10 Horror Sequels That Took Their Franchises In New Directions

10 Horror Sequels That Took Their Franchises In New Directions

The horror genre is notorious for its numerous sequels and an unending slew of low-budget productions, but these 10 sequels broke that mold.

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Horror films getting sequels, often becoming full-on franchises, is nothing new. More often than not, this means getting the same thing repeatedly, albeit a bit more ambitious or slightly altered to keep hitting the beats the fans loved in the first film.

Sometimes, however, a sequel decides to take a bigger swing or to just walk away from the batter box completely and play a different sport. Those are the sequels, which change the landscape of expectations, that often leave a ripple effect, emanating into the future films of the series.

10 Slumber Party Massacre II

An idea that a few horror films have toyed with—the Halloween reboots, in particular—is the concept of trauma left on main characters that survive the first films.

One of the most memorable versions of this idea is Slumber Party Massacre II, where the lone survivor of the first film, a stock slasher, is terrorized by a supernatural punk rock bad boy whose guitar doubles as a giant drill. It’s as maddening as it sounds, and it evolved this series from another standard slasher to something wholly unique.

9 New Nightmare

After its sixth installment, The Nightmare on Elm Street series was slowly screeching to a halt. The only revival strategy was to go back to the franchise’s creator, Wes Craven, and let him play in the playground he built.

His take is one that he would perfect a few years later with Scream, as he goes meta with his slasher icon. The film is funny, while still staying true to its horror roots, as Freddy Krueger picks off the actors and crew of the films from real life.

8 Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest

This sequel in name only leaves the confines of Gatlin, Nebraska, and sets the story in the other corn capitol of the United States, Chicago. This voice, while seemingly a bad idea, would prove to be the exact jolt of life the series needed.

Following in the film’s wake, the franchise would continue to go further into the obscure, ignoring the original’s constraints and instead deciding to pave their own unique roads of terror all over the Midwest.

7 Resident Evil: Apocalypse

The time has come for the world to realize that the Resident Evil franchise is pure chaotic fun—that is, except for the first film. Even as these movies slowly get reappraised, the first installment still stands out as particularly unenjoyable.

Apocalypse, however, is insane. It has all the creatures, clones, and Kung-fu that would become this series’ bread and butter. The only thing it lacks is the combo of kung-fu clones that show up later in the franchise. The film is far more watchable than memory serves and pushed the snowball that would only grow over the next six films.

6 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

How do you create a follow-up to a film that was banned in multiple countries? If you ask the master of horror Tobe Hooper, you make it a comedy, without taking away any of the horrific ideas that were present in the first.

The film takes the exact idea of the first but makes it exponentially bigger, giving the psycho family much more personality and screen time. Then, it completes the package by adding in Dennis Hopper as a chainsaw-wielding Texas Ranger out for blood. The whole thing is pure insanity and steered this franchise away from pure terror and into weird character pieces filled to the brim with bonkers horror.

5 The Purge: Anarchy

After the small-scale home invasion story of the first entry in the Purge series, fans were instantly enticed by the sequel’s promise to take to the streets and open up the world of this franchise where all crimes are legal one day a year.

While the second installment, it’s inarguable that this film set the tone, style, and scope that every future movie would follow. By going in a more action-horror direction and expanding the politics behind the purge, Anarchy cements itself as the definitive Purge movie.

4 The Return of the Living Dead

While Romero’s Dawn of the Dead would have been just as easy a choice for this list, the other sequel to Night of The Living Dead took much wilder liberties with the property.

The zombies don’t die, the gore is outrageous, and the tone has moved from deathly dire to laugh out loud funny. It’s a complete blow-up of the intense first film, which is why it led to a full franchise of its own running parallel to Romero’s.

3 Halloween III: Season of the Witch

A movie that only recently has found its way into the public’s canon of classic horror, the third installment of the Halloween series took a big swing by dropping Michael Myers and opting for a completely original tale set on the titular holiday.

While disdained at the time, after the franchise of Halloween made it to a whopping twelve films that are rocky, to say the least, it finally became clear that the third sequel was actually a genuinely great piece of horror.

2 Evil Dead II

After an intense, grimy, low budget horror outing, the team behind the Evil Dead knew better than to try to replicate the lightning in a bottle they had with their film. Instead, they replicated it, with way more money, and way more everything else.

One of the most notable tone shifts in horror history, The Evil Dead II takes the simple premise of the first film and escalates it beyond comprehension, pushing it into slapstick comedy. It’s nonstop, funny at nearly every turn, and never strays into something that doesn’t feel like a horror film. On top of all that, it becomes the thing that would be emulated in the sequel and follow-up television series.

1 Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

After four films of POV murdering and a fifth film that many refuse to acknowledge, the Friday the 13th franchise was in dire need of resurrecting. Luckily, Jason Lives showed up like a lightning bolt to the chest. Straight from the film’s high-energy opening, it delivers on everything that fans want from one of these films.

Along with already feeling like a slasher film highlight reel, the movie also moved away from the creeping POV Jason of the previous films and established the supernatural, campy, almost main character Jason that would be prevalent in every Friday film going forward.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/horror-sequels-took-franchise-in-new-directions/

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