10 Horror Remakes That Should Be Made
by Brian Talerico

6. Slumber Party Massacre (1982)

There's no denying that Slumber Party Massacre is bad. It's one of those movies that's so bad that it transcends its awfulness and becomes enjoyable on the same level as a lot of Burt Reynolds '80s filmography or the works of Uwe Boll. According to IMDB, the legendary T&A slasher classic was originally written as a spoof of horror movies but was filmed as a straight forward horror movie when the producers didn't realize it was a parody. In other words, it's bad on purpose. Sorta. Why remake a bad movie? Well, it would have to be done as the parody it was always intended to be. You know those horrible straight-to-DVD American Pie movies like Band Camp and Beta House? Imagine "American Pie: Slumber Party Massacre." The remake of Slumber Party Massacre would work as a mix of Scream - a tongue-in-cheek but also scary satire of horror - and the American Pie movies. Cast it with enough young celebutantes, and this is a license to print money. How many people paid just to see Paris Hilton get a pole through the head in House of Wax? Now picture her, Lindsay, and a gaggle of other annoying starlets in Slumber Party Massacre. Somebody NEEDS to make this happen.

5. Basket Case (1982)

"The Tenant In Room 7 Is Very Small, Very Twisted, and Very Mad." Basket Case is one of the most over-the-top, ridiculous horror movies of the '80s and, if you couldn't tell by now, we at The Deadbolt think that the modern scary movie genre could use a few more flicks that come completely from left field. Imagine Basket Case treated seriously. Anyone who's ever lived in an apartment building of any size has experienced that sensation that someone in your building might be less than human. Whether it be odd sounds in the middle of the night or smells that just don't smell like home cooking, urban dwellers know that neighbors can be scarier than any cinematic boogeyman. In Basket Case, the guy down the hall happens to be a normal-looking country guy with a large basket in his hands. What's in the basket? His deformed twin brother, of course. It turns out the brother is in town seeking revenge on the doctors who made him into the nightmare that he has become. It's a ridiculous movie, but the little dude in the basket always scared the crap out of us. And what if one of our more twisted current filmmakers like Crispin Glover or Harmony Korine treated the deformity realistically? Talk about terrifying.

4. Happy Birthday to Me (1981)

This one is purely a case of logic, something we know doesn't usually happen in the world of horror remakes, but stick with us here. If they're remaking My Bloody Valentine and have remade Prom Night and April Fool's Day, why the hell shouldn't they remake Happy Birthday to Me, the best of the early '80s slasherpalooza one-offs (meaning films that never turned into franchises and existed purely as VHS staples for an entire generation of horror buffs)? Happy Birthday to Me is about a girl who, after an accident, becomes a part of an exclusive clique, but she watches as most of her friends start to die as her 18th birthday approaches. Cliques, teenagers getting murdered, and death by shish-kebab. A smart producer would buy the rights to Happy Birthday to Me and do it tongue-in-cheek, much like Slumber Party Massacre. This could be the definitive teen horror movie for the generation of brain-dead media drones that are currently addicted to such gossipy reality fodder as The Hills. In fact, there you go - get MTV Films to adapt Happy Birthday to Me as the ultimate My Super Sweet 16 episode gone horribly, horribly wrong. Honestly, if Prom Night makes even a dime, we're willing to bet this is going to happen almost immediately. If it makes money, try to thank us in the credits.

3. The Dead Zone (1983)

The Zone TV series has fallen prey to USA's makeover as a more family-friendly network (ditto The 4400), but Stephen King’s original concept is so good and the original movie so strong that this wouldn't be as much of a remake as a continuation of the ideas from King's novel. The show has legions of fans still lamenting its passing who would love a fresh, high-budget take on The Dead Zone, and the themes of the original film/book are the ones that should truly be restored. Let's be honest - the idea that there's a leader who will someday destroy the world and only you know how evil he truly will be hasn't lost any of its power, particularly with Commander Cuckoo-Bananas still in the White House for a few months. The Dead Zone could even be a series of remakes like the Body Snatchers movies that, ignoring the most recent one, have successfully played off the fears of each generation that made them. It's been 25 years since the Cronenberg film and a talented director could make a masterpiece of a new take on the fears of death and power that King played with in The Dead Zone.

2. Christine (1983)

More King and yet another situation where it's not that the original film is that bad, but that a quarter-century later, a newer model might bring the story to a new generation. Let's take Christine, the story of a killer 1958 Plymouth Fury, and bring it drifting into the new millennium. Cars in every form from NASCAR to The Fast and the Furious movies are more popular than ever. King is still a household name. And there's something intangible about John Carpenter's take on the original material that never quite worked. There are also arguably no films on this list that look quite as dated as the original Christine. Can't you just picture Paul Walker or Jim Sturgess in a modern spin on a killer car? Or the filmmakers could go real old-school and do it Death Proof-style, focusing more on the killer chases than the supernatural aspects. All we know is that with the popularity of everything that goes fast - and with Tarantino proving that "cars + gore = awesomeness" in those first brutal Texas kills in Death Proof - taking another spin around the block with Christine seems like a no-brainer.

1. Fright Night (1985)

Remember all those "rules of remakes" early in this feature? Fright Night fits them all. It's a good movie, not great, that has been largely forgotten by the generation who were born after it was released. Teenagers may still be watching Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street, but very few are checking out Fright Night, a Tom Holland vampire flick that was totally effective when it was released but looks crazy, crazy dated now. The zombie trend - the Dawn remake, the 28 movies, the Resident Evil movies - seems to be coming to a close. What's next? Why not vampires? The Zack Snyder take on Dawn of the Dead helped drive a zombie renaissance over the last few years, and there's no better remake to do the same for bloodsuckers than Fright Night, a film about a boy who has a vampire living next door to him but no one will believe him. We picture a Fright Night remake with smart, clever dialogue and characters spouting lines written by the likes of Joss Whedon or the team behind The CW's excellent Reaper. This could work. In fact, with the horrible success ratio of horror movie remakes, it might be the only one on this list that will.