Top 10 Horror Movie Sequels
7: Day of the Dead (1985)
The maestro of the zombie movie, George A. Romero, released a sequel to Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead in 1985, the movie being called Day of the Dead. Day of the Dead is considered by many to be Romero’s best film, and it focuses heavily on isolation and the struggle to survive among a group of soldiers, doctors, and zombie hordes. The out-of-their-depth survivors go to Florida, and all hell breaks loose, literally!
Romero always satirizes different genres and topics; Dawn of the Dead, located in a shopping mall, was about consumerism. Day‘s cast of characters that are neither bad or good makes for gritty realism, but can the zombies think? One zombie ex-soldier proves they can, given the right conditioning. Great special effects make-up by master Tom Savini and Romero’s directing style blend together to make a stomach-churning social documentary style film focusing on drama and the horrors humans can do given the chance of being in an apocalypse. Very gory and full of cringe-worthy moments, it is definitely one of the best films Romero has ever directed. (Personally, I find some of his new films to be terrible.)
6: Aliens (1986)
Director James Cameron and actress Sigourney Weaver (Ellen Ripley) return for one of the best sequels in movie history with a powerhouse of an action-horror film. Aliens is set 57 years following the original film after Ripley went into stasis. She drifted through space until the evil Weyland-Yutani Corporation found her. She tries to assimilate back into normal life but has nightmares. With the persuasion of Weyland-Yutani representative Carter J. Burke, Ripley heads back to the location of the first film with a group of Space Marines, which she finds a little girl called Newt and becomes a mother figure to her.
With intense violence and action, this film is a heart-racing roller coaster with realistic special effects. The acting is believable, and the aliens are a menacing enemy to go up against. Watch if you love a great story, action, acting, and horror blended into a neatly directed package.
5: Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
One of the best horror sequels of all time beyond question has to be Universal’s Bride of Frankenstein. Bride of Frankenstein returns stars Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s Monster and Colin Clive as the tortured Dr. Henry Frankenstein in a sequel that took four years to make. The sequel is better than the original with a stronger budget that is beautifully shown off by director James Whale and a musical score that is both brilliant and memorable credited to Franz Waxman. Bride of Frankenstein starts off directly after the events of the first film’s end with the windmill burning Frankenstein’s Monster alive… or so we thought! Frankenstein’s Monster is alive and well but visibly burnt and scarred by the events. Luckily, he meets a blind hermit that teaches him to talk, and the real villain of the film is never Dr. Frankenstein but rather his mentor, Dr. Pretorius, who tantalizes the doctor into creating the perfect Bride to go with his Monster.
With the higher budget given and even higher cinematography, the film is faultless, the acting’s some of the best in the period, and the sets are highly detailed. Christian imagery and homosexual/camp tones are everywhere in this film so if you’re not easily offended by these subjects, then give it a watch because black and white films do not get any better than this one right here.
4: Dawn of the Dead (1978)
I’ve chosen another George A. Romero film sequel because his films are over-the-top and often grand in story and scale even if the location chosen is in a shopping mall with thousands of zombies banging at the doors waiting for their pound of flesh to come. Dawn of the Dead is arguably the best film in his Dead series, and to horror fans such as yours truly it’s a personal favorite. The movie follows a band of characters as they try to live in a world where the recently deceased reanimate into walking, flesh-hungry corpses. Sadly, all the residents in the local town are dead, which leaves the shopping mall overrun by zombies. The few remaining people’s fight for survival starts from the moment they try to live together and create a life among the death and chaos around them.
With Tom Savini and George A. Romero teaming up once again to flesh out one of the most unique worlds in horror films, they create some real horror magic with the social statements they make in the film and fortunately hits the mark with the consumerist parodies it creates. Definitely a film for horror fans interested in a thought-provoking movie with horror mixed in that is all about the shocks and fleshed-out story that leaves you wanting to chew it over again and again.
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