10 Horror Films You Didn't Know Were Being Remade
These cult classics and smash hits are getting the remake treatment.
Hollywood sure loves remakes, because what's less risky than taking an idea that's been successful before and just... doing it again?
And no genre loves remakes more than horror, where technological advancements can allow talented filmmakers to deliver more bang for the audience's buck, while updating the style and setting to fit contemporary tastes.
But the majority of remakes, both horror and not, are understandably viewed with a healthy amount of skepticism. For one, they're often indicative of cynical creative bankruptcy, and more than that, so many of them end up feeling like low-effort, tossed-off rehashes nobody really asked for.
And so barely more than a week ever passes without a beloved horror movie being teed up for the remake treatment, as studios trawl their back catalogues in pursuit of easy hits they can reproduce with a new glossy coat of paint.
And now we come to these 10 horror films, from decades-old classics to low-fi cult faves and even incredibly recent streaming hits, each of which are imminently due to receive remakes.
It remains to be seen whether or not these remakes will justify their existence beyond the financial, but here's to hoping...
10. Speak No Evil
It's basically a given that any sufficiently successful international horror film will eventually receive an English-language remake, and while last year's Danish psychological horror Speak No Evil didn't blow up the box office, it did become a buzzy word-of-mouth hit on streaming.
Even though the movie - about a Dutch couple who increasingly test what their Danish house guests will put up with - is shot mostly in English, Hollywood evidently saw the opportunity to take a provocative horror and give it a bigger-budget, more star-studded re-do.
The remake was announced back in April and is set to star James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis, and Scoot McNairy, while James Watkins (Eden Lake, The Woman in Black) will write and direct.
Easy though it is to view this remake as cynical, in the very least it's got one hell of an acting trio attached, which hopefully suggests it's going to offer its own clever spin on the original's specific brand of culture-clash horror.
Speak No Evil releases on August 9, 2024.