10 Horror Remakes That Are Better Than You Might Think

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A Nightmare on Elm Street: Here come a few picks that all but guarantee death threats via email. Sometimes a film is so insanely beloved that rebooting or reimagining it is considered two levels beyond taboo. A Nightmare on Elm Street is one of those movies. How dare Samuel Bayer and Platinum Dunes touch this oft-worshipped classic?! They just defecated on brilliance!

Well… not exactly.

There are some horrendous pacing issues in the film (a recurring theme on this list), and character focus is so blurred that we the viewer aren’t even certain of whom we’re supposed to be cheering for. Is it Kris? Is it Nancy? If not for Craven’s original, we’d never have a damn clue with how much emphasis is placed on Kris in the first act of the film. Okay, big, big errors there. Hell, there are problems with the cast as well. Rooney Mara is a despicable human being who phones in a flat performance, and Thomas Dekker couldn’t act his way out of a community college class. However – and this is where it gets tricky – Jackie Earle Haley is a pitch-perfect, astoundingly terrifying Freddy Krueger. Significantly more unsettling than Robert Englund, dare I say.

It’s messy, but between Haley’s depiction of Fred (the moment in which he advances on Dekker’s character and asks, “You think you can bring the dead back to life?” to which Dekker’s character quickly answers, “No,” before Krueger leans in even closer and says, “I didn’t fuckin’ think so!” is the single most frightening shot I’ve ever seen from the famed Krueger character), the amazing and shockingly realistic makeup work and Kyle Gallner’s all or nothing approach to the film, there’s something good to see here. Is it as good as Wes Craven’s original or Dream Warriors or even Wes Craven’s New Nightmare? Nah, but it’s damn chilling when it needs to be, and it’s clearly better than many would have you believe.

Friday the 13th: Oh no, he didn’t! Yes, he did. If you didn’t get a kick out of Marcus Nispel’s Friday the 13th reworking, you might not have a pulse. First off, the manner in which the writing crew successfully incorporated key elements of the first four Friday flicks was genius. It was new… and not new… simultaneously. Swing, and a hit. Next up, we get treated to one of the strongest ensembles any Friday film has ever boasted. Acting has never, ever taken priority in these films, but there are strong performers cast in this case, completely breaking the expected mold.

Jared Padalecki is a fine hero, Travis Van Winkle is extremely convincing as the Super Dick, Danielle Panabaker is a young Scream Queen worthy of supporting and Aaron Yoo delivers some honest to goodness funny punch-lines. And finally, the real kicker of this flick: quick, agile, wrecking ball, Jason. This hulking beast isn’t shambling through the shadows this time around. He’s more likely to clothesline your ass runnin’ 30 miles per hour. That alone could take a head off, who needs a machete?

Derek Mears brings a superb physicality to this one, and he alone travels a great distance in stealing the show. But he doesn’t, entirely, and he doesn’t carry the entertainment exclusively. He’s got help, and it’s a damn pleasure to see. Not since the first few Friday films has the Voorhees’ murderous family tradition been this thrilling, his victims so engaging.


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