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel more than it's a remake (well, technically, it's an adaptation of the stage play version, as was the 1931 Lugosi film). It's also the first version of the Dracula story I ever saw on screen, when CTV debuted it during prime time in the early Eighties, and it remains my favourite take on the material. Frank Langella, magnetic in the role of the legendary Count, headlines an impressive cast that features Laurence Olivier, Donald Pleasance, and Kate Nelligan, and John Williams' elegant score is one of his unsung masterpieces.

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978): The 1956 original Don Siegel film is still a white-knuckle classic of Cold War paranoia, but Phillip Kaufman's reimagining of the Jack Finney novel remains one of the scariest tales of alien terror ever made. Kaufman's film stars Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Leonard Nimoy, a very young Jeff Goldblum, and perpetual extraterrestrial hysteric Veronica Cartwright. Substituting Communist hysteria with New Age psychobabble, the '78 version unfolds with an air of inescapable dread, ending with one of the most downbeat final images of the genre. And no, I'm not just talking about Sutherland's perm-and-moustache combo, either.

LET ME IN (2010): The only movie more doomed to fan derision than a remake of a beloved horror movie is a remake of a beloved foreign-language horror movie. The Swedish original, 2008's Let The Right One In, is a deeply affecting tale of doomed adolescent love, but I think I prefer Matt Reeves' Americanized redo just a bit more. Chloe Grace-Moretz is commanding as the forever-young vampire, and the always-great Richard Jenkins is heartbreaking as her past-his-prime human protector. The New Mexico setting adds an interesting layer of guilty history to the story (this is, after all, where the atomic bomb was built), and the crash filmed from the inside of the car is a show-stopping sequence.

THE HILLS HAVE EYES (2006): I've never been much of a fan of Wes Craven's 1977 original, which sees an extended family battling their cracked-mirror reflections in the form of a hillbilly clan mutated by atomic testing in the desert. But Alexandre Aja's supersick update is leaner, meaner, and much scarier. By the time this movie hit theatres, deformed white-trash villains were becoming more than a little cliche, but Aja uses the remote setting to make them terrifying all over again. And the final showdown, set in a 1950s-style, mannequin-inhabited mock neighbourhood built to be nuked, is inspired.

THE BLOB (1988): The scariest thing about the 1958 original might be the theme song by Burt Bacharach, so writer Frank Darabont and director Chuck Russell had their work cut out for them. The '88 Blob goes the '82 Thing route, filling its running time with scene after scene of highly imaginative gore. The new-model alien glop doesn't just consume its victims, it corrodes them, and will stop at nothing to continue feeding--pulling victims through drains, manholes, walls, even crushing them inside phone booths. There's also a cool new government-paranoia-inspired twist on the Blob's origins, and a nifty final scene that sets up a sequel which, sadly, never happened.

PIRANHA (2010): Calling Alexandre Aja's (him again!) gleefully gory 3D offering a remake of Joe Dante's 1978 drive-in favourite might be a bit charitable. Other than the toothsome antagonists, the two films have very little in common. Whereas Dante's Roger Corman-produced original unleashed the title carnivores (the product of genetic weapons research conducted for river warfare in Vietnam) on a summer camp full of unsuspecting children, Aja's film lets the evil little fishies (here, prehistoric creatures released from an underwater fissure) loose on a phalanx of bikini-clad Spring Breakers. As a result, the refreshingly R-rated movie has boobs and blood in equal measure, plus an Eighties-friendly cast that includes Elizabeth Shue, Christopher Lloyd, and Richard Dreyfuss in a cameo nod to his iconic Jaws role.

THE FLY (1986): I actually haven't watched David Cronenberg's remake of the 1958 sci-fi classic in years, and I'm a little afraid to--I've seen a lot of disgusting movies in my day, but none are as quite as stomach-churning as this one is. Part tragic romance between winning leads Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, part STD-allegory (Cronenberg's film landed during the early years of the AIDS crisis), all flesh-crawling body horror, The Fly set a new standard for animatronics, gore effects and the science of accidentally turning lab monkeys inside out. The 1989 sequel starring Eric Stoltz and Daphne Zuniga may have even been more gory, but it lacks the heartbreaking human drama at the centre of Cronenberg's original.

Fright Night (2011)

Might as well get used to it—remakes, like CGI effects, Photoshopped movie posters, and Michael Bay movies, are here to stay. Original ideas are obviously preferred, but in the meantime, you can always bet that some studio or other is in the process of reimagining Your Cherished Childhood Favourite Movie this very minute. Once you’ve accepted that fact, it makes it a lot easier to dole out praise when a remake is done right, like Craig Gillespie’s slick, witty Fright Night. The 2011 model retains the basic setup and tongue-in-cheek flavour of Tom Holland’s 1985 original (see my review here), while adding enough of its own flourishes to justify its existence.



This time out, Charley Brewster (Anton Yelchin) lives in a prefab suburb of Las Vegas, where he begins to suspect that his buff douche of a neighbour, Jerry Dandridge (Colin Farrell) is a bloodsucker. At first, Charley’s too busy having a girlfriend (Imogen Poots—think Scarlett Johansson’s little sister) for the first time in his life to listen to the theories of his cast-aside nerd pal Evil Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) when a surprising number of neighbours and classmates start disappearing. However, it’s not long before Charley is convinced that Jerry is a vampire, and his only recourse is to try and recruit Vegas-based occult stage performer Peter Vincent (former Doctor Who David Tennant) to help him slay his quite literal neighbour from hell.



Written by Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s Marti Noxon, the new Fright Night is most definitely a post-Buffy vamp spin, with lots of rapid banter and modern flair. Setting the film just outside Las Vegas is an inspired touch—Jerry has his pick of a mostly-transient population that sleeps all day and is looking to party after sundown. Changing the character of Peter Vincent from a late-night horror host to a Vegas entertainer seemed like an awkward fit at first, but David Tennant sells it well, crossbreeding Criss Angel with Russell Brand for a refreshingly foulmouthed performance. Tennant’s Vincent is largely absent from much of the film’s advertising, but that’s a good thing—it’s better to discover the unexpected layers of this character within the movie rather than in a trailer. Anton Yelchin is a solid fit as Charley, bringing a lot more depth and personality to a character that was pretty one-dimensional in the 1985 original (sorry, William Ragsdale—not your fault, but the original Charley was a bit under-written). The real star of the show, though, is Colin Farrell, who, like Chris Sarandon before him, looks to be having the time of his life playing Jerry Dandridge. Farrell’s vamp is just as much at home lounging in an easy chair, drinking a beer and watching one of the Real Housewives spinoffs, as he is when he’s tearing the throat out of a stripper. He and Yelchin have a great antagonistic chemistry too—one highlight is an early scene where Jerry hovers, uninvited, outside the door to Charley’s kitchen, trying to tease out an invite that is not forthcoming any time soon. Craig Gillespie’s sure-footed direction maintains the suspense—especially in a claustrophobic night attack on the Brewster family minivan that recalls both Children Of Men and Spielberg’s War Of The Worlds—while maintaining the just-shy-of-comedic tone that this new Fright Night shares with its predecessor. And, even though the whole 3D gimmick is beyond tired, the effect works quite well in a number of scenes, especially when vampires explode in a shower of cindery sparks. If all remakes were pulled off this effectively…well, I’m sure I’d still complain about it (the trailer for the 2011 redo of The Thing had me gnashing my teeth before the movie started), but maybe a bit less so. In any event, though, Fright Night is that rare horror remake that may not be necessarily better than the original, but it still definitely doesn’t suck.

Fright Night (1985)

The 1985 Fright Night is the kind of movie that was perfect for repeat cable viewing and multiple VHS rentals in the mid-Eighties. It appears to have been aimed squarely and expertly at the kids of the day (speaking from experience, it hit the target pretty much dead on). It’s scary, it’s funny, it’s gross, it’s titillating but not too titillating--I think there’s maybe one topless shot--and there’s exactly one f-bomb. It wants to scare you and make you laugh. Largely, this vamped-up riff on Rear Window succeeds at doing both.



Charlie Brewster (William Ragsdale) is an average suburban kid who suspects that his new neighbour, the inoffensively named Jerry Dandridge, might be a vampire. Charlie is so average, in fact, that he appears to have almost no personality whatsoever--his only motivations in life appear to be a) finally getting to home base with his girlfriend Amy (Amanda Bearse, best known from Married With Children), and b) exposing Jerry for the bloodsucker he is. Shortly after Jerry and his “live-in carpenter” Billy Cole (Jonathan Stark) move in to the neighbourhood, reports of dead prostitutes start popping up in the nightly news—dead prostitutes last seen alive making out with a fanged Jerry across the way. An increasingly desperate Charlie recruits his weirdo pal Evil Ed (Stephen Geoffreys) and faded horror movie star and late night shriek-show host Peter Vincent (Roddy MacDowall) to help him slay the vamp. Vincent is obviously skeptical at first, but when he realizes Jerry doesn’t cast a reflection in the mirror, he has to put his Hollywood vampire-killing skills to the test for real.



Fright Night was written and directed by Tom Holland, screenwriter of Psycho II and writer/director of Child’s Play, and it’s the best showcase for his particular mix of humour and horror. Holland layers in a bit of suburban homosexual dread—Billy is obviously Renfield to Jerry’s Dracula, but it’s strongly hinted that they might also be lovers. Certainly in the buttoned-down, Reagan-era suburbia of the film, the possibility that the new neighbours might be gay could be just as terrifying to Charlie as the possibility that they might be vampires. The effects by Richard Edlund (Raiders Of The Lost Ark) are delightfully gooey—the high points are Billy’s green-slime meltdown on the stairs, Vampire Amy’s freakishly toothsome maw, and Evil Ed’s transformation back from wolf to man. The latter is a surprisingly startling and unnerving sequence, in no small part due to the inspired sound design that mixes human and animal noises to squirmy effect. Chris Sarandon plays Jerry as a sinister, immortal dandy, and he appears to be having a blast with the role. Roddy MacDowall shines as Peter Vincent, alternately embittered and terrified (his movie-within-a-movie scenes are a treat too—watch as his onscreen alter ego brazenly wields a wooden stake with the pointy end facing the wrong way). However, it’s Stephen Geoffreys as Evil Ed who steals the show. He’s like a jittery, screechy-voiced, baby Jack Nicholson, all nervous laughter and twitchy tics. Fright Night is by no means a classic—the pacing near the conclusion is especially creaky, consisting of a lot of Charlie and Peter having to first run up, then down, then back up the stairs of Jerry’s house—but it’s a fun snapshot of the crest of the horror boom in the 1980s, right before endless slasher sequels starting sucking the fun out of the genre.