Starting in the early 2000s, Hollywood decided to remake a lot of classic horror movies, starting with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 2003. It led to remakes of such horrors as Halloween, Black Christmas, Friday the 13th, and Nightmare On Elm Street. These remakes were not well received. Many consider remakes low quality, and they aren’t wrong. They never bring much originality to them, and for a lot of them, they use a lot of scenes from the original films.

However, one film stands out as an exception to this. The 2010 film The Crazies is without a doubt the best remake of a horror film. The film is a remake of the 1973 George A. Romero horror of the same name. In the original, the film follows a group of scientists who are working on stopping the biological weapon as well as townspeople trying to survive and avoid capture. It’s not a bad film for its time. The thing that lets it down is the lack of tension and slow moving pace. The scientists are not interesting characters and add very little to the overall film. I can’t fault it too much as it was a low-budget indie film in the 1970s and the cast and crew did their best.

The remake took the best bits of the original and expanded on that. Instead of two plots, they cut out the scientists and focused on the townspeople. There’s also more of a mystery in the film, as we don’t understand why the people are turning violent until past the halfway point in the film. It has more action and uses the infected people in a better way. The tension is also increased. The hospital bed scene is a masterpiece of tension. It leaves you wondering: How will they escape?

It’s a horror movie that has been one of my favourites. I didn’t know it was a remake till a few years after I watched it, and when I watched the original, I was disappointed. I’ve since come to like it after a few rewatches. Any filmmaker wanting to remake a horror should take note of how it’s done properly, or don’t. Just leave horror movies alone. They don’t all need a remake.