Horror movie reboots have been a thing almost as long as movies themselves. Even Universal’s classic Frankenstein with Boris Karloff was a remake of Thomas Edison’s 1910 silent adaptation. And ever since that film’s monster first rose from its slab to maniacal shouts of “It’s alive!” horror reboots have followed one major rule: go big or go home. For horror, that usually means cranking the blood and guts up to 11. It’s not enough for a director to retell a scary story; they have to embellish it, make it their own, and one of the easiest ways to do that is to throw in some exposed entrails and a severed limb here and there.
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In the 21st century, Hollywood’s attitude toward horror reboots seems to be, “If you can’t make a better film, at least make it grosser.” With that in mind, we’ve put together a list of the grisliest horror reboots of the last 25 years, ranked in order from least to most bloodshed. For those of you with a weak stomach, consider this a warning; things are about to get gooey.
10) Let Me In (2010)
Let Me In is one of the more decent remakes on the list. Matt Reeves displays the same artistry in his chilling remake of Sweden’s Let the Right One in as he does in his later films like The Batman. This list isn’t about quality, however, and as well-made as Let Me In is, it’s also a heck of a lot gorier than the original.
With scenes like the one where a man melts his own face with acid and the third act’s swimming pool massacre, Let Me In more than earns its spot as one of the gorier remakes of the 21st century.
9) IT/IT CHAPTER TWO (2017-2019)
Anyone going into IT expecting the relatively tame experience present in the original 1990 made-for-TV version got the shock of a lifetime. From the moment Pennywise bites off six-year-old Bill Denbrough’s arm, it’s clear that director Andy Muschietti pushed the movie’s R-rating to its absolute limit.
IT CHAPTER TWO kept the carnage going with an intense scene showing Pennywise bashing his head against a plate of glass until it shatters and then biting a child in half. The IT duology gets bonus creeper points for most of its gore involving children — an unspoken taboo for most other horror movies.
8) Dawn of the Dead (2004)
While most horror fans would agree that the original Dawn of the Dead is the superior film, the reboot does outclass it in one very important area: gore. Despite being designed by makeup effects legend Tom Savini, the zombies in the original Dawn — with their blue skin and bright orange blood — can’t help but look a bit rough these days.
The walking corpses in the Dawn of the Dead reboot, however, are covered in realistic-looking wounds featuring all sorts of torn flesh and exposed organs. Even by today’s standards, Zack Snyder’s feature film debut contains some of the gnarliest zombies ever put on screen.
7) Halloween (2007)
There is almost no onscreen blood in the original Halloween. Instead, director John Carpenter relied on atmosphere and clever cinematography for scares. Rob Zombie, on the other hand, didn’t even try to match the suspense of Carpenter’s original and instead replaced it with stomach-churning violence. The result is a hillbilly hellscape not unlike Zombie’s magnum opus, The Devil’s Rejects.
Before Michael Myers even dons his iconic mask, he’s already beaten a child to a bloody pulp with a hunk of wood and sliced apart his pet mouse. The film only gets gorier from there.
6) Maniac (2012)
Ever since the last Lord of the Rings movie was released, Elijah Wood has made it a point to choose roles that are the polar opposite of Frodo Baggins. Maniac represents the pinnacle of that effort, as the mentally disturbed Frank Wood stalks Los Angeles, looking for women to murder and scalp. If that’s not gruesome enough, he later attaches the scalps to mannequins he keeps in his home.
Maniac is so nasty, its director Franck Khalfoun claims the film made some audience members vomit and even faint. While that’s probably an exaggeration, we’ll let you judge for yourself.
5) Hellraiser (2022)
It’s hard to imagine a horror movie gorier than the original Hellraiser and its immediate sequel Hellbound: Hellraiser II, but Hulu’s 2022 reboot gives it the old college try. As with most Hellraiser movies, the film’s most grotesque moments involve extreme body modification like skin being peeled from muscle tissue like it’s an orange, or spikes being driven through various body parts.
Hellraiser isn’t for the faint of heart, but if you have a cast-iron stomach, oh what sights it has to show you.
4) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
For many horror fans, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the film that kicked off the horror reboot trend of the early 21st century. While the original 1974 classic managed to deliver mind-warping terror with nary a drop of blood, the remake isn’t as restrained with its onscreen slaughter. Using chainsaws, hammers, and even his own bare hands, Leatherface brutalizes and maims TCM‘s young protagonists, going so far as to carve the face from one unlucky victim and wear it like a Halloween mask.
With a name like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you shouldn’t expect anything less than an orgy of blood and rent flesh, and that‘s exactly what the film delivers.
3) Cabin Fever (2016)
The same flesh-eating disease from Eli Roth’s 2002 gorefest is back in the Cabin Fever reboot, but this time its effects are even more disgusting. If flesh literally rotting off of people’s limbs isn’t your cup of tea, you may want to sit this one out.
We want to reiterate that this list is not meant to rank the best horror reboots of the last 25 years, only the goriest, so while we understand how fans of the original Cabin Fever might view the shot-for-shot remake as superfluous, any movie where a woman gets mauled to death by an infected dog moments after her skin starts falling off in the bathtub deserves a spot on our list.
2) The Hills Have Eyes (2006)
Leatherface and his twisted kin have nothing on the mutated desert cannibals from The Hills Have Eyes. Of course, physical deformities alone don’t qualify as gore, which is why director Alexandre Aja has the film’s grotesque mutants engage in acts even uglier than they are. Scalping and immolation are gory enough, but what earns The Hills Have Eyes the number two spot on this list are scenes like the one where a mutant bites the head off a pet bird and squeezes the insides down its throat.
You may want to make sure the pets are in another room before you watch this one.
1) Evil Dead (2013)
This movie is so gory, it’s almost humorous. While the Evil Dead series has never been one to shy away from blood and guts, the 2013 reboot takes it to another level altogether. At one point, a character is forced to self-amputate her arm with an electric carving knife, while blood rains down from the sky, and somehow, that’s not even the nastiest bit of violence the movie has to offer.
That honor goes to the scene where the main character, Mia (Jane Levy), slices her tongue in half with a razor blade, on camera with no cutaway. It’s a scene so visceral that it’s impossible not to feel your tongue crawling while watching it.
Do you agree with our pick for the goriest horror reboots of the last 25 years, or do you have some even more twisted splatterfests in mind? Let us know in the comments!
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