In an effort clearly designed to piss off everyone on the goddamned planet, movie studio MGM recently announced its plans to remake the 1980s horror classic Poltergeist.

It’s not a sequel. It’s not a reboot. It’s a bona-fide remake. And it’s being written by the folks who gave us … Boogeyman.

In the immortal words of Poltergeist’s teenage daughter Dana, we shriek: WHAT’S HAPPENING?

We’re not going to gripe about this too much — after all, we have our DVD copy of the 1982 flick, and no matter how drug-addled Hollywood is, those desperate, wild-eyed MGM execs can’t take that away from us. And we’re not even going to gripe — much — about the involvement of remake writers Juliet Snowden and Stiles White. Boogeyman wasn’t a bad horror flick by any stretch; it was a smidge underwhelming, but all told, better than most scary movies these days.

No, we’ll take a different approach with our fussiness. With no disrespect to Snowden and White (after all, wouldn’t you say “hell yes!” if somone waved money under your nose to re-write Poltergeist? Of course you would), we’ll just point out these absolute truths:

• The movie’s story was conceived by Steven Spielberg, co-written by Spielberg, and produced by Spielberg
• At the time, Steven Spielberg was more than Hollywood’s golden boy — he was at the top of his creative game
• The movie was directed by Tobe Hooper
• Tobe Hooper brought us the ONLY Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, while no Citizen Kane, is a masterpiece of horror cinema

So what we’ve got here is chocolate and peanut butter, folks: one of the world’s best visual storytellers working with one of the world’s best horror directors. The end result was a movie that, pardon our French, scared the living shit out of a great many people. Further, the movie still holds up to today’s cinematic standards for visual effects, pacing and performances. It’s still a great movie.

And MGM wants to remake it with … Boogeyman writers? The duo’s most-recent project, Knowing (directed by the astoundingly talented Alex Proyas, which will be released next March) failed to impress Comic Con attendees. We’re really not trying to be assholes here. They’re talented. No doubt. But they’re no Spielberg and Hooper, and they’re tasked with writing a remake script for a movie that’s best left alone.

We learned about this story from /Film, which wrote, “It’s hard to believe that MGM would even dare to attempt a remake without some top writing level talent involved. Why not just make a direct-to-DVD sequel while you’re at it?”

Our reaction is more like Doug’s over at The Movie Blog: “I’m not saying my job is bad, or that I have to work hard in comparison to others; I know I have it easy. But when I have to announce this f***ing (remake) shit, week after week, it … gets disheartening.”

Sigh. Guess we should just start walking toward the light…

Mined by: J.C. “This House Is Clean” Hutchins, via /Film