well i saw it today and I thought it was alright. Not bad at all.

I'm familiar-ish with the original - its been on tv, but I always found it less than compulsive viewing - there was actually no great work of art to desecrate. I think this is a far better movie. Although like Get Carter - you do miss the mini skirts from those original 1960's movies!

I think the movie it was trying to emulate was The Shining. As in The Shining, you were never quite sure if what the central character was experiencing was real, or a product of his disordered imagination.

Kubrick somehow managed to make the scary images more forceful and intense than in this film. And there somehow, it missed an important trick.

However having said that, I've cerainly paid the ticket money for a hell of a lot worse.