“Hellraiser.” “The Others.” “The Night of the Hunter.” “Salem’s Lot.” That’s four horror remakes in the pipeline, all announced in just the last week.
And all of them feel like setups for failure, especially with untouchable masterpieces like Charles Laughton’s “Night of the Hunter” or Alejandro Amenábar’s “The Others.” “Salem’s Lot” has been adapted three times, on both the big and small screen, to middling success.
Yes, original ideas have long been the Hollywood boogeyman.
But when it comes to the highly profitable and road-tested horror genre, it’s embarrassing to see studios cower like little kids afraid of a sheet.Jumpstarted by the rise of so-called “elevated horror” movies like “The Witch” ($40 million at the box office), “Hereditary” ($80 million), and “Midsommar” ($42 million), horror is in midst of a renaissance unseen since the 1990s, when “Scream” relaunched teen slashers.
All three of those titles (all A24) were
Read full article