“Remake” is a word that all but actively carries a negative connotation, even more than “sequel,” though that’s perhaps not fully deserved. It’s safe to say a majority of remakes are artistically uninspired and inferior. This isn’t always the case, but perhaps it’s not so hard to see why remakes have a reputation that’s less than stellar.
At their best and rarest, inspired remakes can build upon initial innovation, perhaps telling a story in a more sophisticated, gripping and convincing kind of a way (1954’sA Star Is Born, 1982’sThe Thing, and 1983’sScarfaceare among the more notable examples of respected remakes).At their worst, remakes can be anything from aggressively pointlessto industrialized plagiarism.The following ranks the all-time most dreadful of these. All the following movie remakes are best left avoided, except perhaps as case studies or cautionary tales.
10’The Wicker Man' (2006)
Directed by Neil LaBute
Robin Hardy’s originalThe Wicker Mansurvived a botched release and multiple cuts to become a folk horror classic. It appears on virtually everylist of the best horror films ever made.Edward Woodward,Christopher LeeandBritt Eklandstarred in a slow-burn thriller of sinister discovery that ends with one of the genre’s most infamous and scary finales.
Once upon a time,Neil LaButewas well-respected for the play and film versions ofIn the Company of Men.The Wicker Man'06 is a rare kind of movie that no filmmaker can ever fully recover from. It all but ignores the creepy elements of organized religion and paganism from the ‘73 picture in favor ofNicolas Cagein a bear suit, Nicolas Cage punching a woman, Nicolas Cage screaming. In short,there’s nothing that works unironically here, butThe Wicker Manranks lowest on this list because it has deservedly found new life as a classic of so-bad-it’s-good garbage.If you have any interest in that kind of thing, enjoy this gift.
The Wicker Man
9’The Mummy’ (2017)
Directed by Alex Kurtzman
If there is one silver lining ofAlex Kurtzman’s unspeakable non-contribution to a beloved horror franchise, it’s that 2017’sThe MummyputTom Cruise’s career into context: speaking purely of his contributions to cinema, Cruise has spoiled audiences for decades. He’s been so good for such a ridiculously long amount of time, and so deft at picking projects that suit his strengths, that this sole disaster is maybe more interesting than it is infuriating. It’s a little of both, though.
The Mummywas the most egregious, high-profile and laughable attempt by a film studio to copy the Marvel Cinematic Universe.The “Dark Universe” was stopped in its tracks thanks toThe Mummy’s boring lack of commitment to any particular genre, and what is likely the only bad performance he’s ever given. This reductive bad boy archetype just doesn’t work with Cruise at this point in his career. This movie wouldn’t have worked with anyone, though.
8’Halloween' (2007)
Directed by Rob Zombie
What is there to say aboutJohn Carpenter’sHalloweenat this point that hasn’t been said already? It’s a minimalist yet artistically vibrant exercise in suspense that remainsone of the most frightening films ever made.It’s year zero for low-budget genre filmmakers. A far cry from the rather good, inspiredThe Devil’s Rejectstwo years prior,Rob Zombie’s meatheaded redo eschews tension in favor of a lumpy backstory no one asked for.
Zombie’sHalloweenhas its defenders, and to the film’s credit it’s perhaps debated more than nearly every other horror remake of its time.It fully earns its spot on this list, though, for the non-achievement of making all the wrong moves, taking all the wrong messages from the original’s success and none of the right ones.After an alternately dull and unpleasant first act where we learn The Shape’s mother was a stripper or whatever, it’s time to endure a sped-up, suspense-free retread of ‘78, only this time the violence is nauseating and none of the victims are sympathetic.
7’Rollerball’ (2002)
Directed by John McTiernan
John McTiernan’s defining contributions to the action genre (and action-adjacent) are hard to overstate:Die Hard,Predator,Die Hard With a Vengeance,Last Action Hero,The Thomas Crown Affair, andThe Hunt for Red Octoberare considered varying degrees of classic. The same couldn’t really be said for the 1975 source material of McTiernan’s infamousRollerball, but it’s an interesting and reasonably exciting dystopian sports movie that explores similar territory toThe Hunger Games. The original looks pretty masterful compared to McTiernan’s update, whichloses the social commentary in favor of numbing spectacle that’s never really spectacular.
LL Cool Jcan’t help but supply some charisma, butChris Kleinisn’t a magnetic lead.Rollerballwas a critical punching bag from the jump, and already feels impossibly dated as sub-par early aughts action movie as much asCharlie’s Angels: Full Throttledoes. McTiernan’sprosecution and incarceration for wiretapping around the productionis an unfortunate but interesting footnote. That’s a more interesting story than anything that made it to screen.
Rollerball
6’Ben Hur' (2016)
Directed by Timur Bekmambetov
File this one under what in the damned hell were they thinking. The 1959 version ofBen-Hurwas, lest we forget, a remake. Still, for all its campiness and homoeroticism when viewed today, no one could accuseWilliam Wyler’s 65 mm, ultra-widescreen biblical epic of a Jew sold into slavery for lacking in innovation.Timur Bekmambetov’s expensive but utterly uninvolving film attempts to be epic, but never gathers any kind of steam. Even the chariot race is a pale imitation of Wyler’s vision nearly six decades earlier.Ben-Hur2016 belongs on any ranking of the most boring movies ever made. At two hours long, it feels twice the length of Wyler’s, which ran for nearly four.
Of all the movies on this list, 2016’s Ben-Hur is likely the film that the most people have completely forgotten about.So many people weren’t aware it was coming out prior to release. So many people weren’t aware it was in theaters at the time. Surely many reading this list are entirely unaware this movie even exists.
5’Pinocchio' (2022)
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Robert ZemeckisandTom Hankshave both made great films in the past, including some fine and successful films together. Perhaps they’ll both go on to make more good movies together or separately, but Disney’s astonishingly off-putting live-action remake of their sophomore animated film is easily the worst movie of either respective career.What did such a sweet and innocent animated original do to deserve such beastly treatment?
It would be an inappropriate stretch to call 2025’sSnow Whitea good movie. It falls into many of the traps that have plagued this live-action remake initiative from the jump. Still, there are sparks of charm in it, and at least one or two memorable performances. That puts it way ahead of the modernPinocchio, where Hanks' Gepetto just looks lost or drunk for most of the runtime.It’s a painful watchwith ghastly Uncanny Valley visuals and awful changes to the beloved source material.Disney’s track record over the past decade and change is, let’s face it, very bad.Pinocchiomight be the worst of all of it.
4’Psycho' (1998)
Directed by Gus Van Sant
If there’s one slasher movie that’s even more iconic thanHalloween, it’sHalloween’s granddaddy,Psycho.Alfred Hitchcock’s groundbreaking 1960 thriller is the most profitable black-and-white film ever made, and it hasn’t really aged.Gus Van Sant’s 1998 remake, which surely damaged some good will accumulated byGood Will Hunting, is a near shot-for-shot experiment that has baffled ever since it was announced. Van Sant walked through what might be the best-directed motion picture ever, only it’s so much worse, shockingly so. The addition of an anemic color palette makes the movie feel like a misused Xerox. The performances, by actors who’ve been better elsewhere, are quite bad.Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates deserves its reputation as one of the worst casting choices in all of film.
As was so often the case,Roger Ebertput it best: “The most dramatic difference between Alfred Hitchcock’sPsycho(1960) and Gus Van Sant‘s “shot-by-shot” remake is the addition of a masturbation scene. That’s appropriate, because this new “Psycho” evokes the real thing in an attempt to re-create remembered passion.”
3’A Nightmare on Elm Street' (2010)
Directed by Samuel Bayer
If 1984’sA Nightmare on Elm Streetisn’tWes Craven’s very best movie, it’s at least his most revolutionary, with an unforgettableRobert Englundmaking horror history asFreddy Krueger, a killer in dreams with more personality than every other slasher villain combined. The remake doesn’t succeed in any area.Jackie Earle Haleyis a fine actor who couldn’t or wouldn’t crack the code on Freddy’s signature theatrics.Rooney Marawould go on to give great performances; here she actively looks like she’d rather be anywhere else.The biggest mistake here is the explicit reimagining of Freddy as a sex pervert.It’s a total misreading of a series that’s seen ups and downs, but has largely been fun.
The aughts saw a barrage of horror remakes, virtually all of them varying degrees of inferior to their respective source material. 2010’s A Nightmare on Elm Street is a deeply cynical and misguided effort that stands out as the very worst of these.
A Nightmare on Elm Street
2’Oldboy' (2013)
Directed by Spike Lee
Even some of the greatest and most consequential filmmakers to ever live have made unwatchable stinkers. One such example isSpike Lee’s disastrous reimagining of a South Korean touchstone.Park Chan-wook’s 2003Oldboyis shock cinema that does pretty much everything right; it’s also a movie that’s unafraid to be nightmarish in a aesthetically dreamy kind of way, almost creating its own world of feeling and logic.The American remake is a painfully literal dulling and mismanagement of the manga.Lee makes wall-to-wall God-awful directing choices here that would make the film easier to enjoy as unintentional comedy if it weren’t about incest.
Sharlto Copley, terrific and Oscar-nominated in 2009’sDistrict 9, overacts in a villainous role by around one thousand percent or so. That’s a conservative estimate.Oldboy2013 is a case study in playing all the notes but failing to feel the music.
1’Black Christmas' (2019)
Directed by Sophia Takal
“You messed with the wrong sisters.“Bob Clark’s nasty, smart and effective early slasher was remade for the first time in 2006. That version ofBlack Christmaswas railed by critics for trading in Clark’s cleverness for mindless, clinical gore. You could at least attempt to defend that first remake as fun trash, far more than you could say about the 2019 picture,a bloodless and brainless PG-13 bastardization that swings at sermonizing while back-burnering anything that might appeal to anyone who bought a ticket toBlack Christmas.Films can and should be pointedly politicized sometimes; the problem withBlack Christmasis that any attempts at satire are unconvincing, all with the subtlety of a jackhammer.The third-act attempt at a twist represents some of the worst screenwriting in this genre’s long history.
The slasher genre is far more than it seems to people who’ve never looked closely. Sure, there’s a history of exploitation, but most of the most fondly remembered slashers have succeeded on the backs of some of the most memorable, sympathetic and resilient female characters in film. Laurie Strode, Sidney Prescott and Nancy Thompson are just the most well-known heroines who made an impact in great films whose primary goal was to frighten and entertain. The surface-level and heavy-handed girlbossness ofBlack Christmas2019 is a disservice to everyone, just most of all to anyone in the audience who paid money to watch this soulless and insufferable, pretty much unrecognizable rehash of a rehash.
