By **Erica Wright**
With two superfluous remakes soon to make their way to a theater near you—American versions of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Let the Right One In—I have been informally asking people about groan-worthy remakes. The Vanishing seems to make the top of the list for its Hollywood-happy ending. (Sorry if that was a spoiler. I promise not to tell you what happens in the original.) Death at a Funeral also has my friends scratching their heads. Here is my list of the top five movies that did not need do-overs. Disclaimer: I have not seen all of the remakes, which is why I’m calling the list “Unnecessary Remakes” not “Worst Remakes.”
1. Charade (made into The Truth about Charlie in 2002)
2. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
3. South Pacific
4. The Shining
5. Rear Window
Bio: Erica Wright is the poetry editor at Guernica. Her “interview with John Ashbery”:https://guernicamag.com/interviews/507/houses_at_night_1/, “Houses at Night,” appeared in Guernica’s February 2008 issue. Read her Q&A with author Amy Greene “here”:https://guernicamag.com/blog/1969/erica_wright_q_a_with_amy_gree/.