Here are a few of the problems I had with the remake:
1- The background of the family was never explained. I mean the father has just been laid off and the mother doesn't work, so why on earth are they buying a new house? It doesn't make sense. I mean if they are so concerned with money why are they buying a new house at all?
2- The scares are just not there. The brilliance of the original is that they slowly worked up to the scares of the house being devoured by a poltergeist. It had little scenes of chairs being stacked up and Carol Anne being slid across the kitchen floor. The remake just flat out tries to show the audience the frights. No one is fascinated by the little things the spirits are doing, it is just flat out fear.
3- They tell us that the bodies weren't moved in the very beginning of the movie, which takes out all of the anticipation of why this is happening. In the original they father arrives while his house is being torn apart and yells at the developer, "You moved the headstones, but you didn't move the bodies." This added to the fright of the movie because bodies were popping up while the family is struggling to get out of the house as it falls down around them.
4- The second child, Griffin, was supposedly the protagonist of this movie. He constantly whines that they need to leave the house. It is annoying the first time, but as he continues with this through the movie I just wanted him to disappear into the vortex. Plus, he is the one who runs into the closet and comes out rescuing his sister Madison. This goes against the bond of the family from the first movie, which is all about how love will save them.
5- There is literally no interesting thing that happens in this movie. I could have taken a nap and not lost anything. It was just terrible and didn't make any sense. The characters were not developed. I didn't care about any of them, and none of them were likeable. The children were dull, the little girl was uninteresting so I didn't care that she was swallowed by the porthole, and honestly neither of the parents added anything to the plot or the story.
I would like to ask the producers and directors of horror movies to please stop remaking movies! This was just horrible and I hated it. The remake of NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET was just awful. It tried to explain Freddy's backstory in too much detail. The remake of HALLOWEEN was highly anticipated but it fell short and went too far into odd dream sequences, also it made a great actor (Malcolm McDowell) look like a hack. It too tried too hard to explain the backstory of why Michael Meyers did what he did, which is unnecessary. I don't need a lot of backstory for my supernatural killers. I mean they kill because that is what they do.
This leads me to one more thing, the remake of the series IT. I know that often Stephen King says yes to remakes, especially when the original doesn't meet his standards (let's face it, he may not have loved the movie version of the SHINING but it was freaking fabulous, and the TV mini series was dreadful and badly cast), but I don't think this is one he should have said yes to. The original series, while maybe a little outdated, is still fabulous. You can't match Tim Curry as the clown, Pennywise. Tim Curry is basically EVERY character he has ever done. The remake of ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW fell flat, and it shouldn't have even been attempted as it were. I can honestly say, as a lover of horror, I am not looking forward to the remake of IT. I feel like they are trying to make the clown look too evil, when it was simple, I mean even reading the book Pennywise looks like an ordinary clown. Plus, Bill Skarsgard is, in my opinion, the wrong choice to play Pennywise. I know people are saying he is the perfect choice due to his appeal in HEMLOCK GROVE and the DIVERGENT series, but I feel like he is too young, and a little too not right. I just can't figure out how to say what I am thinking.
So, please, stop remaking movies.