With most horror movies coming back, giving us big requels, remakes, and relaunches. It brings up the debate that remakes are superior to the originals. This is a constant argument being discussed ever since horror movies had launched multiple remakes and soft reboots to many popular horror franchises such as the Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Friday the 13th, and many more.

   Horror movie remakes are better than the original because they give us a much more different and better story, give us a more terrifying experience, and give us more to the story from the original.

   Horror movie remakes are better as they can have a better story than the originals. Not saying that the originals are terrible or are not superior, but when compared to originals, the remakes just do it better with jumpscares, kills, characters, and plot. Although most horror movie remakes are either really good or just really, really bad, they always have a chance to do more and be much more unique than the original. Remakes are always capable of being good by improving the details of the movie while still paying a nod to the original movie. Examples can be the sliding door scene in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003). In the 1974 Texas Chainsaw, when we are first introduced to Leatherface, the killer in the franchise, claimed his first victim and closed a sliding door, which in the original movie was eerie and disturbing.In the 2003 Texas Chainsaw, Leatherface is closing the sliding door much more aggressively which shows how much his character in the 2003 remake isn’t like the 1974 Leatherface at all making him scarier to watch.

   Film technology, this plays a big part into why remakes are better. The filming equipment people use gives us a darker and scary tone even more disturbing to watch. An example of this is Friday the 13th (2009). The original Friday the 13th seemed like a boring and a not so scary horror movie. Although the killer in that movie is unknown to the viewers, it feels extremely slow paced and boring, while the remake for Friday the 13th is more aggressive and gives us a much more scary killer, especially with the lighting of the movie, making it darker and scarier giving us a true horror experience.

   It doesn’t always have to be remakes, we can have requels too. Requels are sequels but remakes at the same time. Requels are movies that follow almost the same plot, while also in a way remaking the story. A perfect example of this is Halloween (2018). Halloween takes place 40 years after the first Halloween movie in 1978, it follows the same characters from that movie but completely retconned all the other Halloween sequels that took place after Halloween. Meaning Halloween II, Halloween 4, 5 and 6 never existed. Halloween (2018) was an amazing requel, some say even better than the original and stands as one of the best movies in the Halloween series. Another successful horror requel is Scream (2022). Now of course, Scream 5 had some of the original characters and the events of Scream from 1996 still happened, but this Scream and Scream VI revolves around a new story with a bunch of new characters. These Scream sequels no longer focus on the main character from all the other movies, Sidney Prescott, but now revolves around new characters like Sam and Tara Carpenter. 

   Now I see why many people hate the remakes and that this argument can be very opinionated, but lots of horror fans don’t understand remakes because they just aren’t like the original. People want it to stay true to the original movies and pay a little homage to it. Some remakes just feel so sleazy in a way. Also people never enjoy remakes because they always try to compare it to the original. Of course some original movies are better because they just have that tone, it’s a different audience, in a different era, in a different setting. An example of a movie that is better than the remake is Halloween (1978). Halloween is a great horror movie and the movie gives us the feeling that Micheal Myers, the killer in the Halloween franchise, isn’t broken, he never had a rough childhood, he’s simply just a sick person, the embodiment of evil and is never really revealed why he kills giving us a mystery. The 2007 remake for this movie doesn’t do that at all. The movie spends most of the time explaining why Micheal kills and why he is evil. His family doesn’t get along well at all, and is constantly bullied. Now I get that they wanted to give Micheal more character but i feel like him being a silent, detached psychopath and an ominous figure is more of a reason why he’s truly scary.

   Although when it comes to what’s better, original or remakes, the argument can be very subjective because people have personal taste when it comes to what a remake should be. What I think a remake should be is a movie where it tries to be its own and completely remake the original movie while still respecting the original movie. Remakes need to be different and usually they really are but people hate when a remake is too different and not the same as the original. I truly believe people should start giving remakes a chance, especially old horror fans. I want people to watch remakes pretending like the original never existed, maybe it could give them a new perspective on the movie and give them a better experience than they expected.