I think the original is one of the great comedies. There's some scary moments in it (the babysitter scene, anyone?), but it has some of the worst overacting I've ever witnessed (thanks mostly to Rod Steiger) and is just such '70s cheese.
I hate remakes, but I really thought that if they remade it, it could only improve it. And how wrong I was. But that's Hollywood for you.
I think the casting of the movie is off, though. Look at the original. Look at James Brolin. He's visibly a man. You can see him and know that he's the one that's going to be looked to for protection in the haunted house...but the twist is that the haunted house begins to sort of possess him and his nutty scenes actually do work because he's a fairly large, spooky lookin' guy. Ryan Reynolds -- he's such a model looking metrosexual that you'd trust one of the kids before him when it comes to being protected and when he's possessed and wielding an axe you realize it just might be Reynolds' funniest role yet. It wouldn't be so bad if the remake had been set nowadays -- but being set in the '70s, Reynolds just doesn't look like a guy from the '70s.
And I thought replacing Nicholson with a dweeb like Steven Weber in The Shining remake was bad...
