Hollywood loves the ‘80s. It also loves remakes, sequels, prequels and any other excuse to trot out a proven property insured to line the studio’s already considerable pockets and prevent any kind of potentially bankrupting missteps. And it’s hard to blame them – in the midst of an increasingly streaming-centric viewing culture, never has it been more difficult to make a film that manages to make any serious profit, which means that the powers that be continue to mine old properties for any cash that might not have been shaken out of its pockets during the first go-round.

The Disney Channel, which unveils its much-heralded 100th original movie this week, joins the remake revolution with an attempt at recreating Chris Columbus’ first beguiling feature, Adventures in Babysitting. The original film, which is decidedly harder-edged than the G-Rated fare the Disney Channel comfortably peddles, spins around a group of children on an unsupervised misadventure through the seedier streets of Chicago, led by the titular babysitter (a fresh-faced, curly-haired Elisabeth Shue). There’s near-constant peril, some pretty adult jokes, and the iconic “don’t fuck with the babysitter” line – all of which are certain to be edited out in the DCOM rendition.

The remake, which is really a follow-up to the film in name only, swaps out the matriarchal guidance of one babysitter for a girl-on-girl rivalry, and drops out the super cringe-worthy blues hall sequence of the original for an equally hard-to-watch rap battle. Call me a scrooge, but it seems a shame that the reputation of the original film, which has become a cult classic in the near-thirty years since it was released, would be marred by a less-than faithful attempt to cash in on name recognition and little else.

But Adventures in Babysitting isn’t alone in the world of questionable ‘80s remakes. Since the mid-2000s, Hollywood has been on an 80s remake tear, with many, many properties having been released in the last decade, and countless more to come. For better or worse, masterpieces like John Carpenter’s The Thing and Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist get punched up, taken apart and put back together for a modern audience, with varying degrees of success. In anticipation of Adventures in Babysitting (however exactly that one turns out), we’ve rounded up ten remakes that made it to theaters despite the fact that no one seemed to be clamoring for them – from ‘80s cult favorites to serious Oscar contenders.

The Thing (1982 & 2011)

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Image via Universal Pictures

Though a remake itself of the ‘50s B-movie, John Carpenter’s deeply original genre piece quickly drowned out the reputation of the original to become not only one of the most memorable horror movies of the decade but one of the best examples of perfectly-executed, squelchy and sickening body horror ever committed to the screen. Using masterful practical effects to create revolting textures and sounds that heightened the film’s terror and suspense to fever pitch levels, The Thing still manages to not feel particularly dated – that is, unless you count Kurt Russell’s fantastically feathered ‘do. So when it was announced that The Thing was to be remade, this time under the guidance of an unknown director and penned by the author of the (middling at best) 2010 Nightmare on Elm Street remake, there was little in the mix to inspire confidence. When the casting was announced, the wildly talented Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton topped the list, and the idea of introducing a feminine element into a film previously known as a gender-specific exploration of homogenous society sounded promising to say the least. But The Thing failed to fulfill any hopeful expectations – the actors all delivered what they could amidst a prequel that was predicated on overwhelmingly low-stakes and even lower arcs of suspense. Marked by excessive CGI and a certain kind of unforgivable directorial laziness, this remake is one of the worst of its ilk.

Conan the Barbarian (1982 & 2011)

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Image via Universal Pictures

Much of the joy of the original Conan the Barbarian – besides the pure, unadulterated joy of watching Arnold Schwarzenegger carve his own hulking and heavily accented place in Hollywood history, is in the film’s willingness to indulge in both its own silliness and its own mythology, even when it’s at the risk of its own quality. While never perfect, Conan the Barbarian is perhaps no more watchable than it is right now, in the post-Governator era of the massive star’s career, particularly in light of the original film’s sense of self-indulgence and lovable schlock. Critics reacted very much to John Milius’ original film as they would to the remake that featured Jason Momoa as the titular barbarian, but that doesn’t mean that the new version, which jettisoned most of the original film’s simple, nerdy joys for wet and nasty violence (which, to be fair, was a major part of Robert E. Howard’s books), managed to make a case for its existence. This new Conan didn’t fix the “muscle-bound buffoon” problem of the original, and burdened by an obligation to excessive CGI, it felt more like a missed opportunity than a worthy follow-up.

Poltergeist 1982 & 2015

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Image via MGM/UA Entertainment Co.

Attempting to approach this film objectively is a fool’s errand – Tobe Hooper’s terrifying and emotionally ravaging horror film is easily one of my favorite films of all time, an obvious classic of the decade that’s just as unsettlingly affecting as it was in the year it was released. So when Gil Kenan, the creative mind behind the wonderfully peculiar Monster House, was set to direct a remake bolstered by the support of Sam Raimi and starring Sam Rockwell and the still-underrated Rosemarie Dewitt, it seemed to me as though the original film might actually get a remake worthy of its quality. Not so, as the film’s impressive pedigree ultimately made the sting of this remake’s defeat that much worse. Brought down by its ham-fisted emotional throughline and a nearly incomprehensible directorial decision that sent the viewer into a poorly rendered CG afterlife for the majority of the third act, Poltergeist couldn’t be called anything but a ghost of its prior self. Kenan’s take unfortunately lifted too many beats from the original and added very few of its own, squandering a fantastic creative team on a limp attempt at flash-bang filmmaking.

Arthur (1981 & 2011)

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Image via Warner Bros.

For anyone born too much later than the mid-80s, the lovable ruffian persona of Dudley Moore might be a mystery, but in 1981, Moore was a hot commodity – thanks largely to his fantastic performance in Arthur, a simple romantic comedy that garnered Oscar attention for its sharp writing and critical praise for its fantastic performances (both from Moore and Liza Minnelli) in the year of its release. Dudley Moore, who tragically passed away over a decade ago, didn’t live to see the remake of Arthur, which is a bit of a perverse blessing, in a way. Russell Brand’s rise to American stardom has been fitful at best, and combining his particular brand of British humor with first-time feature director Jason Winer seemed like an accident waiting to happen. Brand ultimately picked up Moore’s alcoholic playboy mantle in 2011 (after Ricky Gervais turned down the role), and the film was promptly and stalwartly rejected by critics and viewers alike, largely due to its failure to progress beyond a charmless, slightly crooked photocopy of the original. Brand isn’t necessarily miscast, but his incessant smarminess failed to support an entire film, helped not at all by a curiously cast Greta Gerwig and tacked-on message of goodwill to round out the very uneven feature.

Endless Love (1981 & 2014)

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Image via Universal Pictures

Remember baby Brooke Shields? Granted a supernatural beauty at the youngest of ages, Shields found her path into a Hollywood by way of a strange (vaguely pedophilic?) subgenre of eroticized films that starred Shields as a gauzy, virginal ideal of feminine perfection, in films like Pretty Baby – in which she played a prostitute – and the sexual awakening film The Blue Lagoon. Endless Love was the next of the set, starring a 15-year-old Shields as Jade, a young girl in the intense throes of first love. Originally directed by Franco Zeffirelli, who’d previously made his name with his own youth-oriented version of Romeo & Juliet, Endless Love was never a particularly fantastic film, but the melodramatic barn-burner easily became an iconic emblem of Shields’ childhood career. The remake, written and directed by Shana Feste who presumably specializes in mediocre film fare with films like Country Strong on her hit list, was designed to be a Valentine’s Day box office success, straying far from the original film and even farther from the original source material. Positioned as a worthy companion to any film of the Nicholas Sparks variety and starring Magic Mike alum Alex Pettyfer, fans of the original film were hardly the remake’s target audience, and Feste’s film unsurprisingly failed to connect with anyone hoping for even a serviceable romantic melodrama.

Red Dawn (1984 & 2012)

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Image via MGM/UA Entertainment Co.

A vengeance picture initially conceived of for 1980s audiences still in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and in the midst of newly ignited Cold War fears, Red Dawn envisioned an alternate American reality in which the youth of the country are forced to square off against Soviet invaders. Starring a who’s who of ‘80s Hollywood that included Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Charlie Sheen and Jennifer Grey, John Milius’ action epic was a thumpingly patriotic, possibly xenophobic action-adventure that few acknowledged as a masterpiece, but many revered as fertile ground for guilty pleasure viewing. Dan Bradley’s version, which actually sat on a shelf for three years before it was finally released to the public is little different than the original, which is its main problem. To justify a remake, Bradley would have needed to take some of the film’s more questionable politics to task rather than simply swapping the questionable machinations of the original antagonists for very screamy North Korean foes with even murkier objectives. A box office flop, the only quiet victory of Bradley’s first-time effort is the similarly prescient casting of a then-not-so famous Josh Hutcherson and Chris Hemsworth, but the effect is still small victories in a film still all too-obsessed with big ones.

Fame (1980 & 2009)

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Image via MGM

Though technically a product of the culture of the late ‘70s, Fame remains an example of a near-perfectly executed youth film unfolding over four years across the high-school career of four young performers. It’s no secret that detractors of the musical genre never were meant to fall hard for Fame, but for those devoted to the craft, it remains a perfect example of the genre. That’s why it seems even crueller that the blatantly sanitized 2009 film, which pulls in Disney Channel alum Kay Panabaker and other similarly white-toothed, shiny-haired young people, rings so effectively false. Lacking a single outstanding sequence or number and made for a mythical teen audience that apparently craves their stars perfectly groomed and manically sunny, it’s a film that seems to have been made with studio notes in hand and creativity left far, far behind.

National Lampoon’s Vacation & Vacation (1983 & 2015)

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Image via Warner Bros.

Now a modern classic after finding a second life in televised syndication and a growing cultural understanding of the film’s deep cynicism, National Lampoon’s Vacation has become the definition of the road trip film, even in light of its lukewarm initial reception. By all accounts a broadly pleasant comedy with enough low brow humor to keep the common denominator laughs flowing, the film also managed to commit a certain amount of cultural subversion, thanks to its caustic misanthropism. The original, perhaps due to its unfailing omnipresence, never felt as though it needed a modern take – but Jonathan M. Goldstein and John Francis Daley had other ideas. Now known as the writers of Spider-Man: Homecoming, the two had only the mildly funny Horrible Bosses franchise on their resumes, and the promotional campaign for the film did little to drum up much excitement for the film. But the 2015 remake (which dropped the “National Lampoon” herald), manages to be funny in spite of its apparent predilection for relative comedy pap, managing to carve out an entirely different niche, trading in the existential anger of the Chevy Chase vehicle for a plethora of very funny, very dirty gags.

RoboCop (1987 & 2014)

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Image via Sony

Currently enjoying his stint in Hollywood’s good graces after Elle’s much-heralded bow at Cannes, the ever-curious Paul Verhoeven is still best known for his 1987 dystopic masterpiece, RoboCop. After years of flying under the cinematic radar, alternating between low-budget action and erotica, Verhoeven blew up with the landmark action excursion that was as slickly made as smartly conceived, a film that only garnered more praise for its cerebral approach to the genre as the years ticked by. After nearly three decades of cultural devotion to the project, indie-action director Jose Padhila took on the task of remaking the sc-fi favorite, and it was nearly impossible not to fear the results. What he delivered was a surprisingly serviceable film that attempted to cater to audiences’ increasingly dark action appetites – and while it definitely doesn’t overtake the original (that would be a feat, anyway), two years on, it’s a decidedly worthy extra installment. Suprise!

21 Jump Street (1987-1991 & 2012)

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Image via Fox

It would be irresponsible not to end on a positive note – after all, it’s important to remember that a remake in name alone is not doomed to be filmic drivel. Enter 21 Jump Street. The original series handed Johnny Depp a bona fide career (and legions of fangirls) while validating the Fox network after its positive initial release, managing to become a phenomenon during its four years on the air, despite its general evaporation from pop culture in the two decades after the series concluded. And while the meeting of minds the 21 Jump Street remake offered now seems like an unmistakable recipe for success, in the year before the film’s release, things didn’t look so certain. For one, Channing Tatum had yet to definitively prove himself as a comic voice, appearing previously only in She’s the Man, and still largely known for his dance work in Step Up and his brooding appearances in weepy Nicholas Sparks adaptations. Now Hollywood hotshots Phil Lord and Chris Miller were still just the guys who’d directed Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and while Jonah Hill had been a bankable star since Superbad, it was less than sure if the comedy would be any kind of hit. Fast-forward to 2016, and that risky film is now a tried and true franchise, with two wildly profitable entries and a third (Men in Black crossover) in the works. Injecting the original formula of the show with plenty of raunch and lots of good will, 21 Jump Street both managed to separate itself from the cultural legacy of the show and pay homage to it. Now? The films are far more notable (and deservedly so) than the series, making this one remake no one knew we needed.