MFF Special: What is the Best Horror Remake? (Statistically Speaking)

Hello all. Mark here.

The world is rife with remakes, remakes of remakes and more remakes. We can’t escape the remake so we might as well embrace the good ones. Historically it is a real pain in the ass to remake something successfully. You have zero chance of recreating the personality of the original so you just have to make things shinier or market the heck out of a shirtless Ryan Reynolds.

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Over the last couple weeks I’ve unleashed posts about the statistically best horror franchises and sequels. Basically, I collected a ton of data and my number crunching cousin Jeremy devised the Movies, Films and Flix Metric system. In the MFFM system we break down critic/audience data and box office numbers to figure out what is the best of horror. It has been fun to do because the results aren’t based on opinion or whimsy. The lists are backed by numbers and don’t change everyday like my favorite horror films do (Descent or 28 Days Later…or Drag Me To Hell! Wait, what about Thirst?).

The following numbers were figured out like this: MFFM = Average (IMDb User Score, RT Crtic/Audience Score, Metacrtic Critic/User Scores, Amazon User Weighted Score and ROI Rank Value). If you are interested in the data make sure to read Jeremy’s breakdown.

Here are the top 10 remakes according to the MFFM!

10. The Crazies (54)

9. Fright Night (54.2)

8. Evil Dead (54.6)

7. The Ring (54.9)

6. Dawn of the Dead (60)

5. Let Me In (64.3)

4. Cape Fear (65.455)

3. The Thing (68.685)

2. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (70)

1. The Fly (70.156)

The top three are self-explanatory because The Fly, Invasion and The Thing are awesome. John Carpenter and David Cronenberg  are masters of genre film making and they’ve found ways to scare, excite and make blood flow for decades. What got The Fly to #1 is its higher ROI (2.5 > .3) and the fact that it made money at the domestic box office ($80,456,000). Another positive is The Fly remake had an MFFM score of 70,156 whereas The original Fly had a score of 63.54. There are only five remakes that had higher MFFM scores than their predecessors and The Fly, The Thing, Cape Fear, The Crazies and Let Me In all made the top 10.

I love practical effects.

The Thing is a perfect horror film. The practical effects make it timeless and it achieves a paranoid atmosphere that most movies could never match. It had a higher critic/audience score (84.6) than The Fly (82.6) but its initial box office wasn’t stellar ($19,782,100) so it had to settle with #2. This hat is #1 though.

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What made me happy was seeing the Fright Night and Crazies remakes in the top ten. They are  fun recreations that give us something different while allowing the game cast to be awesome. I loved David Tennant in the Fright Night remake and Anton Yelchin and Imogen Poots have chemistry for days. It is a breezy little thing that is more fun than it has any right to be.  Did I mention that David Tennant is awesome?

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I am a big fan Breck Eisner’s Crazies remake. It was done on the cheap and features very good performances from Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell (you gotta watch Rogue). What made me like the movie even more is the fantastic DVD commentary that Eisner does. He breaks down the film intelligently  and proves there was talent behind the camera.

It isn’t a surprise but I’m glad the Dawn of the Dead remake is still going strong. It is the rare film that keeps the original idea and turns everything up to 11. Gone is the social commentary and what we get is a devilishly soundtracked film that moves fast and kills many. I don’t mind style over substance when the style is confidently made. I was also happy to see the Evil Dead and The Ring remakes featured on the lists. They are well made movies and The Ring was voted #11 on our 21 best horror films of the 21st century poll. 

Check back in next week when I do a full recap of all the MFFM statistics. You will love it!