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The Serpent And The Rainbow (1988)
Original Version: Bill Pullman gets put through the wringer by Wes Craven. As anthropologist Dennis Alan, he investigates zombies in Haiti and winds up wrestling leopards, corpses and a voodoo leader.
He ends up buried alive with a spider. Poor Bill.
The Remake: Play up the weirdness and this could be an effectively off-kilter horror along the lines of Kill List as spliced with Zombie Flesh Eaters.
How about it, Ben Wheatley?
Bloody Birthday (1981)
Original Version: What's with kids in horror movies? If they're not creeping us out with their glowing white eyes, they're squeaking 'Red rum' and doing a weird thing with their finger.
In Bloody Birthday , three 10-year-olds get slash-happy with some teenagers. See, the nippers were born during a solar eclipse which has turned them into emotionless psychos. Brilliant.
The Remake: This could be everything that Mama wasn’t.
Get the kid casting right and a remake could be genuinely creepy (if the solar eclipse hook is ditched, obviously).
The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)
Original Version: Some films have a title that's just effortlessly cool. The Slumber Party Massacre is one of them.
Though it's a pretty by-the-numbers stalk-n-slasher, it's got an enjoyably exploitative vibe as a killer with a giant drill (naturally) preys on a group of high school girls. Let the blood commence.
The Remake: A title like that could only ever belong to a spoof movie in today’s savvy market.
Adam Wingard’s home invasion slasher You’re Next managed to balance horror with massive LOLs, though, meaning he’d be perfect for resurrecting this innately daft slasher.
Open House (1987)
Original Version: The IMDb plot summary starts off typically enough. "Someone is killing off nubile…" it begins, before ending that sentence with three unexpected words - "real estate agents." Awesome!
Sadly, it's not awesome. It's actually pretty dull, going through the motions of a regular slasher flick without any hint of creativity.
The Remake: A recession-lampooning horror in the vein of American Psycho.
Rachel McAdams is the prim real estate agent whose colleagues are biting the dust.
The Dorm That Dripped Blood (1982)
Original Version: The usual barrage of driller killers, boobs and students in an underwhelming, obviously micro-budget slasher.
Four friends stay at college over the Christmas holiday and are offed one by one in typically bloody fashion.
The Remake: James Wan directs an ode to eighties slashers with perfect period detail and loads of effective boo scares.
Tourist Trap (1979)
Original Version: A group of friends are stranded at a roadside museum before being hunted by the museum's owner, whose collection of mannequins are disturbingly life-like.
The Remake: Brad Dourif is the creepy museum owner whose out-of-the-way attraction isn’t exactly a popular holiday destination.
He attempts to drum up business by committing horrific murders. If only anybody was actually paying attention…
Silent Scream (1980)
Original Version: Ropey old horror flick that shows its age as Scotty (Rebecca Balding) moves into a seaside mansion alongside other college students. But what's with creepy landlady Mrs Engels?
Despite the dodgy production values, Silent Scream features a fantastic third act and Rebecca Balding is a likably plucky heroine.
The Remake: A tiny budget horror that burrows into the horrors of student life.
Dakota Fanning for the role of Final Girl.
The Funhouse (1981)
Original Version: A Tobe Hooper horror about four teenagers who get trapped inside a ride at a fairground and are hunted by a deformed psycho.
As with Hooper's Texas Chain Saw Massacre , Funhouse doesn’t rely on blood and gore for its impact, instead boasting a foreboding atmosphere of dread that sets it apart from similar splatter pics.
The Remake: Final Destination 3 pretty much beat a Funhouse remake to the fairground chase.
Still, if this went with an Adventureland vibe of ‘life is so totally unfair, then you die’, with added body count, this could be an unexpectedly moving slasher.
Christine (1983)
Original Version: John Carpenter adapts Stephen King's novel for the screen in style. A nerd buys a 1958 Plymouth Fury, which turns out to be more than just any old set of wheels.
There are also lens flares galore long before JJ Abrams made them his signature feature. We bet he's a fan.
The Remake: Carpenter’s film was a far more moving play on the ‘boy’s first car’ scenario than Transformers , though it’s possible Michael Bay’s destructo orgies have exhausted the audience appetite for automobile anarchy.
If JJ Abrams fancied making an intimate little horror film, though, we’d be with him all the way.
Terror Train (1980)
Original Version: Scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis hops on a train where, naturally, somebody with a big knife is cutting short young lives.
Terror train indeed.
The Remake: A godawful movie called Train (starring Thora Birch) came out in 2008 and looks like a remake, but it isn't.
The only way this would work is if it was set on the Eurostar, in the dark of the Channel Tunnel. Claustrophobia here we come.
