Even though they are rarely successful, Hollywood continues churning out remakes year after year. Occasionally, a genuinely great remake comes along, like Fede Álvarez's Evil Dead or Luca Guadagnino's take on Suspiria, but those are few and far between.
There have been dozens of remakes and unnecessary horror movie sequels throughout the years. Below, we're highlighting some of the most egregious movies that never needed to be made.
The Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
The 2010 remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street was destined to fail because it didn't feature Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger. Englund is a significant part of why the original movies are still beloved to this day, and while Jackie Earle Haley did his best to bring the iconic villain to life, he didn't have the same charisma as Englund in the same role.
The remake had a decent cast, but most felt like they phoned in their performances for this one. Overall, it was just a bland and generic horror movie without any of the charm or humor that made the earlier movies so fun to watch.
Black Christmas (2019)
The original Black Christmas is one of the best slashers of all time, and the 2006 remake wasn't too shabby either, but the 2019 film was horrible. For some reason, the latest update on the movie tried to amp the original movie's feminism to 100 without any smart writing or nuance.
Female-led horror movies are my favorite, as are horror films that delve deep into political and social commentary, but the 2019 one felt so clumsy and heavy-handed that a few scenes gave me secondhand embarrassment. It's especially confounding because the original Black Christmas was already a pretty feminist film for its time, addressing misogyny head-on and having one of its characters grapple with getting an abortion.
Carrie (2013)
Brian de Palma's 1976 masterpiece is one of my all-time favorite movies, as it is for many people. Sissy Spacek was the perfect actress to bring Carrie White to life on-screen. Her performance and Laurie Piper's (who played the formidable Margaret White) were enough to earn both actresses an Academy Award nomination, a feat almost unheard of for a horror film.
So, the 2013 movie had huge shoes to fill. Chloë Grace Moretz and Julianne Moore were well cast as modern-day Carrie and Margaret White, but the movie itself didn't offer anything new to the story. It felt like a poor retread that failed to live up to the charm and horror of the original adaptation.
The Exorcist: Believer (2023)
Coming off of a hot streak with his rebooted Halloween trilogy, Blumhouse expected David Gordon Green's take on The Exorcist to be a big money-maker for them, even recruiting original actresses Ellen Burstyn and Linda Blair to reprise their classic roles as Chris and Regan MacNeil. But Believer was so poorly received by audiences and critics alike that it killed the reboot trilogy idea right out of the gate.
The film did okay at the box office, but Blumhouse has opted to move in a different direction, canceling its planned trilogy in favor of a new movie from Mike Flanagan, who is also making a Carrie television show for Amazon. Considering both Carrie and The Exorcist are beloved properties with bad remakes under their belt, Flanagan has a lot riding on his projects.
Poltergeist (2015)
Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt tried their best to make this remake enjoyable, but unfortunately, it wasn't enough. The special effects are among the most egregious differences between this one and the 1982 original.
Whereas the Tobe Hooper and Steven Spielberg movie emphasized practical effects with some terrifying scenes like the infamous face peel, the 2015 one becomes incredibly generic with its abundance of CGI. Most of the movies on this list are here because there was simply no good reason to remake the original beyond a cheap cash grab, and this one is no different.
Halloween (2007)
Rob Zombie's take on Halloween has always been divisive due to its darker and edgier premise, taking much of what people liked about the original movie and pushing it to extremes. I made the mistake of watching the director's cut of this movie the first time and was disgusted by the gratuitous rape scene added to the sequence where Michael escapes the asylum.
Those who saw the theatrical cut might never have known the scene existed, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. I didn't enjoy the movie much because it felt like it was trying too hard to be edgy and gruesome, but that scene, in particular, made me feel like the 2007 remake should never have been made.