Remakes are a touchy aspect of film to address, especially when most remakes tend to rely heavily on genre films that are beloved to many who don't see anything wrong with their predecessor. To dismiss a remake or remagining solely on the fact that it is tackling the sanctity of a coveted film that you hold dear is a disservice in and of itself. Some have either bettered the original idea or at the very least, introduced a whole new audience to the film that you think has been incredible all these years. Whether or not a film needed to be remade is entirely based on perspective; a studio knows they are sitting on an established fanbase cash-cow, a studio needs/wants to hold the rights to a certain film or even the simple fact that it is a safe venture. However, sometimes, they are done for the right reasons or it just happened at the right time that it became the right reason. Here are 5 horror remakes that were actually done right...
5. The Ring (2002)
Gore Verbinski's The Ring is arguably the film that opened the door to the influx of Asian horror-remakes that saturated the market soon after (The Grudge, Dark Water, Pulse, Shutter, etc.) It was this film that showed the North American audience what other countries have been doing with the horror genre while we (for the most part) were still placing our bets with slasher films. There is more to horror than body count and the mainstream Western movie-going audience was just waking up to this. More importantly, it was popular. While some may argue that Hideo Nakata's original 1998 version was more subtle and it was that subtlety that made it effective, Verbinski's visual flare and tempered pace is what made it stand out. It's what made the film easily digestable while managing to still deliver the shock and horror without making it overindulgent.