We took a long, strange trip into the world of Stephen King-less Stephen King sequels,
and we found the very best and the very worst.
Oddly, while there have been sequels to Stephen King novels on several occasions, his short
stories are the ones that most often get made into franchises. "Sometimes They Come Back,"
a tale from King's Night Shift collection, has spawned three different, loosely related
films since it was first published, but the second one has proven to be the most interesting.
"That's cool. I like that."
Like the first film, Sometimes They Come Back...Again is the story of a man facing demonic forces
tied to a tragic event in his past, in this case the death of his sister. When the young
thugs responsible for her killing manage to, well, come back from Hell, they take the form
of demonic tormentors who are determined to finish what they started.
"I'm not gonna let that happen."
"What, are you some kind of tough guy now? How terrifying."
While the first Sometimes They Come Back film certainly leans heavily into the demonic imagery
near the end, the sequel goes all-out with it, until the climax is just dripping with
over-the-top ritualistic violence. It's a film that traffics in quite a few horror cliches,
and it's not exactly a classic, but Sometimes They Come Back...Again's willingness to just
go full-tilt with its monsters makes it an extremely watchable film, anchored by the
scenery-chewing madness of Alexis Arquette.
It's honestly a bit of a minor miracle that Sometimes They Come Back managed to spawn
one pretty entertaining sequel with Sometimes They Come Back...Again. The problem is that
the very presence of a part two and its relative success meant that another sequel was possible.
Sadly, part three didn't work out nearly as well.
Like the previous films, Sometimes They Come Back...for More follows a group of ordinary
people as they struggle against demonic forces that have risen up from the netherworld to
kill, but this time, the action takes place at a mining installation in Antarctica. The
goal might've been to evoke the claustrophobic nature of films like John Carpenter's The
Thing, but the end result is something bland and cold, with barely any of the wild demonic
energy that the first sequel brought to things.
Though there are attempts to broaden the mythology, that's all hampered by a lackluster script
and a low budget. By the time the actual monsters arrive, there's not a lot to get excited about.
Pet Sematary is, quite famously, the story Stephen King was worried might be too unpleasant
to publish. When it finally was, director Mary Lambert adapted it into one of the most
famous and frightening King films. Then, Lambert decided to take things one step further with
a sequel...without King's involvement.
Because of the rather tragic ending of the first film, Pet Sematary Two follows a completely
different family who's just moved to Ludlow, Maine, and they're grappling with their own
family tragedy. What sets the film apart, aside from the entirely new cast of characters,
is Lambert's willingness to lean in as far as possible to the unpleasant gory aspects
at the heart of the story.
"No brain, no pain. Think about it."
This time around, the chief evil zombie character takes the form of a local sheriff, while a
dead dog takes the place of a dead cat, and a dead mother replaces a dead son. It all
unfolds with a similar rhythm to the original Pet Sematary, but while the first film is
an emotional gut punch, Pet Sematary Two is all guts. That ultimately means it's inferior
to the original film, but it's still packed with enough black comedy and slick visual
effects to make it a must-see for completists, as well as people who wanted Pet Sematary
to be even darker.
Creepshow 3 is rooted in a good idea. After all, the whole concept behind Creepshow is
an anthology of horror stories that are only loosely linked, so provided you keep up the
tone of the original, you can theoretically do whatever you want. We know this now because
Shudder has managed to produce a well-received Creepshow TV series that preserves both the
tone and the anthology format of the first movie.
Sadly, this isn't the case with Creepshow 3, a film made without the involvement of
original creators Stephen King and George A. Romero and one that retains very little
of the darkly comic charm that came from the first two films.
Once again, we're presented with a series of loosely linked stories that are meant to
convey a certain kind of impish, humorously terrifying style, but the scares don't land,
and the attempt at humor just comes off as mean-spirited. Horror anthologies can provide
a great platform for filmmakers to tell shorter-form scary stories on their way to something bigger,
but this film is a poor use of the Creepshow name.
Sequels to horror classics that are set years later and follow a new generation of characters
are common, but they're more likely to happen with franchises. Carrie, director Brian De
Palma's adaptation of Stephen King's debut novel, didn't intentionally try to start a
franchise. It's a film in which, spoilers, almost everyone involved dies, leaving little
room for sequels. And yet, The Rage: Carrie 2 did try to make one happen more than 20
years later.
Did it actually work? Well, while the film is dripping with late-'90s horror cliches
from the font used in the credits to the super dated soundtrack, as well as the random cuts
to black-and-white interspersed throughout the movie, it actually does manage to find
its own way. It's the story of Rachel Lang, Carrie White's long-lost half-sister, who
has the same telekinetic ability but a bit less of the social awkwardness.
"What are you saying I have?"
"I'm saying you're not crazy, and it's not the devil. It's a trait, Rachel, you've inherited."
In the wake of her best friend's death, Rachel finds herself diving deeper into an exploitative
and cruel high school subculture, and it awakens something in her that she's been struggling
to embrace.
It's not the instant classic that Carrie was, but The Rage does manage to do some rather
inventive things with its own spin on telekinetic horror. In particular, the climactic sequence
is kind of stunning, and though it's not exactly a timeless film, the movie has a certain sense
of wit about the time and place it's coming from. It's a film that manages to do something
interesting with a concept that shouldn't have worked in the first place.
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