Psycho and The Lion King. What do these two movies have in common? Well, definitely not the genre. You see, each of these movies has a remake. Pretty exciting, right? Sadly not, considering the remakes tanked. Sucked. Bombed. Huge disappointments. 

 Since all movies were made in the ’90s, you would think that the remakes that were made in the mid-2000s would be up to standards and expectations. Of course, movie industries want to make it apply to this day and age, making the movies better than what they once were. In the end, the films didn’t meet people’s expectations.

Have you had your favourite movie(s) ruined by terrible remakes? A couple of mines have, and if I’m being honest, it hurts my non-existent soul when I see a mockery being made of my favourite film. 

When I was little, I fell in love with the 1995 Jumanji movie. I loved the whole concept of a board game being magical, and how every turn they took, something bad would happen, and how every threat was real. In 2017 when the Jumanji remake came out, I was excited, and I wanted to see how they would recreate the classic movie. After watching it, I felt upset that they turned it into a videogame. I know it’s just me; Rotten Tomatoes says people liked it more than the classic. 

Enough about me and my unpopular opinion, let’s talk more about what the directors did wrong with these films. 

Psycho (1960) is the classic black-and-white movie that Alfred Hitchcock gave the universe. It’s known for the iconic shower scene where Norman Bates stabs Marion Crane when she’s showering. The whole movie is truly a work of art, but I wish I could say the same about Gus Van Sant’s revamp version. In the remake, Vince Vaughn didn’t quite capture the same creepy and mysterious factor of Norman Bates as Anthony Perkins did in the original.

The Lion King has been a Disney fan favourite since it came out in 1994. The animated classic is hands down the best childhood movie there is. When the live-action remake of The Lion King came out in 2019, fans hated it. Mainly because of the emotion, or lack thereof. With the animated version, if a sad scene happened, the viewers felt the raw emotion and cried at those real sad times. All the remake gave the audience was live-action animals. Nothing else.

There are a handful of terrible remakes that put the original movie to shame. I could ramble on and on about others’ opinions as well as my own, but then, I would bore you, and all your attention would be lost. My final note is to the entire movie industry. Try harder and stop disappointing movie lovers.

Cassandra Purcell

Cassandra is a second-year student in the Professional Writing program at Algonquin College. She loves writing real-life horror stories, being anti-social, and watching American Horror Story.