8 Abused Horror Sequels That Really Don’t Deserve the Hate
If there’s one thing horror fans love to argue about (and they do), it’s their favorite franchises. While there are always going to be the people who think that every sequel taints the legacy of the original, those who love these series all have their favorite entries and feel very passionately about them.
There are some sequels that started out being abhorred before slowly gaining a following over time to the point where they’re now fairly well respected. Halloween III is probably the best example of this. Psycho II and—to a lesser extent—III also fall into the same category.
But even some of the sequels that are deemed truly terrible really aren’t that bad. They have a reputation. I heard that some of these entries were god-awful long before I ever actually watched them. But in some cases I didn’t know anything about them going in, and I think that greatly helped my enjoyment. As a kid, you don’t know which Jason movies are the most hated. You don’t care. You just know you’re going to watch him do his thing and it’s going to be awesome.
Some of the entries I hated when I was young are now among my favorites. Many of the films on this list were, at one point in my years of watching these series over and over, among my absolute least favorites. Opinions change and that’s one of the best things about being a horror fan.
Part of the reason we watch these things over and over again is to see if maybe this time we’re going to see something different. Sometimes, usually when we’re not looking for it, we do. Horror fans are a passionate and opinionated bunch, and that’s what makes it such a great community to be a part of. We all love at least one movie that most others seem to hate and vice versa.
With that in mind, here are eight reasons to tell me I have terrible taste, and I couldn’t be happier about that.
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
Not only is it a fun movie, it’s especially great to watch in a marathon with the rest of the series. Then the radically different plot becomes a breath of fresh air, an intermission before you get back into the traditional mayhem with Jason X—which is a fairly straightforward Friday, despite its setting. Jason Goes to Hell is campy, bizarre, full of great Easter Eggs to other classic horrors, and it honestly boasts some of the best FX work in the entire series. I think that the melted Toxie-Jason we see in this sequel is one of the most underrated designs for the character.
Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare
Freddy’s Dead is a cartoon. But at least unlike The Dream Child it’s a consistent cartoon. Rachel Talalay was well aware that she was making the John Waters version of Elm Street and it succeeds at being exactly what it set out to be. This sequel embraced the over-the-top one-liner machine that Freddy had become, and going all the way with it kind of made goofy Freddy work a little better. There’s still darkness to the movie. In fact, I don’t think it gets nearly enough credit for its flashbacks. It’s genuinely terrifying to learn that Freddy had a wife and child. Not only does it makes sense in terms of why the parents never hunted him down sooner, but it provides yet another unsettling B.T.K-esque layer to the Springwood Slasher.
Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth
This one really seems to divide fans. Many diehard devotees of the franchise feel that it totally misses the point of the original by putting Pinhead front and center, or that it Americanizes it too much by turning Hellraiser into an action movie. Some of these criticisms are valid, but I think Peter Atkins deserves credit for making the story work at all. In fact, I think Hell on Earth boasts a very strong script that suffers only from direction that is at times at odds with the material. Pinhead has his best lines in this entry, and Doug Bradley gives his best performance as a more vicious Cenobite freed from his human conscience.
The Rage: Carrie 2
It took me years to revisit this movie. I rented it when it first came out knowing that I was going to hate it because there was no reason for it to exist. And it probably shouldn’t exist, but I’m glad that it does. In some ways Carrie 2 feels more timely now than when it was first released. These guys make a game out of sleeping with the girls at their school, wind up causing a suicide, and then try to cover it up to save their athletic careers. Carrie was primarily about girls bullying another girl. But this one is about how truly terrible guys can be. It’s such a ‘90s teen movie, but it makes that work. It’s like the Wes Craven version of She’s All That.
Alien 3
Yes, Alien 3 is not as good as Alien or Aliens, but that’s only because few movies are. It’s still really good. The biggest reason fans hate this one is that it kills off the other survivors of Aliens very quickly and unceremoniously. But that’s kind of a testament to how well that worked. By the end of that film, after destroying the hive and killing the queen, there was no threat they couldn’t face.
To have Ripley wake up alone, essentially right back where she started after just finding a makeshift family, is a punch in the gut. And it should be. I would argue that this film might actually be the best for Ripley as a character because everything hinges on her arc. She gets to feel like a real, broken individual who has been through hell. Everything in this sequel, every decision Ripley makes, builds to an ending that really should have been allowed to provide the closure it was meant to bring to the series.
Child’s Play 3
Believe it or not, there are people who really passionately love Seed of Chucky. Even creator Don Mancini deems it his favorite of the series. Child’s Play 3 is, well, the red-headed stepchild of the series. It’s mostly just the entry that people forget is even there. But I love this movie. I think the military setting is a terrific juxtaposition with the absurdity of the overall concept. There are some really great plays on masculinity, with the macho soldier boys being completely inept and the small band of heroes being very non-manly outcasts. And it’s still the only slasher I can think of where no female characters die. Even though the carnival comes out of nowhere, the third act is dynamite. It’s a favorite from my childhood and a favorite to this day.
Pet Sematary Two
Here’s another sequel that shouldn’t have happened. Edward Furlong is even whinier than he was in T2, but at least here it kind of makes sense. The kid just lost his mom. That’s where it kind of justifies itself as its own movie. The first one is mostly about being a parent and being unable to handle the loss of a child. This one’s about being a kid who can’t accept the loss of a parent, which is ground that the first didn’t cover. Plus, Clancy Brown completely steals the show as a character designed to answer the question of what happens when someone’s buried in the pet sematary who was already a monster to begin with.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation
Unlike every other entry on this list, I can’t necessarily call Next Generation a good movie. But most people say it’s unwatchable and should be avoided at all costs, and I just can’t agree with that. This is a fascinating film. Apparently thinking that the original feature they tried to convince everyone was real was, in fact, too unrealistic, co-creator Kim Henkel wrote a pseudo-remake that basically explains that there are no sadistic crazy cannibals in the world. These murderers are paid to do what they do by the Illuminati in order to balance the scales between good and evil. Because aliens. The conspiracy theories just pile up on top of each other. This movie is its own Room 237, and while it might not be good, it is beyond entertaining.
