By and large, remakes are hit or miss. Many of the best excavate the source material but do something wildly out-of-pocket so as not to make the endeavor a beat-for-beat rehash—think 2003’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 2018’s Suspiria, or 2020’s The Invisible Man. Others, well, they gun for a carbon copy that lacks originality and vision (looking at you, 1998’s Psycho). Ask anyone in the horror community and you’ll get varied, heated opinions about remakes, especially since the uptick in the 21st century as studio execs continue to vie for consumers’ attention.
Remakes aren’t inherently bad. Because most remakes return to big, well-known IPs, there’s a plethora of lesser-known flicks that deserve a fresh look. Or, perhaps, there’s a classic that’s begging for a new, contemporary (and often queerer) perspective to turn the film’s subtext into outright text. In the right hands, a whole new world opens up and allows the next generation to appreciate the original in a different way.
Below, we’ve compiled 10 horror movies that are particularly ripe for a remake, as well as some speculations about which filmmakers might be best suited to the material.
Cat People (1942)
Original director: Jacques Tourneur
Proposed remake director: Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow)
Yes, I’m very aware that the 1942 classic was remade in 1982 by Paul Schrader—but where the original features very queer subtext, the remake discards all of that for an incestuous storyline that’s nothing without the body horror and gore. The LGBTQ+ community deserves a version free from the clutches of the Hays Code and heteronormative standards. In both previous iterations, Irena struggles with her identity as a cat person. Every time she’s aroused, she transforms into a black panther bent on murder. Her journey to self-actualization is refreshing, even though it all ends in tragedy. Make the story a trans allegory, perhaps at the hands of a breakout filmmaker like Jane Schoenbrun, and let them go wild.
Plan 9 From Outer Space (1957)
Original director: Ed Wood
Proposed remake director: Jordan Peele (Nope)
Often (lovingly) named the worst film ever made, Plan 9 From Outer Space is an interesting specimen. From the iconic Vampira character (played to campy perfection by Maila Nurmi) to the cheese-ball script, it’s certainly a film that you have to be in the right mood to appreciate. The basic premise is that aliens attack the San Fernando Valley and raise corpses from a Hollywood cemetery. It’s already got a compelling hook for a modern remake, as we don’t have nearly enough alien horror/sci-fi films these days, at least in the classic vein. Jordan Peele has already done his own alien movie, but something more throwback-influenced (think It Came From Outer Space or The Tingler) would give him a chance to experiment in a very different style.
Peeping Tom (1960)
Original director: Michael Powell
Proposed remake director: Mike Flanagan (Oculus)
Peeping Tom inspired countless films after it to explore the first-person POV of the killer. Its story follows an awkward and reserved cameraman who works on big-budget Hollywood pictures by day; by night, though, he moonlights as a photographer of sex workers for a local pinup magazine. Powell brings the story to life with careful attention to the grit and grime of the entertainment business’ underbelly. While you could argue that 2014’s Nightcrawler and 2012’s Maniac are spiritual successors, a remake could explore the voyeuristic nature of modern life. Everything we do and say finds its way online, resulting in diminished emotional and psychological capacity to nurture real-life relationships. With the advent of sites like OnlyFans, it’d make for an interesting conversation piece.
Hour of the Wolf (1968)
Original director: Ingmar Bergman
Proposed remake director: Robert Eggers (The Witch); Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night)
Hour of the Wolf may be a too-classic-to-touch kind of film, but in the right hands, a remake could deepen the thematic material. For a popular suggestion, I’d go with Robert Eggers, especially after his diabolically moody and sinister Nosferatu last winter; as for a smaller filmmaker, Ana Lily Amirpour could do it justice—A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a bonafide cult classic. With its story about a painter who goes mad while vacationing on an island, an update might not be necessary (especially with Eggers at the helm), while there’s no need to reconsider the location given that most modern cult films already seem to take place in the woods. With a sturdy narrative in place, a modern iteration could really lean further into the visions and hallucinations the protagonist suffers, providing a necessary acid trip for the audience.
Fright (1971)
Original director: Peter Collinson
Proposed remake director: Scott Derrickson (The Black Phone)
Fright has some legitimately great ideas on paper. One of the earliest films to explore the urban legend about the babysitter and the man upstairs, the film admirably attempts to elicit body-shocking terror through the eyes of a woman caring for young children in a big old house by herself. The scares don’t land nearly as well as they should, though, creating a lack of real fear or stakes. A remake could take the source material and conjure up something truly terrifying and sinister.
Drive-in Massacre (1976)
Original director: Stu Segall
Proposed remake director: Damien Leone (Terrifier)
Just because drive-in movie theaters have become scarce doesn’t mean that drive-in horror flicks should be, too. Drive-in Massacre’s premise is simple: police investigate a killer stalking and slaughtering movie-goers at a drive-in movie theater. The killer’s signature weapon, a sword, isn’t something we see often. You can get really creative with that in a remake situation. With a bigger budget, you could knock it out of the park with stronger, more memorable set pieces and tons of blood and guts. A filmmaker like Damien Leone could dazzle the camera with his typical gore-fest approach and make you nauseous in the best way.
Fade to Black (1980)
Original director: Vernon Zimmerman
Proposed remake director: Isa Mazzei (Cam)
Fade to Black is a diamond in the rough, whose grainy, low-budget feel boosts its charm. The story follows the socially inept film obsessive whose love for old movies—from Dracula to Hopalong Cassidy—leads him to reenact his favorite scenes, almost always leading to murder. Whenever he heads to the movie theater, he dresses to the nines in elaborate costumes. A modern take might lean into influencer horror centered around a young man making his own snuff films that appear to be reenactments of popular horror scenes. As his views skyrocket, he falls deeper into a deranged psychosis and entirely loses his grip on reality.
The Dorm That Dripped Blood (1982)
Original directors: Jeffrey Obrow and Stephen Carpenter
Proposed remake director: Leigh Janiak (the Fear Street trilogy)
The Dorm That Dripped Blood arrived during the peak of early-’80s slashers and has thus been largely forgotten in a sea of similar films of the era. Co-directors Obrow and Carpenter do the most with limited resources—and it shows. While there’s plenty of heart, it does suffer from its shoestring budget. The simple setup (a group of college students remains at school over the Christmas holiday to renovate a dormitory) uses the space for eerie scares and chase scenes. Giving it a modern take may give a filmmaker even more room to create a suffocating sense of dread and suspense. The only requirement would be to keep the insane ending intact—there’s just no beating that!
Frankenhooker (1990)
Original director: Frank Henenlotter
Proposed remake director: Alice Maio Mackay (T Blockers); Don Mancini (Child’s Play)
Frankenhooker may seem untouchable, but it would benefit from a queer filmmaker putting their spin on the material. When a recluse’s girlfriend gets killed by a remote-control lawnmower, he disappears into himself. He uses his background in bioelectric engineering to experiment with a procedure to bring her back to life. He turns to the grimy New York City streets to scope out sex workers to kill via “super crack” he cooks up in his laboratory. Needless to say, it doesn’t go as planned. He puts various body parts together, but what he’s created instead is a Frankenhooker. The film is inherently queer, from the vibrant, larger-than-life colors to the final scene, and begs for a version through the queer lens.
High Tension (2003)
Original director: Alexandre Aja
Proposed remake director: Carter Smith (The Passenger)
High Tension desperately needs to be reimagined from a queer perspective. Much can be said about the violence and gore (all good), but villainizing queerness is certainly a choice. When two best friends (one of whom is gay) head to a parent’s house, things quickly go off the rails when an intruder massacres the family. That leaves the two friends on their own to fight against pure evil. The perspective shift doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and makes the killer’s psychotic ways tied to their identity. Carter Smith could flip the story right on its head in a Bugcrush kind of way to leave you devastated. His dark, twisty style would make for a gripping, heart-pounding version of the story that doesn’t make being gay into a mental illness.
