More often than not, horror sequels are downgraded ripoffs of the original, wear out what may
have been a novel concept to begin with, or resort to extreme gore and jump scares to
one-up their predecessor.
"Stab 2?
Who would want to do that?
Sequels suck."
"Oh, come on, man.”
“Oh please, please, by definition alone they're inferior films."
That's true of most sequels, really, but it seems especially common in this genre.
There are exceptions to every rule, however—and these sequels not only live up to their horrifying
predecessors, they're even better.
Evil Dead II
Without The Evil Dead, we would have never been introduced to Ash and his cabin of horrors.
So, there's certainly something to be said for the merits of the movie that started it
all.
However, the "re-quel," as Bruce Campbell calls it, was a lot campier and more self-aware—and,
as a result, more fun.
"Groovy."
Instead of Ash coming in as the prototypical hero type, he became a lot more humorous and
quirky.
[Laughter]
Sure, this meant the gore got dialed down a bit, but it also set a new tone for the
series that was much cheekier and far more unique than the first.
Evil Ash!
"Groovy" Ash!
More mania!
[Scream]
Evil Dead II cemented the series as a viable franchise, opening the door for movie three,
Army of Darkness, as well as a remake and the TV spinoff series Ash vs. Evil Dead.
Bruce Campbell may have done other work in between all these Evil Dead installments,
but he'll still be forever be known for his demonic slaughtering skills.
"Yeah!
Lookin good.
Lookin sweet!"
Friday the 13th, Part 2
The first Friday the 13th certainly set a tone for what would become a sprawling series
of slasher pics targeting teen counselors at Camp Crystal Lake.
"The counselors weren't paying any attention.
They were making love while that young boy drowned.
His name was Jason."
But its commitment to realism in having a villain who's a real person, rather than future
franchise mainstay Jason Voorhees, meant it wasn't really all that different from any
other entry in the "teens running from the psycho" subgenre.
"Must be my imagination."
The second movie, however, threw caution to the wind and resurrected Jason from his watery
grave to do all the gore-dealing.
And it totally paid off.
"Here it comes!”
[Laughter]
Not only is Friday the 13th, Part 2 eerie and well-made, but the idea that Jason would
be the one to take up his mother's torch and terrorize campers for the next few decades
was solid and sustainable.
"And he's hungry.
Jason's out there."
Without this movie, Jason Voorhees wouldn't be such an icon of the horror genre, which
is just plain unimaginable.
The Devil's Rejects
Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses was a shockingly brutal parade of violence and mayhem, and
produced some pretty unforgettable moments of violence that will haunt many nightmares
forever.
"Behold, fishboy!"
"Oh my god!”
But The Devil's Rejects came along and took its trio of nefarious butchers into more realistically
terrifying territory.
Baby, Otis, and Captain Spaulding are seen fleeing the police and tormenting anyone unfortunate
enough to find themselves in their path.
"You're not gonna slay us are you?"
"Ugh, slaying sounds so permanent."
The Devil's Rejects may have lost the atmospheric creepiness of the original, but it somehow
managed to be even more disturbing, since all these slayings were done in plain sight.
The depravity of these three was downright horrifying, and the fact that the movie was
so packed with relatable victims made the dread that much more visceral than its predecessor.
"What's the matter kid, don't you like clowns?"
Saw II
Saw is a modern horror classic that introduced audiences to a game no one in their right
mind would ever want to play.
"I want to play a game.”
With special focus on the two victims of the day, Saw presented Jigsaw and his philosophical
torture-dealing scheme and paid off with a twist ending that opened the dirty bathroom
door to a whole franchise of gory traps.
"Hello Dr. Gordon.
You are perhaps my greatest asset."
But where the first movie suffered some pacing issues due to its shoestring budget and tight
set space, the second movie cleverly expanded the Jigsaw universe.
"Oh, yes.
There will be blood."
Not only did it present the first film's survivor Amanda as Jigsaw's protége, but it also committed
to its puzzle dynamic and got even more creative with its terrifying traps.
"Let the game begin."
Saw II was more exciting and interactive with the audience, and it offered much more insight
into who Jigsaw was and what he wanted to accomplish.
"By creating a legacy, by living a life worth remembering, you become immortal."
With the added layer of a bigger game in play for one of the detectives investigating Jigsaw's
crimes, Saw II began to really flesh out the formula introduced by the first and offered
a sustainable launch pad for the bevy of sequels to follow.
"Game over."
Wes Craven's New Nightmare
A Nightmare on Elm Street's original concept—that a boogeyman who haunted dreams could actually
merk a person in their sleep—was enough to make anyone afraid of bedtime.
"This… is God."
But once that storyline was beaten to lifelessness with a slew of progressively lame sequels,
franchise mastermind Wes Craven decided to get a little more creative about how to amp
up the intrigue.
With Wes Craven's New Nightmare, he ventured outside of the box and pegged all the predecessors
as the fictional movies that they were.
"I'm doing a film about my nightmares as I'm dreaming them.
In order for the movie to continue, it was dependant on me having more nightmares.
Well, fortunately, I did."
Once his creation Freddy Krueger started bleeding into real life, though, his original stars
had to play their old parts in an effort to stop the very evil he'd created with the original
series.
What resulted was a smart statement about the industry—and his own place in it -- and
a film that was both self-aware and completely entertaining at the same time.
"Nine, ten, never sleep again.”
Scream 2
Scream remains a central piece of '90s slasher history thanks to its quotable psycho and
fascination with its own genre.
"Do you like scary movies?"
"Uh huh."
And its sequel, Scream 2, took the property to new heights by focusing on what made the
original so, well, original.
The first installment followed a fairly standard formula about a masked psycho offing high
school students, but there was an element of satisfying self-awareness that set the
movie apart.
Scream 2 accentuated that aspect by introducing a movie-within-a-movie storyline that winked
at its own pop cultural relevance in a charming new way.
"See, I've got my whole defense planned out.
I'm gonna blame the movies."
While some of the slay scenes from the first film were a little more thrilling than anything
that came after, the first sequel's subtle statements about itself were refreshingly
on point.
"It's showtime!"
The Purge: Anarchy
The Purge was laser focused on a single family trying to survive America's annual night of
government-sanctioned mayhem.
"Please just let us purge."
And while that was exciting enough to spawn a sequel, there was a lot of room to grow
once the concept proved to be viable at the box office.
Instead of just focusing again on a select few struggling to survive the night, The Purge:
Anarchy introduced some of the socioeconomic factors that would be an important part in
creating such a system of disorder.
While fans of the first film might've been left to wonder why and how the U.S. stooped
to allowing such chaos, Anarchy attempted to answer those questions.
By putting its central players outside the comfort of their own homes, we got to see
a lot more of the destruction and fallout from the Purge, and it was a lot more satisfying
and informative.
"Can't have heroes."
The parallels to the occupy movement also set the stage for the third installment, The
Purge: Election Year, and the pic also left room for the forthcoming prequel series that'll
delve into how society devolved in the first place.
Dawn of the Dead
George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead is a classic, no doubt about it.
It marked the beginning of the zombie film craze and holds up as an esteemed chapter
in his filmography.
"They're coming to get you Barbara."
However, Dawn of the Dead, the second installment in his Living Dead series, expanded the first
movie's ideas by showcasing the root cause of this epidemic.
"When there’s no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the earth."
The film more narrowly pinpointed Romero's parallels between zombification and American
consumerism by having its victims take cover in a shopping mall.
And the film's juxtaposition of excess and materialism with hopelessness and violence
helped define the zombie genre as a whole forever.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
When it comes to the Texas Chainsaw series, nothing has or probably ever will beat Tobe
Hooper's 1974 original.
When it comes to the modern reboots, though, there are some which were better than the
others.
After a series of Texas Chainsaw sequels that got progressively more ludicrous, 2003's reboot
looked to return the franchise to its original form by having a group of unexpecting teens
return to Leatherface's isolated abode.
"What's wrong with you people?"
"Oh my, my, my, my, my…"
The pic benefited from modern cinematography and sound effects, and one deliciously evil
sheriff that made Leatherface seem like a teddy bear.
However, it added very little to the story we already knew.
Its sequel The Beginning, however, did some digging as to why this cannibalistic family
became what they were.
The way their backstory developed was clever and included some of the franchise's best
dialogue.
"No talking until after I've said grace, a------.”
More importantly, the plot also paid more attention to its societal environment—namely,
the Vietnam War and the conscription that plagued a generation's youth.
"You kids okay?"
It still didn't transcend the original by any stretch of the imagination, but it certainly
bested the previous sequels and reboots in the series.
"You blasphemous bitch!
This is redemption, lady, that’s what this is!”
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