10 Horror Remakes So Bad They Never Got A Sequel

Who says you can't kill the boogeyman?

Nightmare On Elm Street Remake
New Line Cinema

Hollywood comes up with all sorts of nonsense to justify remakes: they’re reimagining a classic for a new era, they’re telling the story in a way people haven’t seen before, they’re just giving the audience what it wants etc.

Well, have a think on this: the pulse to do a remake is never creative, because all of the grunt work has already been done and any story changes are usually cosmetic. The pulse is financial, hence the reboots of horror movies with several sequels and spin-offs.

If a wet fart of a movie like Platinum Dunes’ Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot can launch a franchise, you have to wonder about the remakes that didn’t merit so much as an in-name-only sequel with a different cast. Even the House On Haunted Hill remake got one of those, so we must really be talking about the bottom of the remake barrel.

Here are 10 movies so soulless that no studio was willing to roll the dice on another one, regardless of their box office performance

10. Prom Night

Nightmare On Elm Street Remake
Screen Gems

If you haven’t seen the 1980 original, it paired Jamie Lee Curtis with – why not? – Leslie Nielsen, so the people behind this remake sensibly ignore it and start over. Unfortunately, those people are Nelson McCormick and JS Cardone, the ‘creative’ duo behind the Stepfather remake, so it’s still a lame and forgettable effort.

All you need to know about the plot is that is that Donna (Brittany Snow) is preparing for her senior prom when teacher-turned-wacko Ramsey, who attacked her three years earlier, escapes from the booby hatch and comes after her pursued by some inept cops.

So it’s 88 minutes of and-then-she-woke-up false scares and bimbos wandering off by themselves, plus there’s a pure-evil villain who changes his appearance by shaving and wearing a baseball cap, which of course allows him to evade capture until the climax.

Contributor

Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'