HOLLYWOOD—It’s a given fact and I’m not going to argue it; many horror sequels suck, in some ways they are the worst movies made. I truly want you to think about this: name a horror sequel that was ABSOLUTELY HANDS DOWN better than the original? I’m waiting, you might name some movies, but in your heart of hearts it doesn’t outdo the original. I know the movie that comes to the top of mind for so many people is “Aliens,” the 1986 flick helmed by James Cameron, which is a follow-up to Ridley Scott’s iconic 1979 classic “Alien.”
Is “Aliens” a great movie? Absolutely, but it is a completely different movie from its predecessor that had a level of spine-tingling suspense, you cannot put it into words. The chest-bursting scene: unforgettable. That scene with Dallas and his hunt for ‘the alien’ if you could eat that tension it would be amazing. To this day, I think that has one of the most intense sequences I consider in horror.
If you’re talking about any of the flicks in the “Halloween,” “Friday the 13th” and “Nightmare on Elm Street” franchises, none outdo the original. John Carpenter’s 1978 classic, “Halloween” still scares people senseless to this day. It is quintessential horror, and he is the iconic boogeyman as a result. “Friday the 13th” gave us the push for excessive gore/creative kills in the genre and introduced hockey-masked villain, Jason Voorhees. We can’t forget Wes Craven’s birth of the iconic night-stalker with Freddy Krueger. Now, if there is a sequel some argue is quite good it is “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.”
That sequel is damn close to being better than the original, it only loses points because it doesn’t have the tension and that level of fear the original helmed. Freddy became a bit of a wisecracker and that takes out the fear element of the villain. None of the other “Halloween” movies come close to the original, I love the 2018 flick, but it doesn’t trounce the original, and “Friday the 13th” doesn’t really have any phenomenal sequels that outwit the original and the twist at the end.
If there is a franchise that has some solid entries it would be the 1996 film “Scream.” What’s the problem though? None of the flicks capture that witty element of balancing pure terror with slight touches of comedy and poking fun at the genre that works so well and easily. “Scream 2” is a worthy sequel, but it misses the mark, by a slight tinge, just slightly.
Please don’t ask me to try to name a sequel that is better than the original in the horror realm. I cannot, I wish I could, but I can name more movies that are worse, terrible, dreadful, which poses the question: why are there so many?! You don’t see many action, comedies or dramas that have more than 2 maybe 3 movies. Horror, you get into the realm of 7, 8, 9, 10 hell some movies have reached beyond that number in the franchise. In a way, it has killed the genre.
Here is where Hollywood has made the mistake: not every movie needs a sequel. You know where a sequel should come into place? If there is MORE STORY TO BE TOLD THAT COULD NOT BE TOLD IN THE FIRST MOVIE. Hollywood doesn’t see that, and it becomes more of a chore to create a story to further the original. There’s the mistake. The story already has to be there, when you try to cook it up, you tend to come up with ideas that are just plain stupid and make no sense whatsoever.
There is a reason the genre exploded in the 80s and died in the 80s: SEQUELS. It feels like the genre could be in that same realm with the legacy sequel that has dominated popularity and the big question we all ask is: WHY?
