The Grudge (2004)
The Original: Ju-on: The Grudge (2002) - the third film in the Japanese Ju-on film series (although first to be theatrically released) about a vengeful spirit attacking anyone who enters the house in which it lives.
The Remake: Original director Takashi Shimizu returns to helm this English language remake which retains the original's interweaving, non-linear narratives, but this time includes added Sarah Michelle Gellar.
Most Horrific Element: Any time a ghostly child appeared from nowhere.
Creepy ghost children are just the worst... Genuinely terrifying.
The Wolfman (2010)
The Original: Classic 1941 Universal horror movie that practically wrote the book on werewolves.
The Remake: Benicio Del Toro stars in this version which does an impressive job of maintain the foggy, gothic tone of the traditional horror movies, but expands on the story of the original, changing the entire second half.
Most Horrific Element: It may be achieved disappointingly with CGI rather than practical effects, but Del Toro's big transformation sequence is still truly grotesque and disturbing.
Willard (2003)
The Original: 1971 horror film about a young misfit who learns to communicate with rats and uses them to carry out his bidding.
The Remake: A creepy Crispin Glover starred in this version, which reworked the idea and focused more on tension and suspense than scares.
Most Horrific Element: Following a string of events that leave Willard in a fragile state of mind, he gets fired from his job and takes revenge by getting his legion of rats to swarm his workplace and attack his boss, tearing him apart.
The Last House On The Left (2009)
The Original: Wes Craven's 1972 gruesome directorial debut about two girls kidnapped, raped and murdered by sadistic killers.
The Remake: Steering the film away from the graphic exploitation that dominates the original, this remake widens the scope of the story and gives more focus to the parents of main character Mari as they enact revenge in the psychos in increasingly bloody ways.
Most Horrific Element: Even taking into account all of the gory kills in this film, nothing is more repellent than the brutal rape scene.
Halloween (2007)
The Original: John Carpenter's 1978 classic stalker-killer movie that practically invented the slasher flick genre.
The Remake: Rob Zombie's version attempted to go deeper into the psyche of Michael Myers, trying to explain what made him a killer.
Most Horrific Element: The concept of a Myers back-story was horrific to some, but it actually worked well - with the film's intensity actually diminishing when it turned into a fairly straight remake during the third-act.
Mothers Day (2010)
The Original: Hard-to-watch 1980 Troma horror about two psychotic punks who abduct and torment three women under the guidance of their mentally ill mother.
The Remake: Dispensing with the brutal, exploitative nature of the original, this version is a grittier, more realistic story about three brothers who, after a botched bank robbery, hold the new owners of their house hostage, following orders from their mother.
Most Horrific Element: Mother vowing to help her son Johnny lose his virginity.
THIS IS NOT A MOTHER'S JOB.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
The Original: Tobe Hooper’s 1974 classic about a gang of friends who run into a family of cannibals and, in particular, one human-skin-mask-wearing maniac nicknamed Leatherface.
The Remake: A more polished version of these supposedly factual events, which ups the gore but doesn’t quite match its predecessor for tension of spine-chilling terror.
Nevertheless, it’s still an entertaining slasher flick.
Most Horrific Element: The violence is waaaay more explicit than the original, from the opening moments to the blood-soaked finale.
The Hills Have Eyes (2006)
The Original: Wes Craven's 1977 film about a family that are stranded in the Nevada desert who are then hunted down by a group of vicious, deformed cannibals.
The Remake: Switching the location from Nevada to New Mexico, the film implies that mutants became disfigured as a result of several nuclear weapons tests conducted in the area.
Most Horrific Element: If you can watch entire 'mutants invade the caravan' sequence without hiding your eyes at least once, you're braver than us.
The Crazies (2010)
The Original: George A. Romero’s 1973 horror film about a military biological weapon being accidentally released upon the population of a small town, causing them to either die or go insane.
The Remake: Romero stayed on board as producer for this version, which is a tighter telling of the same story, with extra tension and impressive makeup.
Most Horrific Element: Seeing the bulbous, misshapen, vein-bulging faces of the victims in the final stages of the disease.
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978)
The Original: The 1956 landmark sci-fi film of the same name about humans in a small town being slowly replaced by emotionless alien duplicates.
The Remake: Donald Sutherland, Jeff Goldblum and Leonard Nimoy, together at last, in this freaky, paranoid-soaked thriller that keeps the original’s same unsettling tone but updates the story and adds more context around the impersonating aliens.
Most Horrific Element: Elizabeth draws attention to herself by screaming after seeing a grotesque, mutant dog with a talking human face. To be fair, we’d do the same.
