Movie remakes are tricky in that a filmmaker must walk the fine line between adding something of value without losing the endearing qualities of the original. This is especially true in the horror genre, which tends to have rabid fans and cult followings that will eviscerate a bad remake of a classic story.
The 2013 Evil Dead remake was divisive for many as it failed to capture the humor and devilish charm of the original. It was kind of like doing a gritty reboot of Caddyshack, which is exactly as ridiculous as it sounds. That being said, there are some horror remakes that are as good as, or even better, than the originals.
10 Thirteen Ghosts
William Castle's 1960 film, 13 Ghosts, was a campy good time, which is the nice way of saying it was cheesy and unintentionally amusing. Due to a lack of budget and decent special effects, it wasn't particularly scary, even by the standards of the early '60s. Like many low-budget horror films of the time, it relied on gimmicks to attract audiences, in this case with ghost-revealing glasses called "Illusion-O."
The 2001 remake, Thirteen Ghosts, didn't need any gimmicks to be a great scare. Keeping the same basic story of a family who inherits a haunted house, the reboot benefited from modern computer effects to create some truly terrifying ghosts. The film was a success because it honored the source material while improving greatly upon it.
9 Dawn of the Dead
George Romero's sequel to Night of the Living Dead, the original Dawn of the Dead released in 1978, was a masterpiece of horror. Not only was it sufficiently creepy and scary, but it also revolutionized practical gore effects with makeup artist Tom Savini's bloody wizardry. It was a true classic of head-exploding, zombie fleshing-eating mayhem that couldn't possibly be improved upon.
Then in 2004, Zack Snyder, with a James Gunn script, remade it and, while not better than the original, it's at least as good. The remake introduced a new terrifying form of running zombies, but kept to Romero's classic blueprint of survivors holed up in a shopping mall. The reason why this reboot worked so well is that it was obvious that the writer and director were big fans of the original and wanted to pay tribute to it.
8 Little Shop of Horrors
Roger Corman is famous for making really bad, low-budget films, that have frequently launched talented careers. His 1960 The Little Shop of Horrors was awful even by his incredibly low bar. Shot in less than three days on a recycled set from Bucket of Blood, it's one of the worst movies ever made. It did have Jack Nicholson and an interesting premise, though.
The potential of that idea was finally realized when Little Shop of Horrors was turned into an off-Broadway musical in 1982 and then into a proper, and vastly superior, film remake in 1986. The story of a lonely florist who feeds people to his overbearing carnivorous plant, Audrey, was the perfect blend of comedy and horror. The casting didn't hurt either with Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene nailing the leads, as well as Steve Martin as the sadistic dentist.
7 The Blob
The original The Blob, released in 1958, while incredibly fun, had some of the worst special effects of all time. Even "King of Cool" Steve McQueen couldn't make it a serious horror movie and its entertainment value only lies in the nostalgia of hokey sci-fi and horror movies of the era. In 1972, Larry Hagman of Dallas fame, made a sequel called Beware! The Blob that was even more accidentally funny and much worse.
In 1988, The Blob got a remake that was actually entertaining for the right reasons. With the same general concept of a carnivorous amoeboid alien gooing on and devouring humans, the film successfully split the lane between comedy and horror. Though it came out before CGI effects, the movie Blob was believable enough and actually pretty frightening.
6 Halloween
John Carpenter's 1978 movie, Halloween, isn't just a classic, it was genre-defining, ushering in the age of the slasher film. While not the first, it certainly built the template for the slasher-preying-on-teenagers phenomenon. The only knocks on this otherwise perfect horror movie are that it was a little one-dimensional and there was a complete lack of blood or gore.
Rob Zombie tackled the Herculean task of remaking a classic with 2007's Halloween. Not actually better than the original, it's easily just as good, only losing points for not being the first. What made it so effective was that Zombie combined the remake with a Michael Myers origin story and amped up the violence and carnage. Unfortunately, Zombie's attempt at a remake of Halloween II fell way short.
5 The Hills Have Eyes
The original The Hill Have Eyes was a demented mix of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Deliverance. Wes Craven's tale of a cannibal family in the Nevada desert preying on an unfortunate suburban family was in the groove between exploitation and horror. It was probably more freaky than scary, but either way was a great ground-breaking piece of cinema.
The 2006 remake, however, was pure terror. Keeping the same premise, the rebooted cannibal family was infinitely more horrifying and the fate of the family was some of the most brutal stuff ever put in a film. The 2007 remake of The Hills Have Eyes II was sadly disappointing, but that kind of matched the awful original 1985 sequel.
4 The Fly
Sci-fi and horror movies of the 1950s kind of dragged along, relying on one big shock to drive the terror and often throwing Vincent Price randomly into the cast to help with the horror credibility. Such was the case with 1958's The Fly, which was about a scientist who turns into a human-insect hybrid after a housefly enters his molecular transport device.
The original wasn't very scary or particularly good, but the premise was solid and in the right hands could be a terrifying concept. It turns out those hands belonged to David Cronenberg who remade The Fly in 1986 as one of his signature terrifying "body horrors." The remake kept roughly the same story but was much more scary, disgusting, and downright unnerving.
3 Evil Dead 2
Many people forget that Evil Dead 2 is partially a sequel to Sam Raimi's classic 1981 low-budget horror and partially an expanded remake. The second installment retells the story of Ash Williams accidentally unleashing hell in a remote cabin in the woods. In the first, Ash had a few friends with him, while in the remake it was just his girlfriend, but they are still the same basic story.
Evil Dead 2 is superior partly due to a larger budget but mostly because all the things people love about the Evil Dead franchise were flushed out. Ash became the rude bungling cocky narcissist beloved by fans and the brilliant interplay of slapstick comedy and bloody horror was established. The original Evil Dead was a great jumping-off point, but Evil Dead 2 cemented it as the all-time greatest comedy horror dynasty.
2 It
Much of the 1980s and 1990s were the golden age for awful Stephen King film adaptions, from Maximum Overdrive to Sleepwalkers. In 1990 that garbage train rode onto the small screen with an It TV miniseries. Anyone who is expecting a made-for-TV movie from the early '90s to be scary will surely be disappointed, but this thing was laughably bad, culminating with a bunch of adults beating a spider puppet to death with sticks.
Proving that it was the execution and not the material, the 2017 It remake was not just one of the scariest movies ever, but also the highest-gross horror film in history. It turns out it is possible to make a great horror out of an evil entity, manifested as a killer clown, who terrorizes a group of kids. The remake had a great script, creepy effects, and plenty of scares, but it was Bill Skarsgård's brilliant performance as Pennywise that made this an instant horror classic.
1 The Thing
This one is a bit confusing because there was a terrible 2011 remake/prequel of the 1982 John Carpenter classic, The Thing, which was not superior in any way. A little-known fact is that Carpenter's The Thing was a remake of 1951's The Thing from Another World, which was based on the John W. Campbell novella Who Goes There? All of these iterations are about scientists at an Antarctic outpost under siege from a shape-shifting alien being, capable of absorbing and replicating any living thing.
Carpenter's interpretation, however, was next-level filmmaking with the most innovative practical effects of the time. There was an amazing cast, led by Kurt Russell, but the alien molting, morphing, and bursting from its living hosts were some of the most memorable and disgusting sequences in a sci-fi horror film. Until someone figures out a way to make a seriously amazing version of Scanners or Night of the Demon, The Thing will remain the best horror remake to outdo the original.