As a child—and to be perfectly honest, as an adult—I was incredibly prone to the capitalist messaging that anything already in my possession was not nearly as good as the thing I had yet to acquire. Nowhere was this personality flaw more apparent than on the peanut butter aisle of the grocery store, where the brands I’d seen advertised on television always seemed more appealing at the moment than the standard, crunchy kind readily available in the pantry. Occasionally my mother would indulge me and buy a jar of gloop pre-mixed with grape jelly, like I’d seen on TV, only to have it sit in the cabinet with a single knife mark after I’d tasted it and realized what I already had was exactly what I wanted. Eventually, my mother wised up enough to adopt the party line of mothers the world over: “You don’t need that. We have peanut butter at home.”
Unfortunately, there seem to be no wise mothers in Hollywood to tell producers that Alejandro Amenabar’s 2001 horror classic The Others is perfect, we all love it, and it is readily available to us at home on Hulu and HBO. Instead, a studio called Sentient Entertainment has bought the rights to the classic and is going to make some creamy-pre-mixed-with-jelly mess that we’re all going to try once before watching the one we actually like again.
Set in 1945, The Others focuses on an English mother attempting to care for two children who suffer from a rare allergy to sunlight while trapped in a remote manor house waiting on news of her husband, a soldier in WWII. It’s misty, dark, terrifying, and Nicole Kidman is great at looking scared. Even on the second and third viewing—when the third act twist is no longer a surprise—the movie holds up, so there’s no need to do anything else to it. Producer Renee Tab disagrees. From a statement:
“I am honored to be able to work on my favorite horror film of all time, The Others, and to bring this reimagining to the big screen for new audiences. It is almost eerie and uncanny how timely the themes are today: self-isolation, paranoia and fear, and of course the intense desire to protect our children and ourselves from harm. We look forward to unraveling the layers behind lead character Grace, whose pain and demons draw viewers into a truly compassionate journey.”
Though the onslaught of remakes, reboots, prequels, and sequels suggest otherwise, it is actually possible to enjoy something without buying the rights and doing it again only worse, thus creating a lot of clutter with slightly altered versions nobody needs.