I’ve long debated with friends which is the greater tragedy: the movie that is utterly irredeemable, or the one that has potential but is badly damaged by some flaw or limitation.

As a horror fan, you see a ton of both. Let’s be honest, because horror movies can be made cheaper than pretty much any other genre, but often have a higher rate of return when they are hits, the market is flooded and a lot of those films aren’t very good. Being a real enthusiast of the genre is about the joy of sifting through the pile to find hidden treasure. And there is no high like a gripping horror film.

Horror also has a lot of remakes and reboots. Complaining about this only shows you lack a sense of historicity. There were at least 9 onscreen remakes of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde between 1908 and 1931.

A casual glance at silent film and subsequent movie serials shows the cyclical nature of cinema started from its very inception. The average person marvels at Al Pacino’s powerful performance in Scarface, but sadly we forget about the equally powerful presence of Paul Muni from the 1932 version.

This year many saw the fourth sequel of the Ocean’s franchise. Some are aware of the Frank Sinatra film that predated it in 1960, almost none are aware of the original Bob le Flambeur released four years prior in 1956. And the original Fast and Furious was a Roger Corman cheapie from 1955.

I couldn’t help but think about films I’d seen that could or should be remade. So I did the unthinkable – I went through every movie on imdb that had a horror tag (Roughly 107,000) and marked the ones I’d seen. Once I had a list (around 1,400), I looked at the ones that I could come up with a pitch for to improve them.When I was done I cried inconsolably.

A couple notes.

I included television movies, but not television episodes, even special presentations or limited series which meant that some incredible Nigel Kneale stuff from the 70’s didn’t make it.

I only included films that could reasonably be improved. You won’t see films like Dawn of the Dead or the Exorcist on here because even though some aspects might be dated, it is unlikely that they will be executed better that they have already been presented.

Some of these films have already been remade, but I found the remake lacking.

In the pit of my stomach I know I’ve still missed some things. Expect a ton of addendums six months from now.