Given all of the horror remakes and all of the generic haunted house movies that come out every year, it gets to be something of a chore keeping up with which films from the past have already been remade and which haven’t. Well, it turns out Tobe Hooper’s 1982 ghost story Poltergeist was on the list of movies that have yet to be remade, because Deadline Hollywood is reporting that MGM now has plans to remake it.
In order to do so they’ve brought on board director Gil Kenan, who’s probably best known for helming the 2006 animated film, Monster House. Given that Monster House was also a movie about a spooky house, the theory they’re working under must be that Kenan will have the experience necessary to beat out all the other upcoming movies about spooky houses by making an even better movie about a spooky house. Plus, Poltergeist has another advantage in that it’s being called the same thing as another movie about a spooky house that people have already liked. It’s important to always stay one step ahead of the competition in the spooky house arms race.
This news, of course, raises the same questions that every new remake of a classic from the past raises. Is there any reason at all to remake Poltergeist? Is there anything about the original that will benefit from a more modern take on the source material? Or is this just the latest depressing bit of evidence that the film industry has completely lost faith in its own ability to create new legends? Depression over the glut of remakes and copycats aside, at least it’ll be funny when the poster for the new movie is a little girl being mesmerized by a glowing iPad. Ridiculous.