Cujo (1983)
Original Version: Mad dog horror based on a Stephen King book.
Dee Wallace and her kid are trapped in a car with a rabid dog - the titular Cujo - waiting patiently for them to get out so he can rip them to pieces.
The Remake: Director Rodrigo Cortés did wonders with a man in a box in Buried .
We say unleash him on Cujo , set entirely in a car.
Chopping Mall (1986)
Original Version: 'Where shopping costs you an arm and a leg!' according to the film's original poster (which also featured a shopping bag with a severed head in it).
Originally released as Killbots , the movie fared better when its title was changed to (the infinitely better) Chopping Mall for the video release. The plot? Killer security robots set their sights on teen staff at a mall. Genius.
The Remake: The premise is beautifully simple, why mess with it?
The remake should be set entirely in one day at a mall where jaded teenage workers get their comeuppance at the hands of HAL-like killer 'bots.
Arnie cameos as a retired security guard put out of work by the bots. "I'm too old for this microchip!"
No?
Scanners (1981)
Original Version: David Cronenberg's sci-fi horror mash-up, best known for that scene in which Michael Ironside causes a guy's head to blow up (in glorious slow-mo).
The rest of the film's pretty fun too, though, involving 'scanners', who have formidable telepathic abilities.
The Remake: Duncan Jones directs an all-out splatter-movie version of Scanners with added exploding body parts. His contract states something has to explode every five minutes.
He also somehow manages to make it into a social commentary with heart-pumping emotion.
Homebodies (1974)
Original Version: A weird but solid horror that most people have never heard of, Homebodies revolves around a group of elderly people who refuse to be evicted from their apartment building.
When things get tough, they kill anybody who attempts to shift them.
The Remake: A sardonic squatters horror in the vein of Batteries Not Included and Up.
John Hurt plays the leader of the OAP pack.
Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Original Version: Mia Farrow's waif-like blonde moves into a new apartment with her hubbie, makes friends with the increasingly-odd neighbours, falls pregnant and starts having really disturbing dreams…
The Remake: Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson have a baby, which grows at a supernatural rate.
Wait, that sounds familiar...
The Burning (1981)
Original Version: One of the first summer camp horrors to jump on the Friday The 13th bandwagon (which had itself jumped on the Halloween bandwagon).
This straightforward horror helped establish many of the tried and true slasher tropes with its tale of a vengeful killer who takes out his rage on innocent campers in claret-soaked fashion. Worth a rewatch.
The Remake: Difficult to say if a Burning remake would work – summer camp horror is almost impossible to detach from eighties cinema (just check out the woeful Friday The 13th remake).
That said, the concept of a guy stalking teenagers with a giant pair of shears is just so delicious it’s practically begging for a resurrection.
Don't Look Now (1973)
Original Version: Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie are the grieving couple who head to Venice in an attempt to get over the loss of their young daughter.
Only things go from bad to weird when they encounter a psychic who says their daughter is attempting to get in touch, and Sutherland starts seeing what appears to be his dead child.
The Remake: An affecting portrait of grief as viewed through the blood-splattered lens of Alexandre Aja.
James McAvoy is the embittered father whose paranoia almost eats him up whole.
Night Of The Creeps (1986)
Original Version: Awesomely schlocky zombie movie in which slug-things from space crashland on Earth and turn people into the living dead.
Made infinitely more awesome by the presence of horror icon Tom Atkins.
The Remake: Horror icon Bruce Campbell is the hangdog cop who goes in to investigate when Anton Yelchin's college campus plays host to the undead.
The infamous zombie cat makes a maggot-y cameo.
Phantasm (1979)
Original Version: Best remembered for introducing one of the coolest horror movie weapons ever in the form of the ominous, flying silver ball - which comes with deadly blades.
The film itself is a weird, Lynchian nightmare in which an evil undertaker turns dead bodies into dwarf zombies (no, really) to do his bidding.
The Remake: The film's a Lynchian nightmare? Get Lynch to direct the remake, with all the alternate dimension craziness we've come to expect from a Phantasm flick.
The zombie dwarves are non-negotiable.
The Beyond (1981)
Original Version: Gory Italian horror from legendary director Lucio Fulci, often considered his best film.
A young woman buys a hotel in Louisiana, but as she begins renovation work she accidentally reopens a doorway through which the dead can return to the world of the living…
The Remake: Tongue-in-cheek horror spoof in which Jack Nicholson decides to enter the hospitality industry and buys the Outlook Hotel.
When a door to hell is opened, reality and fiction begin to blur together…
