Movie remakes and sequels are a critical and important part of cinematic history. Not only can they make viewers more appreciative of the original movie, but they also can prove that some movies defy replication due to the masterminds behind their production. Classic movies have earned their place in history due to the cinematic choices made by directors.

So, if you take a perfectly good movie, strip it down, and have a different director build it back up, what do you get? Typically, you get a horrible movie remake that ruins the career of the ambitious director who tried to take it on. Don’t get me wrong — there are certainly movie remakes that bring something new to the original film, but very often remakes pale in comparison to the original.

Here I present to you my not exactly unbiased five worst movie remakes in cinematic history.

#5. Psycho

Coming in at number five, we have Gus Van Sant’s 1998 film, Psycho. This film is a modern remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic horror film that made its debut in 1960. Both Van Sant’s and Hitchcock’s films were adaptations of Robert Bloch’s 1959 novel, which shares the name Psycho. Unlike most movie remakes, this one is bad due to its lack of change. Other movie remakes are hard to watch because the ambitious, new director taking on the film makes cinematic choices that change the mise en scene and even the meaning of the film. Van Sant did just the opposite with his Psycho remake. Other than adding color, a different cast, and a change in time period, Van Sant’s remake is, for a lack of better words, a shot-by-shot remake. The 1998 Psycho is not ‘bad’ per se— it is just not a remake; it is a copy. The film features the same shots and camera movements used by Hitchcock, most of the original script is carried over, and the original musical score is reused. Other than the changes due to technological advances in the years prior to the remake, this film is pretty much a direct copy of the original. The 1998 remake won many notorious awards, such as Worst Remake and Worst Director, and one of the cast members even received an award for Worst Actress. To say the least, Gus Van Sant learned that if you plan on going after a world-renowned director’s film, as he did with Hitchcock’s Psycho, you’d better have something new to bring to the table, or you will get laughed at by the entire film-producing community. For such reasons, the 1998 Psycho remake has earned a spot on my list of worst movie remakes in history.

#4. Nightmare On Elm Street

Samuel Bayer’s Nightmare on Elm Street has earned spot number four on this list because Bayer failed to make the film better than the original. Wes Craven did an exquisite job of blending every child’s worst nightmare with reality in the original slasher film Nightmare On Elm Street. The plot consists of four teenagers, one being Johnny Depp, who live on the same street and are killed in their dreams by a disfigured man wearing blade-fixed gloves. But when their dreams start to fade into reality, these teenagers struggle to understand what is real and what is not. The original film, released in 1984, had a power over the audience by toying with their perception of reality through dreams. The boundaries between what was imaginary and real were blended, which is why the film is so much more than a horror film meant to scare the audience. A revolutionary way of portraying a story was introduced to the film industry, which certainly cannot be said for the remake. Not only did the original film have critics raving that it was “one of the greatest horror films ever made”, but it also started a huge franchise consisting of six sequels, a television series, and a crossover with Friday the 13th. Regardless of the success the original film had, Bayer attempted to make it better with his 2010 remake, but how do you make a film better if it is already the best? Simple. You can’t. Bayer’s remake could never amount to the cinematic masterpiece Craven built, which is why the remake generally received negative reviews from critics when released. Lesson: never try to improve a film that starred young Johnny Depp — it cannot be done.

#3. Carrie

The 2013 supernatural horror film, directed by Kimberly Peirce, takes spot number three and is also the third adaptation of Stephen King’s 1974 novel, Carrie. Peirce’s film had a cast of well-known actors, which made it so much more disappointing when they didn’t fully deliver on the characters we know from De Palma’s original Carrie. Along with the casting choices made, the soundtrack was also very disappointing. The soundtrack for the original film ramped up the tension and made every second bloat with suspense, which kept audience members engaged and on the edge of their seats. The same cannot be said for the remake — if anything, the soundtrack to Peirce’s Carrie took away from the suspense because it downplayed all of the important moments of the film with dead music. Although many cinematic choices were made that allowed the film to be forgettable, I will say that Peirce handled the integration of modern updates in the film industry seamlessly throughout her film. But then again, many directors have persevered through the changing technology of the film industry, so it isn’t that big of an accomplishment. Many critics make a great argument that the remake was “unnecessary”. The original film was a hit, so why fix something if it is not broken? There was also a great lack of originality in the remake and a huge lack of horror that audiences saw in the original 1976 adaptation of the novel, which was directed by Brian De Palma. The little things matter, especially in horror films, so Peirce’s lack of acute attention to detail while dealing with casting and soundtrack contributed to the lack of memorability of her film.

#2. Ghostbusters

Taking second place is the 2016 Ghostbusters film, directed by Paul Feig. What went right about this movie remake? I will first say that women’s equality in the film industry is very important, but going about women’s equality by changing the gender of already established characters in movies who have already gained fame is not the correct way to go about it. Instead of hijacking existing characters played by men, women need to be their own established characters with no ties to previous actors. I think it is great that directors are giving women more of a spotlight in modern cinematography, but they need to do so without stealing ideas from already established characters. Aside from the gender swap of the main characters, Feig’s remake is also drastically different from the original 1984 Ghostbusters due to the modern time period change. Ivan Reitman’s original Ghostbuster was set in a time before most of the technological advances occurred that the 2013 version of the film benefited from. Due to the modernization of the world, many pieces of Feig’s plot are new and completely different from the original Ghostbusters plot. The remake has many plot-diminishing changes that make me, along with many viewers, yearn to see something, anything, familiar from the original film. The original film became a cultural phenomenon and was well-received for its blend of comedy, action, and horror. Critics also praised Bill Murray for his performance in the film. On the other hand, the remake did not once make me genuinely laugh, and I didn’t get one good scare throughout the entire movie. To be blunt, Feig’s 2013 remake of Ghostbusters was an embarrassment, which explains the studio’s $70 million loss due to the film’s poor box office returns.

#1. Point Break

The number one worst movie remake in cinematic history is Ericson Core’s 2015 Point Break. One hundred and fourteen minutes of pure dissatisfaction. The original Point Break was released in 1991 and featured well-known stars Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves. The first issue with this remake is that you can not do better than Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves, so at best this remake (without these two stars) can only be adequate at its full potential. Second, where is the actual plot?! The entire movie is basically a sequence of Go-Pro action shots of “sophisticated heists”, or as I refer to them, dumb ways to steal money. In between these action scenes that resemble Red Bull advertisements, there are a few emotionless scenes that consist of characters that the audience never gets the chance to bond with. It is great to have action scenes, but the movie cannot be 90% action and 10% of actual acting. Without deep connections to the characters, the audience has no reason to care about what happens to them and leaves them with no reason to keep watching. If I wanted to watch random people do stupid stunts, I could easily do a search on YouTube, but for a film that had an estimated budget of $105,000,000, I expect a little more. And third, the whole reason for robbing banks in the film has been changed, and not in a good way! In Kathryn Bigelow’s original Point Break, a group of guys decide to rob banks wearing masks of prior presidents in order to fund their adrenaline junkie lifestyle — they do it for the rush. In the remake, some hipster posers decide that God has given them a mission to fulfill, and this earthly duty is to steal money– makes total sense. And speaking of the president masks, only once did I see president masks. Completely ridiculous! And they weren’t even real masks. They were some sort of sticker covering the bike helmets that the guys were wearing. A completely essential part of the Point Break film was ruined by Mr. Core’s directing choices. Overall, this remake was excruciatingly painful to watch because it was so horribly done. Following in the footsteps of an iconic movie is a tough thing to do, but this remake makes it look impossible!