You used to hear the refrain from horror film fanatics with a lot more frequency – the original was so much scarier.
And while this is still true to some degree (the films of John Carpenter have been remade with an oddly uniform lousiness), there are still plenty of horror films that have been remade well. Sometimes the remakes are just as good as the original. In rare cases, it even surpasses the original.
Here is our definitive list of the very best horror remakes ever.
“Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1978)
Don Siegel’s 1956 classic “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” is based on Jack Finney’s story “The Body Snatchers,” which was serialized in Collier’s in 1954 and published as a novel shortly after, has been remade several times over the years. But the very best iteration is still the 1978 version, the first since Siegel’s, from director Philip Kaufman and writer W.D. Richter.
Kaufman wisely contemporizes the Cold War fears of the original, setting the movie in the hippie-dippy, free-love San Francisco of the 1970s and turning post-Watergate paranoia into bone-chilling scariness as an alien invasion starts replacing people. Donald Sutherland plays a health department official who starts to uncover the conspiracy, leading an all-star cast that also includes a young Jeff Goldblum, Brooke Adams, Veronica Cartwright and Art Hindle, with Leonard Nimoy turning in an odd, seductive turn as a psychiatrist and borderline guru. (Keep in mind there was an actual man named Dr. Spock who was a parenting guide and left-wing agitator in the 1970s.) Sexy, strange and deeply funny, the ‘70s “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” is an absolute triumph. When the movie was released, Variety said that it “validates the entire concept of remakes.”
The original story was adapted two more times after Kaufman’s ingenious version – 1993’s “Body Snatchers” and 2007’s “The Invasion” — the latter written by David Kajganich, whose new version of “Suspiria” can be found elsewhere on this list. “Body Snatchers,” directed by Abel Ferrara and written by Stuart Gordon, Dennis Paoli and frequent Ferrara collaborator Nicholas St. John, is the winner of the two latter iterations, setting the alien invasion on a military base and adding a weird sexual element. It’s been a while – we need a new “Body Snatchers” movie stat!
“Cat People” (1982)
“Cat People,” the Val Lewton-produced, Jacques Tourneur-directed feature from 1942, is a low-budget gem, the kind of movie that seems like the title came first, with the movie backward-engineered from there — because that’s exactly what happened.
Paul Schrader, who had just written “Raging Bull” and written and directed “American Gigolo,” is, at first, a lefthanded choice for director. But “Cat People” plays expertly into the filmmaker’s obsession with sexual power dynamics and the unprocessed id hiding just beneath the surface. Of course, these thematic concerns are made quite literal as Nastassja Kinski deals with the ancient animal lurking within. Malcolm McDowell matches her freak as her equally uninhibited brother, with John Heard, Ruby Dee and Annette O’Toole rounding out the cast.
“Cat People” is beautifully, unabashedly ‘80s – it has a slinky electronic score by Giorgio Moroder, features tons of full-frontal nudity and was executive produced by Jerry Bruckheimer – just look at its poster. But this is a feature, not a bug. (The Moroder/David Bowie theme song that plays over the closing credits was reconstituted for Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds.”) Imagine this movie being made today, stuffed with incest and ethereal surrealism. Would never happen. It could have only happened then. And we are so lucky to have it.
“The Thing” (1982)
A remake of Howard Hawks “The Thing From Another World”, based on the 1938 novella “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell, Jr., was attempted for years with various filmmakers coming and going (including Tobe Hooper with his “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” collaborator Kim Henkel, whose “Moby Dick”-like pitch was partially set underwater, and John Landis). Eventually, John Carpenter boarded the project, coming off a string of successful low-budget thrillers, including “Halloween” and “Escape from New York,” utilizing a screenplay by “The Bad News Bears” writer Bill Lancaster that he proclaimed the best script he’d ever read.
Carpenter upped the intensity, turning the movie into an Agatha Christie-style whodunnit, upping the gross-out creature effects, and suffusing it with choking, almost unbearable dread. The original film had a single creature, visualized as an actor in an unconvincing rubber costume. Carpenter’s creature, realized by make-up wizard Rob Bottin, is a shape-shifting nightmare that can be anything or anyone. Carpenter surrogate Kurt Russell stars as a helicopter pilot working at an Antarctic research center who uncovers a UFO stuck in the frozen tundra that soon unleashes a vicious alien force. The other researchers are played by character actor favorites Keith David, Wilford Brimley and Richard Masur, among others.
“The Thing” was released less than a month after the cuddly intergalactic companionship of “E.T.” and critics were not amused. Vincent Canby’s dismissive New York Times review said it was a “foolish, depressing, overproduced movie that mixes horror with science fiction to make something that is fun as neither one thing or the other.” In the years since, however, the movie has been rightly reclassified as one of Carpenter’s very best films, an ahead-of-its-time masterpiece whose themes of distrust and paranoia are even more powerful today. It has also served to inspire a crummy prequel (also called “The Thing”), an iconic episode of “The X-Files” (“Ice”) and Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight,” which also cast Russell, trapped a bunch of scumbags in a single place and even borrowed unused passages from Ennio Morricone’s moody score.
“The Thing” will never die.
Another 1950s drive-in favorite got a technological update in 1982 when David Cronenberg remade 1958’s delightfully silly “The Fly.” Both were based on a 1957 short story by George Langelaan that was published in Playboy magazine. Cronenberg’s approach was much more serious – the gradual mutation of genius scientist Seth Brundle (a perfectly cast Jeff Goldblum) into a hideous fly-creature following an accident in his teleportation pods, has been used as a metaphoric stand-in for everything from cancer to dementia to the burgeoning AIDS epidemic. (Cronenberg has shied away from direct comparisons.)
At its heart, the movie is a tender, tragic romance, with Brundle’s girlfriend, a journalist (Gena Davis), being forced to watch her lover waste away. (John Getz, in perfect ‘80s bad guy mode, is her slippery boss and former beau.) Cronenberg’s film is breathlessly paced and ruthlessly efficient, with the director working with many of his key collaborators, including cinematographer Mark Irwin, composer Howard Shore and make-up artist Chris Walas, (who won an Oscar for his work on “The Fly”), all of whom were working at the top of their game.
The resulting film is as heartbreaking as it is horrifying, something that resonated with critics (the Los Angeles Times proclaimed it an “artful remake of a tacky 1958 classic”) and audiences alike. A sequel, directed by Walas, was released in 1989 and a subsequent sequel, called “Flies,” championed by Davis and her then-husband Renny Harlin, was also developed in the 1990s. In the years since, another remake was tinkered with and Cronenberg himself periodically brings up his idea for a sequel — he already produced a live opera based on the film. Somewhere in Hollywood, another reboot is buzzing.
10 Must-See Horror Movies for Gen Z
“The Blob” (1988)
Thirty years after the 1958 original, filmmaker Chuck Russell turned “The Blob” into a special effects-laden phantasmagoria and one of the very best horror movies of the 1980s. It follows the general set-up of the original film, with a meteor crash-landing in a small American town and unleashing a gluttonous goo that gobbles people up. It also maintains the original’s interest in teenage culture (Steve McQueen, damn near 30, played a high schooler in the original), with Kevin Dillon as a kid from the wrong side of the tracks who is very right about the seriousness of the titular amoeba. But almost everything else has been updated, expanded and enhanced.
“The Blob” is, above all, a marvel of practical special effects, designed by the great Tony Gardner, with a number of iconic death sequences and set pieces built around the blob’s awesome destructive power. (A personal favorite is a moment when a character trapped in a phone booth not only discovers that another character has been consumed by the blob, but soon becomes a victim of it themselves.) Russell and his co-writer, future “Shawshank Redemption” filmmaker Frank Darabont, wisely never allow the threat to become too big and they even give themselves an out, should a “Blob” sequel be called upon. (It never was.)
Janet Maslin’s review for The New York Times said that the updated version was “more violent than the original, more spectacular, more cynical, more patently commercial and more attentive to detail.” In the years since its release, it has become a “they don’t make them like that anymore” favorite, a hand-crafted gross-out triumph of ingenuity and technical prowess.
Beware “The Blob.” But also embrace it.
“Psycho” (1998)
Arguably the most polarizing movie on this list, Gus Van Sant’s shot-for-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic is one of the boldest formal experiments in the history of mainstream cinema. This is what he chose to do with the unlimited freedom afforded him by the success of “Good Will Hunting.” God bless him.
Vince Vaughn stood in for Anthony Perkins, Anne Heche did her best Janet Leigh and Julianne Moore took over for Vera Miles. They said the same lines. Stood in the same places in the frame. But the movie had a very different tone and mood. Some of this had to do with the exemplary set design and costuming, which modernized the same elements from the original while feeling very much a part of Van Sant’s filmography; some of it had to do with the fact that the movie was now in (garish) color, courtesy of Wong Kar Wai’s go-to cinematographer Christopher Doyle; and then there were the little flourishes that Van Sant added – flashes inside of Norman Bates’ mind, a more explicit take on the shower scene and a truncated finale.
At the time, the film was accused of nothing less than cinematic necrophilia. But in the years since, the movie has (rightfully) achieved a begrudging appreciation, happily accepted by filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh (who made a fan film intercutting moments from the original and Van Sant’s remake) and some who dismissed it initially. Such a heated response deserves a nice cold shower.
“The Ring” (2002)
The early 2000s saw a run of Westernized remakes of Japanese horror sensations (this won’t be the last on our list), but the very best is still Gore Verbinski’s redo of “The Ring.” The original 1998 film, directed by Hideo Nakata and based on the 1991 novel by Koji Suzuki, was a sensation. And for good reason. It’s scary as shit. Verbinski wisely maintained the conceit of the original, which concerned a haunted videotape that must be shown to three people or the original viewer will die, along with the image that scared an entire country (a ghostly little girl crawling out of a television to claim her victim) without much reinvention.
Naomi Watts plays a dogged journalist trying to discover the truth about the videotape and the curse itself, with Martin Henderson as her ex-husband. (Hilariously Daveigh Chase, who voiced Lilo in “Lilo & Stitch” that same year, plays the terrifying little girl Samara.) Verbinski was a master visual stylist, even then, creating a mood and atmosphere every bit as terrifying and singular as what the original film accomplished.
The film is also a product of judicious post-production, as the original version of the remake had much more sprawl – there was an entire subplot where Chris Cooper played a child murderer that is completely absent from the final film and a sequence that suggested the tape had been available in a video rental store – maintaining the core elements of the original film while sharply updating the textures was all that “The Ring” really needed. And it’s all the better off because of it.
2002 was probably the last year a movie about a cursed videotape could have been made (a malignant DVD doesn’t have quite the same oomph). The movie was such a hit that it inspired countless spoofs and a pair of so-so sequels, with Nakata coming back to helm “The Ring Two.” But they lack the velveteen spookiness of Verbinski’s take.
“Willard” (2003)
“Willard” is the ideal source material for a modernized remake – based on “Ratman’s Notebooks” by Stephen Gilbert, the original film from 1972 and its sequel, “Ben,” released the following year, are so-so movies with a premise intriguing enough to withstand contemporized reinvention. This new take on the material was handled by Glen Morgan, who wrote and directed, and James Wong, who produced; a creative team that worked on some of the more iconic episodes of “The X-Files” and made movies like “Final Destination” and “The One.”
The title character is played by Crispin Glover, a man who has a closer relationship with animals than he does with humans – his elderly mother (Jackie Burroughs) berates him and his boss (R. Lee Ermey) is even more abusive. (He has a crush on his beautiful coworker, played by “Mulholland Drive” standout Laura Harring.) Willard is a weirdo, for sure, but in Glover’s capable hands, he’s a three-dimensional character, one who experiences pain, loss and disappointment. The rats he loves are an extension of himself, of the rage and sadness he holds inside. Not that “Willard” is without its more, er, primal pleasures. While somewhat neutered by a PG-13 rating (it would have been just as much of a box office disappointment with an R), it still manages to give us the goods, as in an extended sequence where the rats chase down a cat that Harring has given Willard.
And that’s the other thing about “Willard” – the level of animal acting that these rats are capable of is really something. (Yes, there is some CGI, but it’s used sparingly.) “Willard” serves as proof that no matter how iffy the source material is, a great remake is still possible. With or without dozens of live rats.
“Dawn of the Dead” (2004)
There are few horror movies as perfect as George A. Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead.” A sequel of sorts to his “Night of the Living Dead,” released a decade before, it was, among other things, a takedown of American consumerism (on the cusp of Reaganomics) and a huge, full-bodied action film about a group of zombie survivors taking refuge in a shopping mall. Of course, their new normal is soon disrupted not only by the shambling undead but also by a group of chaotic bikers.
Sold at the time as a “re-envisioning,” the 2004 “Dawn of the Dead” was written by James Gunn and directed, in his feature debut, by Zack Snyder. In many ways, it’s still Snyder’s very best movie, a rip-snorting reimagining with a stellar cast (that includes Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Mekhi Phifer and Ty Burrell) and enough surprises to keep the fun going. Gunn wisely chose not to be slavishly devoted to the original movie. There are some new gross-out gags, too, along with the zombies taking on the fast-moving style of Danny Boyle’s “28 Days Later,” as opposed to Romero’s shambling undead. Thankfully, the social commentary of Romero’s original is kept intact, with 2004 probably the last time in American history to set something like this in a mall.
Snyder would return to the zombie genre with Netflix’s “Army of the Dead,” described by some as a “spiritual successor” to his “Dawn of the Dead” (and initially developed by the same team). But without Gunn’s whip-smart script and knack for pacing, it was somewhat lacking.
“Dark Water” (2005)
The glut of 2000s horror movies based on Asian horror movies – among them, Verbinski’s excellent “The Ring” — also included the pretty good new version of “The Grudge” (helmed by original director Takashi Shimizu) and mostly forgettable fare like “One Missed Call,” “The Eye,” “Shutter” and “The Uninvited,” an unconvincing update of South Korean horror movie “A Tale of Two Sisters.” One of the very best, most underappreciated of this crop was “Dark Water,” directed by Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles.
Based on the 2002 movie of the same name, which was directed by original “Ring” director Hideo Nakata (itself based on a 1996 collection of stories by Koji Suzuki), the new “Dark Water” follows a recently divorced mother (Jennifer Connelly), who moves with her young daughter to an apartment on Roosevelt Island.
Smartly adapted by novelist and screenwriter Rafael Yglesias, “Dark Water” is filled with world-class character actors like John C. Reilly, Tim Roth and Pete Postlethwaite, maintaining the original movie’s sense of mood and atmosphere (and bummer ending) and adding new layers of creepiness, including a haunting score by regular David Lynch collaborator Angelo Badalamenti. Still somewhat underrated, “Dark Water” is ripe for rediscovery.
“Sorority Row” (2009)
“The House on Sorority Row,” a fairly scuzzy 1982 slasher movie, is the perfect movie to be adapted for modern audiences. The central conceit of the new “Sorority Row” is fairly straightforward and maintains much of the original story, with sorority sisters getting picked off one by one after they were involved in a fatal prank a few months earlier. But screenwriters Pete Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg (who will make another appearance on this list) and director Stewart Hendler wisely inject some much-needed humor, leading to a movie that gets as many laughs as it does screams (a pitch-perfect Carrie Fisher plays a cranky housemother).
Everything about “Sorority Row” is almost painfully 2009 – the cast includes Audrina Patridge from “The Hills” (she’s not bad) and the soundtrack includes jams from Franz Ferdinand, Dragonette and Ladytron. But it’s also a movie that really, really works, with more sex and violence than the tamer slashers of the time. And while the movie was a mild success when it was first released, it has become something of a cult favorite in the years since. It was even played during a recent horror movie film festival at Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly movie theater.
We pledge “Sorority Row.” Always.
“Let Me In” (2010)
Few horror remakes have been turned around as quickly as the English-language version of “Let the Right One In,” the low-key Swedish sensation that was released in 2008. The remake rights were actually acquired by Hammer Films, the British film institute whose swinging, color horror movies were the lurid counterpart to Universal’s more stately horror favorites. They were trying to return to the big leagues but have gone quiet since, but“Let Me In” really should have put them back on the map.
Directed by Matt Reeves, who would go on to direct two “Planet of the Apes” installments and “The Batman,” the remake relocates the setting of Tomas Alfredson’s original film (and John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel) to Los Alamos, New Mexico but retains the 1980’s time period. (Reeves said he was intrigued by the city’s density of geniuses.) Otherwise, he keeps the original’s odd friendship/love story between an awkward young boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and the ageless vampire who looks like a little girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) pretty much intact, even borrowing shots and sequences from the original. But Reeves’ film is more ginger, thoughtful, sorrowful and stranger. And he wisely lost the subplot about another new vampire, including the laughable CGI cat attack sequence.
Reeves is aided in his cause by cinematographer Greig Fraser and composer Michael Giacchino, who both give exceptional work. While the movie was a disappointment, Stephen King called it the greatest horror film of the past 20 years and it was warmly reviewed by the New York Times and Roger Ebert. The original was a great film and the remake was a great film. How rare is that?
“Piranha” (2010)
French filmmaker Alexandre Aja found himself in the big of a remaking jag, applying his distinct sensibilities to Wes Craven’s “The Hills Have Eyes” and Japanese horror film “Mirrors.” These are good movies. But he really hit it out of the park with “Piranha 3D.”
It’s based on the 1978 film by Joe Dante and written by John Sayles as a kind of cheap-o rip-off of “Jaws,” produced by low-budget titan Roger Corman. (It was adapted once before, as part of a suite of Showtime movies based on Corman classics.) Aja moves the action from Texas to Lake Victoria, Arizona, and changes the titular aquatic threat from a military-engineered super-weapon to a race of ancient fish. (The original was very much made in the shadow of Vietnam.) The screenplay, by the “Sorority Row” duo of Pete Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg similarly injects a humorous slant, from Jerry O’Connell shooting a “Girls Gone Wild”-style documentary to an appearance by Christopher Lloyd as a Doc Brown-style fish expert. But the greatest aspect of the rejuvenated “Piranha” is that Aja uses the movie as an excuse to critique American culture and its tendencies towards extreme excess, which culminates in a climactic bloodbath that puts the opening of “Saving Private Ryan” to shame. Aja is just as adept at suspense set pieces, building tension to an almost unbearable degree.
At 88 minutes, too, it never outstays its welcome. And while you can no longer enjoy the sight of O’Connell’s severed penis floating towards you in eye-popping 3D, “Piranha” remains an unsung classic of deliriously over-the-top proportions.
“Fright Night” (2011)
An update of “Fright Night” left us skeptical. The 1985 original, written and directed by Tom Holland, is a low-key classic, the kind of movie that plays like gangbusters at sleepovers and in late-night cable airings. (The sequel is also very good but was barely released, largely due to the murder of José Menéndez – seriously, look it up.)
The remake maintains the original’s sense of mystery, with Anton Yelchin as the young man who becomes convinced that his next-door neighbor (Colin Farrell, taking over for Chris Sarandon) is a vampire and seeks the advice of Peter Vincent (David Tennant taking over for Roddy McDowall), now a Las Vegas magician (instead of a late night horror host). Originally released in 3D but eye-popping no matter what format you watch it in, the script was updated by “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” veteran Marti Noxon and directed by journeyman filmmaker Craig Gillespie (“I, Tonya”) with a helping hand from Steven Spielberg, who produced the movie and helped storyboard and edit the film.
The result is a low-key triumph, although one that barely made any money at the box office. (You got the sensation that Disney, distributing the movie through their Touchstone Pictures shingle, didn’t quite know how to properly market an R-rated horror comedy.) But time has already been kind to “Fright Night.” All that is missing is a 4K home video release from a fan-favorite boutique label. That’ll come soon enough. This movie is too good to be lost.
“The Town That Dreaded Sundown” (2014)
Bet you didn’t even know that there was a remake to Charles Pierce’s creepy-crawly 1976 movie, did you? (The original film was loosely based on real-life killings that happened in Texarkana in 1946.) That’s because the remake, smartly adapted by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and directed (with aplomb) by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl”) and produced by Ryan Murphy was hastily re-edited at the eleventh hour and barely released by Blumhouse and Orion Pictures.
It’s such a shame because the movie is so smart and so clever, a wild, metatextual slasher movie that incorporates the events of the 1946 killings and the original movie itself, to chart a brand new, knotty path. The movie has a killer cast (led by Addison Timlin and including Veronica Cartwright, Gary Cole, Joshua Leonard, Edward Herrmann, Anthony Anderson and Denis O’Hare), stunning cinematography by Michael Goi and a creepy score by future Oscar winner Ludwig Göransson.
“The Town That Dreaded Sundown” deserved to be the next “Scream.” Instead, it wound up as an oddball obscurity. But it always has the chance of becoming a cult classic. Let’s make it happen!
“Suspiria” (2018)
A remake of “Suspiria” was promised – maybe threatened in the right word — for a decade before the film was actually made. Dario Argento’s 1977 film of the same name, which followed a young American dancer (Jessica Harper) who trains at a ballet school run by witches, was regularly cited as one of the scariest movies ever made. After an attempt was made by David Gordon Green, (who would finally get his chance to take on a horror classic with his “Halloween” films and “The Exorcist: Believer,”) “Call Me by Your Name” and “Challengers” filmmaker Luca Guadagnino shepherded the remake to the screen.
For Guadagnino, his intent was simple: make a movie that felt like what it was like to watch the original. He wisely sidestepped the hallmarks of the 1977 version – where that film popped with vivid primary colors, his is doused in muted, autumnal hues; where that film featured little actual dancing, his borders on an outright musical (with music from Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, no less); where that film failed to engage with politics, his brings in everything from the Berlin wall to the Holocaust.
It’s a wide-ranging, expansive film, complete with chapter headings and Tilda Swinton playing several roles (including Dr. Josef Klemperer, a male Holocaust survivor). For a movie about a haunted ballet studio, it clocks in at a whopping 152 minutes. For some, it was all too much, particularly during the movie’s gruesome exploding-witches finale. But if you are tuned into Guadagnino’s very specific wavelength, it’s electrifying and deeply felt.
Dakota Johnson’s slinky, knowing performance as the dewy American prodigy, is one of her very best. And Guadagnino’s sensitive direction constitutes some of his greatest work, as the women in his story are complex, sad, frightened and frightening. At the time, the filmmaker said that he almost called the movie “Suspiria: Part One.” The movie ultimately didn’t make enough money to call for a sequel, recouping half of its budget. But the possibility of more “Suspiria” is endlessly fun to think about.
“Hellraiser” (2022)
A remake of 1987’s “Hellraiser,” and a fresh adaptation of “The Hellbound Heart,” a 1986 novella by horror legend Clive Barker, was in development since at least 2007. It was complicated by Dimension, run by Bob Weinstein, who insisted on releasing lousy sequels as a way of holding onto the rights. (They would sometimes just graft “Hellraiser” icon Pinhead into completely unrelated scripts as a way of maintaining the license.)
We finally got a new movie after Dimension was defunct. And what a movie it is. Director David Bruckner and writers Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski wisely jettison much of the chunky “Hellraiser” lore, instead focusing on a young woman (Odessa A’zion) who, while battling addiction, winds up with the demonic puzzle box that opens a gateway to hell. Bruckner also wisely cast Jamie Clayton, a spellbinding transgender actress, as the Priest, aka Pinhead. (That’s right, a lady Pinhead!) While this new “Hellraiser” doesn’t feel as transgressive and truly dangerous as Barker’s original, it is still scary and kinky and fun. It’s a shame that viewership wasn’t what it needed to be, because it would have been cool as hell to get several more movies with Clayton as Pinhead, under Bruckner’s stylish direction. Sigh.
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