Horror movie remakes are ten a penny in Hollywood. Some of them are even good.
For every The Wicker Man (yuck) reboot there’s a The Fly or a Nosferatu (x2) to restore your faith in the reboot process.
The recently released I Know What You Did Last Summer, is more of a sequel than a full on reboot, despite sharing an identical name to the original (come on guys, life is confusing enough). But it got us to thinking about the subject all over again.
We’ve already written about some of the best horror movie remakes ever made, so we decided to take a different tack this time around.
These are some of the horror remakes and reboots that either haven’t yet been made and really should, or are due yet another treatment.
Tourist Trap
This sorely overlooked 1979 slasher is ripe for a modern reboot, if only to gain the source material (from the director of Puppet Master) a wider audience. To that end, we’d be quite happy with a relatively straight refresh that captures the ‘creepy puppets come to life’ concept of the original – preferably with some better acting from the human cattle. In the original, Chuck Connors plays the sinister Mr. Slausen, who uses his mysterious telekinetic powers to animate a bunch of waxwork models and terrorise a group of friends.
![They Live (1988) ORIGINAL TRAILER [HD 1080p] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/PeB3vdxF_jM/maxresdefault.jpg)
They Live
An American drifter receives a pair of special sunglasses that reveal the world as it really is – one ruled by a cadre of sinister aliens who use subliminal messages in advertising to encourage compliance. If that doesn’t speak to our paranoid, conspiracy theory-drenched times, we don’t know what does. Hopefully a modern take would double down on the knowing humour alongside the overt political messaging. We’d also like to petition for John Cena to get the starring role, in keeping with the 1988 original’s inspired use of pro wrestler Rowdy Roddy Piper.
Phantasm
As one of the best horror movies of the 1970s, we’re surprised that someone hasn’t attempted to remake Don Coscarelli's Phantasm already. Perhaps it’s because the source material is so very weird and thematically jumbled. Its antagonist, the Tall Man, is a supernatural mortician who stalks his prey through means both arcane and technological, while the film’s dream logic-evoking sequences often resemble a particularly bad trip. Perhaps the most interesting thing about a prospective remake is that we have no idea how a modern director might tackle it.
Pumpkinhead
Recent years have seen rumours emerge of a Pumpkinhead reboot going into production. Until we see its reanimated form shuffling onto our cinema screens, however, we’re going to treat such tittle tattle with a level of disdain usually reserved for randy teenagers in horror movies. Stan Winston’s 1988 monster flick is a cult favourite, with the director’s background in special effects really showing through in the inventive design of the titular demon, as well as the practical artistry employed to depict its vengeful rampage.
The Thing
We realise we’re dicing with heresy here, as The Thing is widely adored and still stands up to scrutiny to this day. And no, it isn’t already a remake – just a more faithful adaptation of John W. Campbell Jr.’s 1938 novella than 1951’s The Thing from Another World. This paranoid suspense horror about the crew of a remote antarctic base encountering a shape-shifting alien would play well in these troubled, suspicious times. So long as the director learns a lesson from the original’s effective use of practical gross-out effects, we’d be all in.
Tremors
There have been a number of shoddy low-budget sequels to Ron Underwood’s 1990 B-movie, and we all know what needs to be done on such occasions. Wipe the slate clean with a reboot, if only to introduce a whole new generation to the joys of the Tremors concept. In case you missed it, that is: giant man-eating land-whales that burrow underground and pull people down from below. The original movie features a near-perfect balance of schlock, action, and breezy humour, and also happens to star a fresh-faced Kevin Bacon. It’d take some beating, but we’re willing for someone to try.
Rosemary's Baby
There have been various murmurings of a Rosemary’s Baby remake over the years, but all we got was a four hour miniseries starring Zoe Saldaña back in 2014. A clean slate cinematic outing is surely called for given that the original adaptation of Ira Levin's novel dates back to 1968, not to mention the baggage that accompanies original director Roman Polanski. Besides all that, the sophisticated psychological edge of the source material, in which a young pregnant woman comes to suspect that she is carrying the antichrist, is ripe for a modern spin.
The Blob
The Blob is another horror movie that has already received a remake. Given that said remake came in 1988, however, we reckon it’s due another revisit. That initial second attempt came 30 years after the seminal 1958 original, and it’s been closer to 40 years since then. You have to imagine that a modern CGI-enhanced take could do better justice to the concept of a gloopy alien interloper that gets bigger and bigger the more people it eats.
The Birds
A cursory Google suggests that a remake of Alfred Hitchock’s 1963 classic was in production back in 2022, with Scarlett Johansson being targeted for the lead role. Regardless of the veracity of that rumour, we would wholeheartedly approve of such a production. Based on a Daphne du Maurier short story, the original is a deeply unsettling tale of nature inexplicably rising up against complacent humankind. The potential for a modern take with a strong ecological message is almost too obvious to mention, but doesn’t become any less appealing for that fact.
Night of the Living Dead
So here’s a question: why did George A. Romero’s 1978 zombie movie Dawn of the Dead get the reboot treatment, and not the previous franchise starter, Night of the Living Dead? There’s a simple answer to that: it did. The fact that this remake was released way back in 1990, and was coolly received to the point that many won’t recall its existence, suggests that a proper modern retelling is in order. Especially given that interest in zombie movies (and associated media) simply. Will. Not. Die.
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