Horror movies are the genre most known for remakes and reboots, especially when the original property is successful. It is also one of the most common genres for American remakes of foreign films, especially those from Asian countries. However, while the remakes are made in good faith, many of them fall short and are very disappointing.

Even with scary horror movies showing how to do it right, many horror remakes miss the point of those stories, either by making bizarre changes or failing to deliver the great scares of the classic films. Whether it is miscasting or not delivering the right message, these horror remakes failed to leave a positive impression.

A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010)

Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street offered something never seen before in a slasher movie. Freddy Krueger was a demonic presence that killed people in their dreams. He was also a terrifying creation, a child killer who wanted revenge against the parents who had exacted their own vengeance against him years before.

While Jackie Earle Haley is a fantastic actor, the biggest mistake that the 2010 remake made was not casting Robert Englund in the role that he had made famous. Unlike most slasher movies, Englund embodied what made Freddy great, and Haley never could match the veteran actor’s performance.

However, the most disappointing aspect was that the remake was just a basic slasher movie, lacking the deeper, subversive details that made the original franchise, and specifically the first movie, so interesting. The Friday the 13th remake retained the spirit of the original, but this one fell short.

Shutter (2008)

When Hollywood remade the brilliant Asian horror movie Ringu and ended up with the equally brilliant The Ring, it opened the floodgates. Hollywood began to remake any and every successful Asian horror and thriller movie it could get its hands on. The results were nowhere near as great as they were with The Ring.

One of the worst of the slate of foreign remakes was the supernatural horror film Shutter. The original movie, released in 2004, featured a terrifying tale of mysterious images showing up in photographs that leads to several deaths caused by what appeared to be a vengeful spirit.

The American remake starred Joshua Jackson and Rachael Taylor and was a pale comparison to the original. With an 11% Rotten Tomatoes score, the movie was criticized for not bringing anything new or fresh to the story or the genre. With very few surprises, it was uninspired to put it kindly.

The Haunting (1999)

The original ghost movie, The Haunting, is widely considered one of the greatest haunted house movies of all time. One thing that the original movie did that differed from similar genre films was that it chose not to show the ghosts, knowing that what people imagined was always more terrifying than anything shown on the screen.

The remake was directed by a man known for action films, Jan de Bont (Speed), and starred an impressive cast, including Liam Neeson and Catherine Zeta-Jones, but it never came close to matching up to the movie that came before, making it a colossal disappointment.

The biggest sin was all the visual special effects, eliminating what made the original movie so brilliantly terrifying. The cast, while solid, also didn’t seem to be on the same page, and the entire film fell short, receiving an embarrassing five Razzie nominations, including Worst Picture, Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay.

Halloween (2005)

There are fans of Rob Zombie’s Halloween movies, but for fans of the John Carpenter franchise, they are disappointing when compared to what came before. That isn’t to say they aren’t better than some of the sequels, as anything after the third movie are very much hit-and-miss, with more misses than hits.

However, Zombie made some interesting choices, including trying to humanize Michael Myers, which erased the idea that he is a faceless boogeyman at heart. Zombie deserves credit for at least trying something different, but it never worked in the theme of the slasher franchise.

When Halloween ended up rebooted again, with only the first movie in its canon, it was a brilliant return to what made Michael Myers great again. If anything, the later movies showed how disappointing Zombie’s efforts are reinventing the franchise really were.

Psycho (1998)

Psycho was less a movie and more of an experiment for director Gus Van Sant. The original movie was an Alfred Hitchcock horror masterpiece with one of the best twists in horror movie history. Anthony Perkins was masterful as Norman Bates and the twists and turns were absolute perfection. The remake did nothing new.

What made Gus Van Sant’s Psycho so disappointing is that he just made a shot-for-shot remake of Psycho, with a new cast, in color. While Van Sant didn’t do anything but re-shoot the entire movie in the way Hitchcock did, it received poor reviews and flopped at the box office for a good reason.

Vince Vaughn is a good actor, but he was terribly miscast as Norman Bates. Furthermore, what made the original movie great was the unexpected twist, and that was never in doubt since Van Sant changed nothing in his remake.

Night Of The Living Dead 3D (2006)

There was a remake of Night of the Living Dead that didn’t do much differently but received a lot of praise because Dawn of the Dead special effects maestro Tom Savini directed it and George A Romero worked on the script. However, a second remake arrived in 2006, and it resulted in a disappointing release.

Unlike the first remake, no one involved with the original movie had anything to do with Night of the Living Dead 3D. This arrived when 3D was coming back into style, but the 3D in this movie was terribly done and was more reminiscent of old-school 3D than the groundbreaking, newer version of the technique.

Worse yet, even with Sid Haig as part of the cast, the entire film feels like a cash grab, trying to make money from a movie that had slipped into the public domain. It was boring, the acting was uninspired, and critics blasted the look of the film, calling it cheap and the story cynical.

The Fog (2005)

The original horror movie, The Fog, was a John Carpenter release about ghost pirates that arrive in a coastal town and wreak havoc on the residents. While it starred the fantastic scream queen Adrienne Barbeau, which is a plus in any movie, it was only a minor success in Carpenter’s career, but still a solid horror film.

The original is a cult classic for horror aficionados, but the remake from 2005 was a disappointment and a massive flop. It starred Smallville star Tom Welling in the Tom Atkins role, Lost’s Maggie Grace in the role that Jamie Lee Curtis played in the first movie, and Selma Blair in the Adrienne Barbeau role.

Critics gave it a rock-bottom 4% Rotten Tomatoes score, calling it a movie that lacked scares, originality, and suspense. The acting wasn’t up to par with the original cast, and it was mostly forgettable, at best. Also, losing Carpenter’s brilliant musical score was also a massive disappointment.

Day Of The Dead (2008)

Zack Snyder remade Dawn of the Dead with a lot of success, taking the original movie and then using it as a launching point for something very different. However, while that movie has a lot of fans to this day, a few years later, someone else remade Day of the Dead, and it was a colossal disappointment.

While Snyder was an extremely talented director who created his own version of the story, Steve Miner was a horror director known mostly for sequels, although he did make the incredibly entertaining Lake Placid. He has only directed one movie since Day of the Dead, and it is no surprise after watching this remake.

Mena Suvari and Nick Cannon headline the cast and critics blasted the film as stereotypical and full of underwhelming special effects. It was also called a “cheap horror” movie for fans who don’t care about the quality of horror films, or remakes.

The Eye (2008)

During the rush to remake as many Asian horror movies as possible, one of the worst American remakes to ever hit theaters came in 2008 with The Eye. The original 2002 South Korean horror movie was a brilliant release by the Pang brothers that received two sequels and was a massive success.

The American remake told the same story about a young woman who received a cornea transplant, not knowing the original eyes belonged to a serial killer. This allowed her to have terrifying visions of deaths and accidents before they happened. Jessica Alba took on the lead role and was nominated for a Razzie.

This horror movie remake had none of the scares or the suspense of the original movie. The acting was wooden and uninspired and the thrills were minimal. The remake also tried to rely too much on the visions and it never seemed to connect as well as the original, another lackluster American remake of a brilliant Asian film.

The Wicker Man (2006)

The original Wicker Man is one of the best British horror movies ever made. The film stars Edward Woodward as Sgt. Neil Howie as a law enforcement officer who travels to the island of Summerisle in search of a missing girl. Christopher Lee stars as Lord Summerisle, the man who leads a cultish society on the island.

The remake made a slew of drastic, unnecessary changes that added little value to the story. The original movie is a masterpiece and a cult classic thanks to it taking its subject matter seriously, even in the most ridiculous situations. The remake has Nicolas Cage at his most unhinged as the police officer headed to the island, only to find himself out of his league.

What is most disappointing is that The Wicker Man remake took a highly respected horror masterpiece and turned it into nothing more than a meme, with most fans of a certain age connecting the story with Cage yelling about the bees. It is a horror movie remake that insults the memory of the film that came before.