10 Movie Remakes Nobody Expected Or Wanted

It could be argued the original Cabin Fever was unexpected and unwanted, and it’s not even a remake.

Released in the midst of the torture porn era of the early 2000s, it follows a group of friends as they slowly succumb to an aggressive flesh-eating virus. It’s a fine-enough film if you like the sort of low-budget, schlocky horror where a bunch of drunk, horny teens go out to a cabin in the woods and die horribly, but it wasn’t exactly revolutionary and didn’t have much mass-market appeal. It didn’t make much of an impact, and (after a couple of straight-to-DVD sequels) the franchise quickly slipped into dormancy.

So it’s both surprising and more than a little confusing that in 2016, only 16 years after its premiere, a remake was released. Even more baffling, it’s mostly the same film again. While not a shot-for-shot remake like Van Sant’s Psycho, the new Cabin Fever still retreads the original pretty much beat-for-beat. Even the deaths, one of the biggest draws for this type of film, are nearly all identical, just with slightly updated special effects.

Cabin Fever is perhaps the epitome of an unexpected, unwanted remake. Nobody was crying out for it before it was made, and nobody cares now that it exists.