Editorials
William Bibbiani Revisits the 11 Best Horror Remakes of the 2010s
*Keep up with our ongoing end of the decade coverage here*
At some point, remakes developed a bad reputation, even though quite a few of the best movies ever made were just new versions of a story already made into a movie before. And quite a few of those classic remakes are horror films, like David Cronenberg’s The Fly, John Carpenter’s The Thing and Gore Verbinski’s The Ring.
So it’s no surprise that some of the best horror movies of the last decade were also remakes. A great horror story ties into something universal and timeless, but sometimes the trappings of the filmmaking could benefit from a little updating. The best horror remakes have to choose what’s important to keep, what’s important to change, and most importantly how to make the newest rendition a valuable addition to the tradition.
These are the films that, more than many others (some of them also very good!), succeeded in making a familiar story seem new, exciting, and powerful.
11. The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014)
Some movies defy conventional categorization, and Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s intelligent and stylish The Town That Dreaded Sundown is one of them. The film takes place in a world where the original influential horror classic is a real film, but based on a true story, and in which a serial killer has started remaking the horrors of The Town That Dreaded Sundown in “real” life. Spiritually a remake, arguably a sequel, and despite the dense meta-narrative that the filmmaker is weaving, it’s not an exercise in irony. It’s one of the very best slashers of the decade.
10. Fright Night (2011)
Craig Gillespie’s remake of the self-aware horror classic Fright Night abandons most of the horror in-jokes, streamlining the story of a teenager who thinks his sexy new neighbor is a bloodsucking vampire into a suspenseful and threatening horror yarn. The late, great Anton Yelchin carries the movie beautifully, and David Tennant steals scenes as the Las Vegas magician who’s forced to fight the forces of darkness in real life; but the film belongs to Colin Farrell. The actor plays up his sensual appeal, only barely hiding a streak of macho intimidation, and easily earns a spot as one of the scariest modern vampires.
9. Piranha 3D (2010)
Joe Dante’s original Piranha was an inventive, low-budget Jaws riff with a great sense of humor, and far superior to the majority of the Corman films of the era. But Alexandre Aja wasn’t interested in making a quirky flick for eccentric horror fans. His remake is an ultraviolent, ultrasleazy, completely unapologetic splatstick extravaganza, in which a species of prehistoric man-eating fish are unleashed on spring break and eviscerate the flesh of every human foolish enough to get into the water. Piranha 3D isn’t trying to make its 3D gimmick immersive, it’s using the technique to call attention to just how crazy a movie can get, highlighted by a scene involving a severed sex organ that’s so completely tasteless you almost have no choice but to respect it.
8. The Crazies (2010)
George Romero was one of the greatest and most influential horror filmmakers in history, but it’s fair to say that his low-budget 1973 virus thriller The Crazies wasn’t his very best work. So there was a lot of room to expand on the basic premise of an epidemic that drives people murderously insane, and Breck Eisner’s remake does just that. The Crazies features a great cast of actors – Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell and Danielle Panabaker among them – whose characters find themselves in one impossibly deadly confrontation after another with former friends who can’t help but try to commit heinous acts of murder. Wildly entertaining and effective.
7. We Are What We Are (2013)
Jim Mickle’s impressive remake of Jorge Michel Grau’s horrifying drama transports the action to a small American town, where a father has to depend on his conflicted daughters to continue their obscene traditions when their matriarch dies unexpectedly. Bill Sage is terrifying in We Are What We Are before we even understand the nature of the frightening family, and Amber Childers and Julia Garner give nuanced and sympathetic performances as young women suddenly dealing with unthinkable responsibilities. We Are What We Are is a fantastic horror movie, stylish and freaky, in large part because at its core it’s potent allegory for familial abuse and cult-like mania.
6. Let Me In (2010)
Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In is, rightly, now considered one of the best vampire movies ever made. But the remake, directed by Matt Reeves, is arguably just as good. Kodi Smit-McPhee plays a troubled adolescent who befriends a mysterious girl, played by Chloe Grace Moretz, with frightening secrets. The icy isolation of the original gives way to a more warm-blooded, violent and emotional remake, with excitingly filmed set pieces now punctuating this effectively creepy story about isolation and manipulation. It’s the same great story told with just a slightly different sense of taste, not quite pulpy but significantly more visceral.
5. Shin Godzilla (2016)
Ishirô Honda’s classic and groundbreaking Gojira wasn’t just a giant monster movie, it was a potent metaphor for a world struggling to cope with and combat destruction on a hitherto unimaginable scale. In 1954 that meant having difficult conversations that related directly to nuclear weapons, and in Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi’s riveting, loose remake Shin Godzilla it means navigating impenetrable bureaucracies to combat more modern global, existential threats. In the end, only the young and motivated can cut through the red tape and get anything accomplished. The new version of the title monster, a rapidly evolving and bizarre leviathan, is arguably the scariest version, and the renewed emphasis on Japan’s plausible reaction to such a gigantic disaster keeps Shin Godzilla refreshingly, effectively grounded.
4. Maniac (2012)
The original Maniac, directed by William Lustig and starring/written by Joe Spinell, is one of the most captivatingly brutal and ugly depictions of a serial killer ever filmed. Unromantic, unappealing, and emotionally raw. But the remake takes a very different approach, stylishly filming a killing spree from the first-person perspective of the murderer, putting the audience in the position of the predator as we stalk victims throughout Downtown Los Angeles. It’s an impressive gimmick, and director Frank Khalfoun and the film’s star Elijah Wood (who appears whenever the camera looks in a mirror) wisely avoid making their shocking killer too sympathetic. The remake of Maniac is a terrifying and absolutely distinctive trip behind the eyes of a monster.
3. Suspiria (2018)
How do you remake a film like Dario Argento’s Suspiria, in which the film’s defining characteristic is its absolute inscrutability? If you’re Luca Guadagnino, you fill the film with so much subtext it practically bursts open by the end. The story of a haunted ballet school in Germany has been reframed as a world in microcosm, in which a supernaturally matriarchal society has become so insular that it’s lost its way, and is susceptible to unexpected influences, not unlike the Cold War environment that serves as the movie’s backdrop. Undeniably of a piece with Argento’s film, but undeniably new and singular, the new Suspiria demands repeat viewings to unlock its intellectual and emotional depths.
2. It: Chapter One (2017)
There’s some debate over whether Andy Muschietti’s It is a new film or a remake of the classic 1990 tv mini-series directed by Tommy Lee Wallace. (The distinction is even the subject of a legal battle.) But at some point, we simply have to acknowledge that this story was already told, in two parts no less, and then it was told again, in two parts once more, so it’s at least spiritually in the “remake” category. And it’s certainly one of the best remakes of the decade, in any genre. The tale of a group of adolescent “Losers” who confront the demonic personification of their fears takes an epic, iconic quality in Muschietti’s interpretation, like a modern fable with a demon clown in place of a big bad wolf. The first half is a modern horror classic that stands completely on its own, and it’s a good thing too, because just like the original mini-series the second half of the new It falters.
1. Evil Dead (2013)
Some of the best remakes of the decade recaptured the magic of the original. Others forged a brand new path. Fede Alvarez’s remake of Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead does both, recreating the dizzying camerawork and ultraviolence of the groundbreaking 1981 film, and seemingly following the original template until the film begins unexpectedly developing its own identity. Framing the horrors of being trapped in a room with violence and emotional manipulation with helping a loved one detox from serious addiction, and giving the story more real world resonance than ever before, Alvarez’s film explodes into gore and madness, and culminates in a new and extremely satisfying finale. Evil Dead is everything the original was and more. What more could you possibly want from a remake?
HONORABLE MENTIONS: All Cheerleaders Die, Black Christmas, Child’s Play, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, Frankenweenie.
Soon after the New Hollywood generation took over the entertainment industry, they started having children. And more than any filmmakers that came before—they were terrified. Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), The Omen (1976), Eraserhead (1977), The Brood (1979), The Shining (1980), Possession (1981), and many others all deal, at least in part, with the fears of becoming or being a parent. What if my child turns out to be a monster? is corrupted by some evil force? or turns out to be the fucking Antichrist? What if I screw them up somehow, or can’t help them, or even go insane and try to kill them? Horror has always been at its best when exploring relatable fears through extreme circumstances. A prime example of this is Larry Cohen’s 1974 monster-baby movie It’s Alive, which explores the not only the rollercoaster of emotions that any parent experiences when confronted with the difficulties of raising a child, but long-standing questions of who or what is at fault when something goes horribly wrong.
Cohen begins making his underlying points early in the film as Frank Davis (John P. Ryan) discusses the state of the world with a group of expectant fathers in a hospital waiting room. They discuss the “overabundance of lead” in foods and the environment, smog, and pesticides that only serve to produce roaches that are “bigger, stronger, and harder to kill.” Frank comments that this is “quite a world to bring a kid into.” This has long been a discussion point among people when trying to decide whether to have kids or not. I’ve had many conversations with friends who have said they feel it’s irresponsible to bring children into such a violent, broken, and dangerous world, and I certainly don’t begrudge them this. My wife and I did decide to have children but that doesn’t mean that it’s been easy.
Immediately following this scene comes It’s Alive’s most famous sequence in which Frank’s wife Lenore (Sharon Farrell) is the only person left alive in her delivery room, the doctors clawed and bitten to death by her mutant baby, which has escaped. “What does my baby look like!? What’s wrong with my baby!?” she screams as nurses wheel her frantically into a recovery room. The evening that had begun with such joy and excitement at the birth of their second child turned into a nightmare. This is tough for me to write, but on some level, I can relate to this whiplash of emotion. When my second child was born, they came about five weeks early. I’ll use the pronouns “they/them” for privacy reasons when referring to my kids. Our oldest was still very young and went to stay with my parents and we sped off to the hospital where my wife was taken into an operating room for an emergency c-section. I was able to carry our newborn into the NICU (natal intensive care unit) where I was assured that this was routine for all premature births. The nurses assured me there was nothing to worry about and the baby looked big and healthy. I headed to where my wife was taken to recover to grab a few winks assuming that everything was fine. Well, when I awoke, I headed back over to the NICU to find that my child was not where I left them. The nurse found me and told me that the baby’s lungs were underdeveloped, and they had to put them in a special room connected to oxygen tubes and wires to monitor their vitals.
It’s difficult to express the fear that overwhelmed me in those moments. Everything turned out okay, but it took a while and I’m convinced to this day that their anxiety struggles spring from these first weeks of life. As our children grew, we learned that two of the three were on the spectrum and that anxiety, depression, ADHD, and OCD were also playing a part in their lives. Parents, at least speaking for myself, can’t help but blame themselves for the struggles their children face. The “if only” questions creep in and easily overcome the voices that assure us that it really has nothing to do with us. In the film, Lenore says, “maybe it’s all the pills I’ve been taking that brought this on.” Frank muses aloud about how he used to think that Frankenstein was the monster, but when he got older realized he was the one that made the monster. The aptly named Frank is wondering if his baby’s mutation is his fault, if he created the monster that is terrorizing Los Angeles. I have made plenty of “if only” statements about myself over the years. “If only I hadn’t had to work so much, if only I had been around more when they were little.” Mothers may ask themselves, “did I have a drink, too much coffee, or a cigarette before I knew I was pregnant? Was I too stressed out during the pregnancy?” In other words, most parents can’t help but wonder if it’s all their fault.
At one point in the film, Frank goes to the elementary school where his baby has been sighted and is escorted through the halls by police. He overhears someone comment about “screwed up genes,” which brings about age-old questions of nature vs. nurture. Despite the voices around him from doctors and detectives that say, “we know this isn’t your fault,” Frank can’t help but think it is, and that the people who try to tell him it isn’t really think it’s his fault too. There is no doubt that there is a hereditary element to the kinds of mental illness struggles that my children and I deal with. But, and it’s a bit but, good parenting goes a long way in helping children deal with these struggles. Kids need to know they’re not alone, a good parent can provide that, perhaps especially parents that can relate to the same kinds of struggles. The question of nature vs. nurture will likely never be entirely answered but I think there’s more than a good chance that “both/and” is the case. Around the midpoint of the film, Frank agrees to disown the child and sign it over for medical experimentation if caught or killed. Lenore and the older son Chris (Daniel Holzman) seek to nurture and teach the baby, feeling that it is not a monster, but a member of the family.
It’s Alive takes these ideas to an even greater degree in the fact that the Davis Baby really is a monster, a mutant with claws and fangs that murders and eats people. The late ’60s and early ’70s also saw the rise in mass murderers and serial killers which heightened the nature vs. nurture debate. Obviously, these people were not literal monsters but human beings that came from human parents, but something had gone horribly wrong. Often the upbringing of these killers clearly led in part to their antisocial behavior, but this isn’t always the case. It’s Alive asks “what if a ‘monster’ comes from a good home?” In this case is it society, environmental factors, or is it the lead, smog, and pesticides? It is almost impossible to know, but the ending of the film underscores an uncomfortable truth—even monsters have parents.
As the film enters its third act, Frank joins the hunt for his child through the Los Angeles sewers and into the L.A. River. He is armed with a rifle and ready to kill on sight, having divorced himself from any relationship to the child. Then Frank finds his baby crying in the sewers and his fatherly instincts take over. With tears in his eyes, he speaks words of comfort and wraps his son in his coat. He holds him close, pats and rocks him, and whispers that everything is going to be okay. People often wonder how the parents of those who perform heinous acts can sit in court, shed tears, and defend them. I think it’s a complex issue. I’m sure that these parents know that their child has done something evil, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are still their baby. Your child is a piece of yourself formed into a whole new human being. Disowning them would be like cutting off a limb, no matter what they may have done. It doesn’t erase an evil act, far from it, but I can understand the pain of a parent in that situation. I think It’s Alive does an exceptional job placing its audience in that situation.
Despite the serious issues and ideas being examined in the film, It’s Alive is far from a dour affair. At heart, it is still a monster movie and filled with a sense of fun and a great deal of pitch-black humor. In one of its more memorable moments, a milkman is sucked into the rear compartment of his truck as red blood mingles with the white milk from smashed bottles leaking out the back of the truck and streaming down the street. Just after Frank agrees to join the hunt for his baby, the film cuts to the back of an ice cream truck with the words “STOP CHILDREN” emblazoned on it. It’s a movie filled with great kills, a mutant baby—created by make-up effects master Rick Baker early in his career, and plenty of action—and all in a PG rated movie! I’m telling you, the ’70s were wild. It just also happens to have some thoughtful ideas behind it as well.
Which was Larry Cohen’s specialty. Cohen made all kinds of movies, but his most enduring have been his horror films and all of them tackle the social issues and fears of the time they were made. God Told Me To (1976), Q: The Winged Serpent (1982), and The Stuff (1985) are all great examples of his socially aware, low-budget, exploitation filmmaking with a brain and It’s Alive certainly fits right in with that group. Cohen would go on to write and direct two sequels, It Lives Again (aka It’s Alive 2) in 1978 and It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive in 1987 and is credited as a co-writer on the 2008 remake. All these films explore the ideas of parental responsibility in light of the various concerns of the times they were made including abortion rights and AIDS.
Fifty years after It’s Alive was initially released, it has only become more relevant in the ensuing years. Fears surrounding parenthood have been with us since the beginning of time but as the years pass the reasons for these fears only seem to become more and more profound. In today’s world the conversation of the fathers in the waiting room could be expanded to hormones and genetic modifications in food, terrorism, climate change, school and other mass shootings, and other threats that were unknown or at least less of a concern fifty years ago. Perhaps the fearmongering conspiracy theories about chemtrails and vaccines would be mentioned as well, though in a more satirical fashion, as fears some expectant parents encounter while endlessly doomscrolling Facebook or Twitter. Speaking for myself, despite the struggles, the fears, and the sadness that sometimes comes with having children, it’s been worth it. The joys ultimately outweigh all of that, but I understand the terror too. Becoming a parent is no easy choice, nor should it be. But as I look back, I can say that I’m glad we made the choice we did.
I wonder if Frank and Lenore can say the same thing.
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