When it hit theaters last February, Leigh Whannell's The Invisible Man became a surprise box-office smash. This re-imagining became a critical and commercial slam-dunk that seemed to break the curse that had been plaguing movies based on Universal's storied gallery of monsters. With viewers champing at the bit for the next cleverly re-imagined take on a classic creep, here are ten movies with re-imagined monsters that you've probably missed.
Vampire’s Kiss (1988)
Nicolas Cage stars as a greedy New York suit named Peter, who, after a night of cruising bars, finds himself bitten on the neck by a beautiful conquest (Jennifer Beals). Convinced he's now a vampire, Peter dons fake fangs and begins stalking women to sate his real (or imagined?) bloodlust.
Ignored at the box-office and savaged by critics upon release, Vampire's Kiss has recently come to be embraced by cult film enthusiasts. Not only is this Cage at his absolute Cage-est, but this nasty black comedy about a person suffering from a personality disorder is surprisingly modern.
Frankenhooker (1990)
"Wanna date?" From the deranged mind of Frank Henenlotter (Basket Case, Brain Damage) comes this colorful B-movie riot about a re-animated babe (Patty Mullen) assembled from streetwalker parts.
When mad scientist Jeffrey Franken (James Lorinz) loses his fiancee, Elizabeth in a horrible lawnmower accident, he sets to rebuild her better than before. Ensnaring and killing a bevy of hookers with explosive super-crack (it's that kind of movie), he cobbles together a new bride made of only the choicest parts. Too silly to be truly offensive and slyly feminist in its conclusion, Frankenhooker is true B-movie magic from one of the weirdest voices in horror cinema
Memoirs of An Invisible Man (1992)
When an experiment gone wrong turns Nick Halloway (Chase) invisible, government agent David Jenkins (Sam Neill) makes it his mission to apprehend Nick at all costs. On the run, he receives help from a lovely acquaintance named Alice (Hannah) whom he falls for. But who can love an invisible man?
Memoirs of An Invisible Man is definitely flawed (who let John Carpenter do comedy?) but the charisma of its leads, then state-of-the-art special effects, and clear affection for the classic character it's based on make it an easy and enjoyable watch.
Wolf (1994)
Another critical dud whose reputation has grown with time, Wolf stars Jack Nicholson as a literary editor who, after a lycanthrope attack in rural Vermont, finds himself newly energized. When he learns that he's been replaced by a younger executive (James Spader), his new animalistic urges begin to overtake him.
Directed by Academy Award winner Mike Nichols (The Graduate), Wolf has a remarkable pedigree. Though it feels like a holdover from the "greed is good" 1980s, the film is a biting metaphor for the cutthroat nature of the corporate world that outfits the werewolf myth in sharp new duds.
The Addiction (1995)
Vampires have reinvented themselves more often than Madonna, but there are still unexpected jewels to be found. Case in point: The Addiction, Abel Ferrara's very philosophical, very Catholic, blisteringly modern take on the bloodsucker mythos.
Lili Taylor (The Conjuring) stars as Kathleen, a doctoral student who finds herself assaulted and bitten by a vampire on her way home one evening. Newly possessed of a bloodlust that manifests itself more like a drug dependency than a hunger, Kathleen seeks help from Peina (Christopher Walken), a vampire who claims to have conquered his own thirst for blood.
Shot in stunning black and white and anchored by Taylor's deeply felt performance, The Addiction is a grandly verbose treatise on evil and the folly of intellectualizing it.
The Eternal (1998)
Not every re-imagination is about modernizing a monster, sometimes its simply about putting it in a new context. The Eternal stars Alison Elliot as a woman who returns to Ireland, her ancestral home to find herself cursed by the mummified corpse of a druid witch.
The Eternal is a small scale, classic style mummy movie with an Irish twist that makes for a refreshing update of the mythos.
Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)
When an aged Elvis Presley (Bruce Campbell) comes to in a nursing home in Texas, he befriends Jack (Ossie Davis), a man who believes himself to be John F. Kennedy. The unlikely duo find themselves tested when other residents start dying under mysterious circumstances.
Don Coscarelli (Phantasm) directs genre legend Campbell in this mummy buddy comedy that's equal parts ludicrous and poignant.
Wer (2013)
When attorney, Kate (A.J. Cook) is called upon to defend a murder suspect (Brian Scott O'Connor), she comes to believe that the shaggy and feral man may, in fact, be a real-life werewolf.
William Brent Bill's found footage lycanthrope actioner isn't terribly refined, but what it lacks in polish and coherence, it makes up for in disturbing, grounded intensity.
The Shape of Water (2017)
When Elisa (Sally Hawkins), a mute, solitary cleaning lady learns that the government facility in which she works is harboring a mysterious, scaled humanoid captured in the wilds of South America, she can't help but be intrigued. But intrigue turns to romance as Elisa hatches a plan to bust the creature out and return him to his natural habitat.
Best Picture winner at the 2018 Oscars, Guillermo Del Toro's film is less an update of the classic story than a rewrite that immediately won the heart of every monster lover who saw it.
Depraved (2019)
After an unprovoked attack, a man awakens in a new body with a new name in the Brooklyn loft of a former army medic named Henry (David Call). Without a memory, and newly-dubbed Adam (Alex Breaux), the assembled man struggles to make sense of the world around him through the teachings of his savior. But as he begins to learn, Adam starts to question his teachings and whether Henry may have more nefarious ideas in mind.
Alex Breaux is remarkably alien as this achingly up-to-date Frankenstein's Monster, and Depraved is as intellectually provocative as it is well made.