Please Remake These Horror Movies
Okay, we know what you’re thinking. Aren’t there enough remakes out there, especially horror movie remakes? Yes indeed there are, and we wish to God Hollywood would come up with (gasp!) an original idea every once in a while.
At the same time, there are many horror flicks where there was a great idea in there, but the execution left a lot to be desired. If you’re a hardcore fan of B movies and ‘Mystery Science Theater,’ you’ve probably seen many films where you knew there was a better movie in there, but the execution was flawed. So with this in mind, here’s some horror flicks that we think should be remade.
- 1
'Frankenstein's Bloody Terror'
This is one of our childhood favorites, and we’d hate to run the risk of it being ruined, but it’s a great story idea that could be redone in old school gothic style, like the Universal classics. A man becomes a werewolf, and when desperately seeking a cure, the doctors hired to treat him are vampires who enslave his loved ones. ‘Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror’ was shot in 70mm, and by the way, long story, but there’s no Frankenstein in the film, but the werewolves and vampires more than make up for it.
- 2
'Eight Millimeter'
If you’ve ever read Andrew Kevin Walker’s first draft of ‘Eight Millimeter,’ which is easy to find online, it was a great script. How on earth anyone allowed Joel Schumacher to direct it is beyond our comprehension, but with an actual good director at the helm, and sticking with the first draft, a much creepier, scarier, and heartbreaking movie could have been made. Maybe not as good as ‘Se7en,’ the script that put Walker on the map, but certainly a worthy follow up.
- 3
'Sssssss'
Yes, that was the real title of a movie about a mad doctor who turns Dirk Benedict, star of the original ‘Battlestar Galactica,’ into a snake (The ad campaign told audiences to hiss it instead of trying to say it.) There were a couple of snake horror films in the seventies, but none of them really delivered, and a damn scary snake movie is a horror concept dying to be done right.
- 4
'Kingdom of the Spiders'
Speaking of scary horror concepts dying to be done right, we could really use a great spider movie. ‘Kingdom of the Spiders’ was a lot of fun; it starred the wonderfully hammy William Shatner and was a pretty inventive film considering it didn’t have a big budget. Even today, the story of a small town being overrun with killer spiders could be absolutely terrifying in the right hands; just use as many real spiders as you can and don’t go crazy with the CGI.
- 5
'Macabre'
Legendary B movie producer William Castle was famous for his gimmicks, and the gimmick of this movie was you were insured by Lloyds of London if you died of fright (thankfully, nobody collected.) Castle’s movies are great fun, and this one is about the race to find a child who’s buried alive before the air in her coffin runs out. It all resolves with some cool twists and turns at the end that could translate very nicely to a modern day horror remake today, and at one point ‘Macabre’ was slated to be remade with Robert Zemeckis directing.
- 6
'Vampyres'
Another favorite we’ve loved for years we'd hate to ruin the risk of being ruined -- but let’s face it, we haven’t had a great lesbian, vampire movie in a long time. This one, in our opinion, is the best, and we’re throwing down the gauntlet right now: we dare any modern horror director to come up with a greater lesbian vampire film. It may be impossible, like trying to come up with a shark film greater than ‘Jaws,’ but it’s been a long time and we’re long overdue for another lesbo vampire flick.
- 7
'Horror High'
This one haunted late night TV for many years, usually at two or four in the morning on local independent stations. It's also a great idea that we’re surprised Kevin Williamson hasn't tried yet: Jekyll and Hyde goes to high school. While much of this film is fairly schlocky, it has a surprisingly poignant ending, and in the right hands it could make a very sympathetic horror story against bullying, like ‘Carrie.’
- 8
'Fade to Black'
In our opinion, this is one of the best ideas for a horror film ever. A nerd who’s completely obsessed with movies, a la Tarantino, loses his grip on reality, and starts killing his enemies as famous movie characters. This one’s dying for a Tony Montana scene in which he screams, “Say hello to my little friend!,” before blasting one of the bullies who pushed him around. The subtext of this one is good too: Don’t spend your life doing nothing but watching movies and get a life. Speaking of Tarantino, ‘Fade to Black’ starred ‘Django Unchained’s’ Dennis Christopher, in an under-rated performance as the tormented film geek.
- 9
'The Thing With Two Heads'
A legendarily hilarious B-movie from the ‘70’s in which a dying, racist’s head is transplanted onto a black man’s body. ‘The Thing With Two Heads’ was a take on ‘The Defiant Ones,’ in which a black prisoner played by Sidney Poitier is chained to Tony Curtis, and they have to learn to get along after they break out of jail. We feel ‘The Thing With Two Heads’ is dying to be remade as a comedy, and it could be really outrageous with the right two guys.
- 10
'New Year's Evil'
After ‘Halloween’ and ‘Friday the 13th,’ mad slasher movies followed a similar formula of killing people on a holiday. This killer’s pretty inventive, going around killing people every time new year’s eve dawns in a different time zone, or a killing every hour. Why wasn’t there a ‘St Patrick’s Day’ during which a mad Irishman goes around killing everyone who isn’t wearing green? Made in the early eighties, this one features a poser punk soundtrack, which is far more frightening than the music.
- 11
'Attack of the Killer Tomatoes'
The original ‘Killer Tomatoes’ was certainly a very ambitious low-budget horror/comedy, but it tried to go in too many directions at once and needed more killer tomatoes. So while the original didn’t totally work, again, it was very ambitious, and we feel there’s a really fun concept in there that could work with the right people overhauling it. If you make the humor broad enough, we feel the potential’s there for another ‘Sharknado.’