Summary
One good scare deserves another, and of course, horror is the one genre that’s always guaranteed to make money, so there’s no shortage of horror movies with sequels. It’s common for popular horror movies to inspire whole franchises, and there’s a lot to choose from since the genre exploded in the 1970s with some famous and iconic titles.
Plenty of the horror franchises that viewers enjoy in the present day started decades ago before CGI was a thing. Some of the most mind-blowing special effects were developed and used for horror movies before they reached science fiction or fantasy, and they evolved as the following movies did, many of them into multiple sequels.
7The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
IMDb Rating: 5.6
The first and direct sequel to one of the most iconic movies in history,The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2isn’t going to get a high ranking from conventional critics, but it retains a solid cult following. Like other movies in the franchise, it’s a ground-breaking movie for practical effects, dark comedy, and modern horror, and takes even more chances than the first one did with all of the above.
It’s the same stretch of lonely Texas highway that brings out the drunken football players, their pickup trucks,and Leatherface. The notorious villain appears for the second installment and is joined by the equally grotesque Chop Top, another notorious bad guy who would appear various times as the franchise progressed.
6The Exorcist III
IMDb Rating: 6.5
The history ofThe Exorcistmovie series has just asmany strange twists and turnsas the plot of the films. With a star-studded cast and the return of director William Blatty, the third is one of history’s best horror sequels and was considered redemption after the notorious flop of the second.
The Exorcist III takes place 15 years after the events of the first movie, a bit of real-life that refers to the release of the original in 1975. The story begins with a scene between some familiar characters reminiscing about days past, specifically the exorcism of Regan MacNeil, then delves into a series of gruesome murders that have an occult aesthetic.
5Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
IMDb Rating: 6.7
Nightmare on Elm Streetis the quintessential 1980s slasher series, starting in 1984 with the original and ending in 1991 withFreddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare.Notorious horror director and writer Wes Craven was the creative mind behind the original and contributed to the screenplay when he wasn’t in the director’s chair.
The series takes an interesting turn here with the occult angle, mainly with the quest to give Freddy’s bones a proper burial, and the main character putting a team together to defeat Freddy on his own turf. This means discovering and using their dream-related powers, a connection with the events of the last movie that defeated Freddy.
IMDb Rating: 7.7
Also known asEvil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, this is one of the early titles that made Sam Raimi famous and made Bruce Campbell a horror movie sensation. Comedy horror was still a fairly new concept and the success of this franchise confirms that even thoughthe genre might be niche, it’s got a timeless charm that audiences enjoy.
The whole idea of a cabin in the woods is kicked up a notch in this series, and the second film is considered both a sequel and a remake of the first, which follows a similar storyline. The dark comedy, visceral horror, and extensive work on practical effects and makeup have yet to be duplicated, even though the movie has inspired countless other movies. The third move,Army of Darkness, was released in 1992 and puts the wisecracking Ash in another strange and horrific environment.
3Dawn of the Dead
IMDb Rating: 7.8
The much-anticipated sequel to the iconicNight of the Living Dead,this movie might have started the trope of “hiding from the undead Apocolypse in a mall.” The farmhouse that served as the main setting for the first movie has now become a larger urban location that would have been a familiar place for viewers in the 1970s and 1980s. This movie also started the survivalist angle that stories about the undead apocalypse almost always have now, which shines through in shows likeVan HelsingandThe Last of Us.
None of the characters from the first movie appear in the second installment, and considering how successful the film was, that didn’t adversely affect the popularity of the movie in the slightest. Four direct sequels followed along with an Italian spinoff franchise entitledZombi.
2Bride of Frankenstein
The originalFrankensteinmovieand its direct sequel are both ideal examples of how early cinema could handle a good book adaptation. The novel of the same name, written by Mary Shelley, is considered to be the genesis of both horror, and to a lesser extent, science fiction, and the union between the two that would resonate so well with moviegoers.
Shelley actually appears in this film in an interesting twist and declares that there is more to the story after the events of the previous one. Most of what transpires in the second movie takes place in the book but was left out of the script for the first film,which is a technique modernmovie producers use when hashing out a script for a sequel to a book adaptation.
1Aliens
IMDb Rating: 8.4
Aliensis rated as one of the best sequels to anything of all time. The early 1980s was a time when director James Cameron was experimenting withthe potential for horrorcrossovers with science fiction and action, with other popular titles likePredatorandTerminatoras examples, and he did the same with the sequel for the smash hit science fiction horror film,Alien.
The title is only partly sarcastic, but this time there really is more than one alien. There’s a whole nest of them complete with a queen, and the nefarious Weyland-Yutani corporation is still after one for research.
Ripley goes on to survive yet another harrowing ordeal and goes on to star inAlien 3, which was ironically one of the lowest-rated and disappointing sequels in movie history. The third installment was so poorly received it put a hiatus on the franchise, at least the movie section, for several years.
