6. The Shining
I miss being scared at the idea of a Haunted House. Paranormal Activity restored my faith in fear, but as the franchise drags on, the gimmicks are stretched thin and we're left yawning. They've been talking about remaking this forever. It's bound to happen considering nothing is sacred anymore. So let's see a good reboot of one of the most important Horror films of the 20th Century done right. The whole house possesses people and makes them kill other people needs a new edge. Given the success of American Horror Story and the sheer endless possibilities of stories on hand by delving into the various guests of The Overlook, the Shining is ripe for rebooting. The most important thing is not to do most of the things that have already been done. Everything that has made Kubrick's version of the story famous should probably be avoided. Most reboots feel the need to be nostalgic and place a good majority of everything that made the original iconic, somewhere in the new version. But I can't remember the last time I saw something like that and felt it was cool and appropriate. It's usually campy and stupid. A reboot of the Shining needs to be new, different, and contain just enough elements of the original, as well as the novel, in order to make it new. I don't know how many people saw the long winded TV miniseries back in 1997, but it was a little dry and really not very scary. What makes Haunted Houses scary is learning what once went on in them. That's where American Horror story has succeeded. Every ounce of back story comes to the surface to haunt the people living in it in the present. It seems cheap to borrow from something else that's doing it successfully, but that's the nature of the game. The good borrow, the best steal. But the important thing here is for the common ground for them to share to be elevated in The Shining. Considering it isn't television, they can get away with a lot more here. We should be ready, willing, and able to experience every bit of that.