Remake Horror

This just in: a movie announcement that chills my blood:

Producer-director Michael Bay is in in talks to remake the 1968 horror classic Rosemarys Baby.

What the fuck? First the cast of American Idol takes on the Lennon/McCartney songook and now this! How does Bay, the hacks hack, get his Transformer mitts on Roman Polanskis masterful take on a young wife (Mia Farrow) who thinks shes been knocked up by the devil? The nagging core of the story is that Farrows Rosemary may just be paranoid about being married to a selfish actor (John Cassavetes) who isnt Catholic? The heat of the plot is all in the lapsed-Catholic subtext. Theres a problem right away. Bay doesnt do subtext. Or subtlety. No doubt one devil baby wont be enough for the Baymeister. Why not twins? Or devil quints? Bay also threatens to redo Hitchcocks The Birds after that. Why doesnt he try to remake his own?

Pearl Harbor since he botched that one so badly the first time. Leave Polanski and Hitchcock the hell alone.

All this remake Armageddon leaves me thinking. Have any remakes of horror classic ever been the equal of the original or even just good? David Cronenbergs 1986 recasting of The Fly comes to mind, also Zack Snyders 2004 remake of George Romeros Dawn of the Dead. Then Im lost. All I can think of is the lousy 2005 xerox of House of Wax with Paris Hilton, the horrible redo of The Haunting with Liam Neeson, the appalling 2005 retake of John Carpenters The Fog, and dont even get me started about what Tim Burton did to Planet of the Apes and Gus Van Sant did to Psycho.

Your nominees for best and worst horror remakes are gratefully requested.