A nanny remake that tries to be different, but ends up getting paid less.

The new made-for-Hulu horror film “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle” is a remake of the 1992 movie. In that version, which I liked, a doctor kills himself after being accused of sexual misconduct by many women. His wife, who was played by Rebecca De Mornay, lost everything as a result, and decides to pose as the new nanny Annabella Sciorra, who was one of her deceased husband’s victims.

This new version stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Maika Monroe and wishes to play the game differently (and cuts back on the R-word-remember Ernie Hudson played a disabled handyman in 1992), but I still feel like it’s too modern of a thriller with its cliches. The mother is stilled stressed out by the new nanny enough to predictably slice her own finger while cutting chicken cutlets, and the nanny has a new reason for her arrival. But the results don’t really apply.

Winstead plays a mother named Caitlyn, who has a nice LA house, a working husband Miguel (Raul Castillo), and two kids, but she worries she might not be a great mother. She makes that abundantly clear when her cooking gives herself and her kids food poisoning, and how she contemplates on having a third child.

She then hires Polly (Monroe) as the new nanny, who assures her that she’s doing a good job regardless. So, she gives her a place to stay, and things are going pretty good. That is unless Caitlyn has to be the jealous type, who suspects that her ten-year-old Emma (Mileiah Vega) would like Polly more than her. And the fact that at her age, she might identify as a lesbian. That’s when we get that dinner conversation that ends with the girl angrily leaving the table and slamming her bedroom door.

But of course, this babysitter is quite devious. She gives Emma sugar when she’s not supposed to have any. Who would give a child fireworks? And she’s bound to push the mother toward her limits.

And on both sides of the equation, the husband has to think his wife is overreacting and still struggling with her past issues (“I can’t help you if you’re not willing to see the possibility that you are wrong,” he says to her). How many movie husbands are going to keep thinking that?

You might want to see this new version of “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle,” because it’s a new Hulu movie, so I won’t spoil the ending for you. But it sort of left me confused about who to really root for, because the mother apparently has demons of her own, and the nanny hints to little Emma that her mother is pretending to be somebody else. But the trailer does suggest arson.

Winstead and Monroe are both very good at adapting to the formula of the stressed mother and the conniving nanny, and it might be a little more than that. The writers Micah Bloomberg (“Sanctuary”) and Amanda Silver (“Jurassic World,” “Avatar: The Way of Water”) and the director Michelle Garza Cervera (making her American directorial debut) guide these two with the right intensities, but they don’t manage to enthrall us with how the characters follow the rules of a horror movie.

For example, there has to be Martin Starr as the family’s friend, who tries to tell the nanny not to resort to drastic measures, but she knocks him out. And of course, when he tries to call 911 right in front of her, she has to murder him. And kids have to be accidentally hit and the mother has to stay away from her temporarily. I suppose the filmmakers are following a message that you can change the rules of a remake, but you can’t change the rules of the horror genre. It’s like nobody here saw any of the “Scream” movies.

Streaming on Hulu