20 Worst Horror Movie Remakes

The only purpose of this update of George Romero's 1968 groundbreaking zombie film seems to be to throw in 3-D special effects, and it can't even do that with any level of competence or excitement -- choosing instead to have shots of a pothead shoving a joint into the camera. Stupid, unlikeable characters, gratuitous nudity, mediocre special effects, uninteresting action sequences, lame attempts at humor and a silly new villain make this zombie effort DOA.

Any attempt to turn the ridiculous plot of William Castle's campy 1960 haunted house film into a serious, scary movie was bound to fail (Seriously, is a ghost boy with an arrow through his head or a big fat man-baby in a diaper scary?), but the inane dialogue, schmaltzy sentimentality and irritating characters -- from the nebbish psychic to the smart-aleck kid to the stereotypical wisecracking black maid -- make for a real stinker. Tony Shaloub and F. Murray Abraham deserve better; Matthew Lillard not so much.

Wes Craven's track record as a producer is nowhere near as stellar as his directorial legacy; witness this ill-conceived remake of the cult flick Carnival of Souls, whose plot of an undead evil clown bears only vague similarities to the 1962 film. The story is a disaster: aimless, repetitive, boring and distaseful, revolving around acts of rape and child molestation. The pseudo-drama is undermined by bad acting and a dearth of the artistry, noirish atmosphere and low-frills chills of the original. Plus you have to listen to Shawnee Smith sing.

Just a shell of the 1986 slasher upon which it's based, this direct-to-video remake comes up with an entirely new plot -- "new" being a relative term, because it's just a riff on I Know What You Did Last Summer or The House of Sorority Row, about revenge over a prank gone wrong. It's a poor excuse for a slasher: sterile with bland kills and annoying Hills-esque characters in an edgeless PG-13, CW version of an Agatha Christie story that manages to be both predictable and ridiculous at the same time.

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The worst of the American remakes of Asian horror, this ghost story about a curse spread through cell phones wasn't nearly as silly in the hands of Japanese director Takashi Miike. Lacking the original's edge, this version is blandly told with generic, pointless "scary images," awkward sentimentality, a groan-worthy ending and dull-as-dirt performances from Shannyn Sossamon and Edward Burns.

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An insult to slasher movies, this nearly bloodless PG-13 film bears no resemblance to the original 1980 Jamie Lee Curtis vehicle, instead putting forth a toothless plot about a high school teacher obsessed with a student. The kills are dull, the scares are clichéd, the characters are flat and uninteresting, the twists are telegraphed and the villain is about as intimidating as an Abercrombie & Fitch model.

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Granted, the 1958 Roger Corman film is no classic, but this oddball made-for-TV remake takes the material to new depths of awful. It comes from, of all people, controversial director Larry Clark, who basically turns it into a futuristic version of his movie Kids, as a group of post-apocalyptic teens sit around drinking, doing drugs and having sex -- with mutants. As with Kids, the acting is "raw" (read: amateurish) and much of the dialogue feels ad-libbed (read: mind-numbingly dumb, boring prolonged stretches of drunk talk), and Clark's fascination with teen sex comes off as just creepy. The cheap special effects, terrible writing and whiny, unlikable characters don't help matters any.

An embarrassment to the John Carpenter original about a town cursed by undead sailors, this inept remake features awful attempts at humor, inane dialogue, poor acting (heroine Elizabeth has the emotional range of a pear), tame direction, dimwitted writing, non-existent scares (with the sort of safe choices that often plague PG-13 horror) and an utterly ridiculous ending twist.

This cheap, thinly veiled remake of Roger Corman's The Little Shop of Horrors is two parts porn movie, one part comedy, one part horror and all parts terrible. It takes the original tale of a loser who feeds people to his pet plant and turns it into a sex farce, with the protagonist a peeping tom who becomes sexually attracted to his man-eating plant, which at one point utters, "Frog me, Henry! Frog me!" as he feeds her frogs. Corny broad comedy (wah-wah-waaaah sound effects) combine with poor pacing and an X-rated sexual obsession (full frontal male/female nudity and graphic sexual simulation) for a uniquely painful viewing experience.

Ugly in content, execution and spirit, Chaos is a remake of The Last House on the Left that, thanks to a pompous sense of self-worth, decided that it was original enough to stand on its own (it's not) and changed its name. It takes the same story, makes the villains racist and removes the parental vengeance angle -- meaning the bad guys (or at least the main bad guy) get away with everything. The same pompous attitude that made the filmmakers change the title led to the delusional tag line "The most brutal movie ever made" and a prologue declaring that the film is meant to educate and save lives. It's unoriginal, shoddily made and revels in the sensationalization of racism, misogyny and criminality.