After I added this to my watchedlist I saw that it was a remake and was curious to compare the two.

==**2009 rating of 7 vs 1987 rating of 3.**==

In my opinion, the 1987 one isn't really worth the time overall. Both movies have the same basic premise of [spoiler]"dude slaughters the family he married into, changes his identity, and marries into a new one to do it all over again" [/spoiler]but otherwise, they are actually different stories.

Various similarities are definitely there, but they are small details and not the story itself. Some details were the same, but also entirely different. An example being that [spoiler]in the original the kid wants to go to boarding school to get away from home, and in the remake the kid has just come back from boarding school and wants to stay home.[/spoiler]

This 2009 one had good pacing and kept my interest with excitement and suspense. The 1987 version dragged on for me and it was about 12 minutes shorter in run time than this one. If the two storylines were more similar I would have chalked it up to me being bored by already knowing what to expect, but I really didn't; that's how different they were.

Both films have their own pros and cons, for sure. There are aspects about the original that were better than this remake (which I'll actually specify over on that review,) but also vice versa. They both failed with their overly gratuitous scenes, especially the 1987 one.

[spoiler]Also, the mothers in both films were pretty dull characters.[/spoiler]

The biggest flaw of this movie was [spoiler]that Amber Heard's character was super annoying and I was so relieved to read that I'm not the only person who thinks so. [insert snarkier, cleverer comment than everyone else about her lack of clothes and personality][/spoiler]