10 Horror Remakes That Should Be Made
by Brian Tallerico

While everything in our horror-loving hearts is screaming that the remake trend needs to be put down like Kevin Bacon in Friday the 13th, we all need to come to terms with something a little sad - it's never going to stop. They’re too damn simple and profitable to die, so we might as well try to make the best of it. With Prom Night limping into theaters this weekend and production amping up on a remake of My Bloody Valentine, it got us thinking about what other '80s horror flicks should be remade for a new generation. Looking over the last few years of slasher remakes, the ones that really haven't worked have taken source material that, quite honestly, didn't need to be remade. Think about movie remakes like you would music covers.

There are plenty of songs that could use a reinterpretation by a new artist, but would you pay money for an entire song-by-song cover album based on an LP that was perfect in the first place or would you just listen to the original? In the same way that issuing a song-by-song remake album of Exile on Main Street or Revolver would be a really bad idea, remaking Halloween, Psycho, or other already-perfect horror movies just feels like a waste of time. On that note, in the world of '80s movies, no one ever needs to remake Re-Animator, From Beyond, The Thing, Near Dark, The Howling, Poltergeist, or A Nightmare on Elm Street (which we know is happening but we’re choosing to remain in denial). No, they're not all equal, but they're all movies that should exist purely in their original form and are still being admired and introduced to a new generation every day (usually by a cruel older brother). As my grandpa used to say, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

However, there are dozens of '80s horror movies that were pretty "broke" in the first place and could use a good update. Some were never that good to begin with, and some look more like a product of their big-haired era than others. It leads one to the question of why a movie should EVER be remade and there are really only two answers - to bring a forgotten story to a larger audience or to fix a movie that didn't quite work the first time. For the most part, a movie that didn't work twenty-something years ago won't work now, so remakes have to walk a fine line - source material that's good enough to warrant a second look but not great enough that any future attempts will pale next to the original. With that in mind, as a service to the producers who will be looking for the "next Prom Night" after this weekend, here are The Deadbolt’s ten suggestions for horror films that are just itching for a remake.

10. Lady in White (1988)

Falling neatly into the nobody-saw-it category of remakes is Frank LaLoggia's Lady in White, an unusual little ghost story that originally starred Lukas Haas and Len Cariou. The movie barely made a dent in the slasher-crazy world of '80s horror movies, but it's the kind of alternative to what the genre is currently doing that could really make an impact in the '00s. Think about all the buzz that The Orphanage built at the end of last year (not enough if you ask us) and how tired people are of the same-old-slash-old when it comes to the torture porn genre. We could all use a good ghost story to wash the taste of The Hitcher and Hills Have Eyes 2 out of our collective mouths. And Lady in White is a solid, old-fashioned, hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck supernatural tale that starred Haas as a kid who gets locked in school closet during Halloween of 1962 and sees something unusual in the classroom that leads him to the murderer of a young girl. Lady in White was something that not a lot of ghost stories were or are to this day - scary. Lukas Haas would later appear in My Chemical Romance's video for "Welcome to the Black Parade" because two members of the band were fans of the scary flick. If someone could recreate the same atmospheric chills as the original in a remake, it could inspire a whole new generation of Screamo fans.

9. Child's Play (1988)

Hold up. I know that this sounds like a really bad idea at first. Half of you are probably in the camp that the original is good enough that it should stand on its own and the other half are probably so exhausted by the awful sequels that the mere prospect of another film in the franchise makes you hurl. We understand and feel your pain. But that's precisely why a Child's Play remake isn't a half-bad idea. In much the same way that Zombie tried to amend for the recent Michael Myers flicks by restarting the Halloween franchise, somebody really should be forced to give audiences some celluloid atonement for a few of the Chucky movies. There's still a lot of strength in the original concept of a childhood toy gone very wrong. Imagine if someone could take the idea seriously again. Turn Andy, the childhood lead, into a loner kid, maybe even aging him a little bit, who pairs with his sadistic toy to wreak havoc on the bullies who have wronged him and the adults who have left him to wither. Yes, we're actually suggesting a serious Child's Play movie, which could be the worst idea ever or could be a fascinating alternative to the cookie-cutter remakes that litter the genre. It certainly wouldn't be like any of the other remakes on this list. At least not until someone remakes Puppet Master or Demonic Toys. Wait, there’s an idea...

8. The Hunger (1983)

The Hunger is infamous for a number of reasons, very few of which have anything to do with the film's quality. The Hunger marked the debut of director Tony Scott (Top Gun, True Romance), starred David Bowie, turned into a cult hit in goth circles, and gained worldwide infamy for a lesbian seduction scene between Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon. Lesbian vampires in goth makeup? Evanescence is already writing the soundtrack for the remake. Seriously, The Hunger is a campy, cheesy film but it features some themes about aging that are certainly even more relevant in today's botox-crazed society. Deneuve played a vamp whose eternal partners went through rapid aging just before they died. When one (Bowie) went to a doctor for help and went from suave club dude to old man in mere minutes, the doc (Sarandon) became fascinated with the situation and eventually became the vamp’s lover. The original chose atmosphere over character and story and looks incredibly dated, but there's enough good material here to warrant a remake. Goth kids everywhere would line up days in advance and if you kept the lesbian material, so would most of the horny young men in America. Imagine Wild Things with bloodsucking instead of just sucking. At the very least, it’d make a fortune on DVD.

7. Demons (1985)

Written by the amazing Dario Argento and directed by the son of the influential Mario Bava (Lamberto), Demons is one f-ed up movie that not nearly enough people have seen, making it the perfect fit for a remake. The basic foundation of the story is a tale that's been told for decades and is not going to go away any time soon - art will kill you. In the original, a group of people are invited to the opening of a new movie theatre. As the movie unfolds, they start to turn into demons and kill each other. It's mostly played for gore and Argento-esque insanity, but Demons has themes that could easily translate to today's censor-ific world, one who believes that Eli Roth and Rob Zombie are making horned creatures of teenagers anyway. The original chaos comes from a demonic mask (most foreign horror movies do) but the remake could play off the power of cinema straight away. We've all been sitting in a theater, watching a horrible movie, and just hoping that the guy next to us might turn demon and start a rampage just to alleviate the boredom. We think that did happen during License to Wed. Oh, no, wait, we hoped it would happen.

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