10 Horror Remakes So Bad They Never Got A Sequel

Following 2003’s Texas Chainsaw reboot, Platinum Dunes again goes the remake route, but this time they’ve gotten their wires crossed: are they remaking The Amityville Horror or The Shining?

Cast in the good-guy-who-goes-nuts role is Ryan Reynolds, who’s a more believable Everyman than Jack Nicholson and less likely to devour the scenery. He’s married to Melissa George rather than Shelley Duvall, so when they move into their new home with kids Chloe Grace Moretz (Carrie), Jimmy Bennett (Orphan) and Jesse James (The Butterfly Effect), you kind of want them to live happily ever after. No such luck.

They’ve barely settled in when taps (and walls) start dripping blood, windows open by themselves, furniture moves across the room and, most chilling of all, fridge magnets spell out threats. There’s drug humour when the stoned babysitter (Rachel Nichols) gets the munchies and tells all about the house’s past, which somehow leads to her being locked in a closet with the ghost of a young girl Moretz has befriended.

Yes, there are spooky kids in this movie, and after Godsend, Hide & Seek, Dark Water et al, it’s all a bit too much of a muchness. Normally, a ghostly voice that says “Get out” is treated as kitsch, but here it’s presented with a straight face and adds to the overall blandness.