10 Horror Remakes You Didn’t Know Were Coming In 2019
And they say originality is dead.
While there’s no denying us horror fans have been treated to some absolutely brilliant original horror movies of late – shout out to the likes of Hereditary, A Quiet Place and Get Out – we’ve also seen a glut of horror remakes too.
From Carrie to Cabin Fever and from The Evil Dead to A Nightmare on Elm Street, it seems no horror movie is safe from the clutches of the Hollywood remake machine. It’s the trend that just won’t die – later this year, we’ve got Luca Guadagnino’s retake on the Dario Argento classic Suspiria and the S. Craig Zahler penned Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich reboot to look forward to. Or not as the case may be.
That’s not to say that horror remakes are inherently a bad thing. After all, if it weren’t for remakes we wouldn’t have amazing films like John Carpenter’s The Thing or Philip Kaufman’s take on Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But likewise, there are some total stinkers too. Case in point: Gus Van Sant’s unnecessary and embarrassing remake of Hitchcock’s Psycho.
Regardless, 2019 is no different and we can expect yet more horror remakes dominating our cinema screens. But curiously, unlike some of the more intensely publicised movies coming out soon like Shane Black’s The Predator or Andy Muschietti’s It: Chapter 2 these horror remakes have flown largely under the radar for whatever reason.
Hopefully that isn’t a bad omen because while some remakes are daring to take on seemingly unsurpassable classics, others look set to improve on rather mediocre original movies. Only time will tell whether they’ll give us a fresh take or f**k it up entirely.
10. Jacob’s Ladder
The Original: A
box office bomb back in 1990, Adrian Lyne’s psychological horror Jacob’s Ladder
was nevertheless a modest hit with the critics.
Starring Tim Robbins as a Vietnam veteran plagued by terrifying hallucinations that may or may not be the product of a shady government operation, the mindf**k movie influenced later media including the Silent Hill franchise.
The Remake: Directed by David M. Rosenthal and starring Jesse Williams and Michael Ealy, the Jacob’s Ladder remake is officially complete and set for an early 2019 release.
If the word of screenwriter Jeff Buhler is anything to go by the remake will be a different beast entirely. More a homage to the original and the existential issues it poses rather than a true-blue remake, the new Jacob’s Ladder will be a modern-day set action thriller. Which kind of sounds like a totally different movie … hmm.
Even more troubling, post-production wrapped late last year so you’d think an earlier 2018 release might’ve been on the cards. Could it be the remake is so terrible it’s struggled to find a distributor? We’ll have to wait and see.