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The Most Successful Horror Movie Sequels, Prequels, and Remakes According To Supercomputer Data Analysis

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Horror movie sequels, prequels, and remakes are a dime a dozen and in 2024, have become an overly saturated part of the genre. Sometimes it’s good, Sometimes, not so much. And sometimes the film even surpasses its predecessor in terms of quality. Recently, a local magazine in my hometown, Vegas Insider, ran a data analysis on a supercomputer on the extension films on approximately 361 horror movies including, Alien, Halloween, Friday the 13th, Jaws, Scream, Saw, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Hellraiser just to name a few.  And because it is Vegas after all, they were assigned points by the supercomputer based on their worldwide box office reported gross, user reviews score, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic score as well as the estimated return on investment. In the points analysis, 1 point was given to the sequel/prequel/remake/revival which had a higher performance than the first movie in the given franchises in the following categories: Rotten Tomatoes score, IMDb rating, Metacritic score, reported worldwide gross and an estimated ROI.

So who made it out on top? Let’s take a look!

RETURN ON INVESTMENT

The most successful franchise continuation when the estimated return on investment is considered is Paranormal Activity 2 (2010). On a budget of 3 million dollars, it grossed 177.5 million dollars, thus an ROI of, 5817%.

The top 5 of the most successful ROI franchise continuations are: 

2. Paranormal Activity 3 (2011) ROI 4040%, Paranormal Activity universe

3. Annabelle (2014) ROI 3862%, The Conjuring universe

4. Saw II (2005) ROI 3593%, Saw universe

5. Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013) ROI 3138%, Insidious franchise

USER RATING 

When looking strictly at the highest-rated continuations of horror franchises, the movie with the highest IMDb user rating is Aliens (1986), which has a user rating of 8.4/10, only 0.1 point lower score than the 1979 Alien.

The rest of the top 5 of the highest-rated horror continuations are: 

2. Dawn of the Dead (1978) – 7.8 rating, George Romero’s Dead series

3. Evil Dead II (1987) – 7.7 rating, Evil Dead series

4. The Fly (1986) 7.6 rating – remake of The Fly

5. Army of Darkness (1992) 7.4 rating, Evil Dead Series

CRITIC REVIEWS

The top 5 horror continuations with the highest Rotten Tomatoes score are: 

  1. Creep 2 (2017) – 100% score, sequel of Creep (2014)
  2. Slumber Party Massacre (2021) – 100% score, remake of the 1982 version
  3. Aliens (1986) – 98% score, sequel of Alien (1979)
  4. Prey (2022) – 94% score, prequel of Predator (1987)
  5. The Fly (1986) – 93% score, remake of the 1958 version

On Metacritic, the top 5 horror continuations with the highest score are: 

  1. Aliens (1986) – 84 score, sequel of Alien (1979)
  2. The Fly (1986) – 81 score, remake of the 1958 version
  3. 28 Weeks Later (2007) – 78 score, sequel of 28 Days Later (2002)
  4. Pearl (2022) – 76 score, prequel of X (2022)
  5. 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) – 76 score, second movie in the Cloverfield franchise

WORLDWIDE GROSS

Even though the budget and gross of the 1990 TV Mini-Series “IT” is not known, as it was a television event, it can be safe to say that the 2017 remake of “IT” surpassed the success of the first adaptation, grossing over 704 million dollars and becoming the highest-grossing horror movie of all time. It is also the highest-grossing horror remake ever.

When only the total worldwide gross is considered, the remaining highest-grossing franchise continuations that make up the top 4 are: 

It Chapter 2 (2019, gross: 473 million dollars, IT franchise), 

Prometheus (2012, gross: 403 million dollars, Alien franchise)

 The Nun (2018, gross: 366 million dollars, Conjuring universe). 

However, when looking strictly at the difference in total worldwide gross of a franchise’s first movie and its continuations where box office numbers are known (since it was not known for 1990’s It), the most successful franchise continuation is the 2012 prequel to the legendary Alien – Prometheus (2012). 

Alien (1979) was a box office success of its own, grossing 108.5 million dollars on a budget of 11 million dollars, however, Prometheus reportedly grossed over 403 million dollars, thus grossing 294.5 million more than the first movie in the Alien franchise. Its worldwide gross of over 400 million also makes it the most successful horror prequel ever made. 

OVERALL POINTS

According to the results of a points-based system, which was assigning 1 point to the movies that performed better than the first movie in their respective horror franchises, the supercomputer determined that the most successful horror sequels / prequels / remakes / reboots / spin-offs ever are: 

DRUMROLL PLEASE!

Evil Dead II (1987) and 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)!

When it comes to Evil Dead 2, it performed better than The Evil Dead (1981) in 4 areas: total worldwide gross, Metacritic score, Rotten Tomatoes score, and IMDb rating score, thus gaining 4 points in total.

Hail to the king, baby. I’m not going to argue with that!

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) also outperformed Cloverfield (2008) on 4 metrics, thus gaining 4 points: Metacritic score, Rotten Tomatoes score, IMDb ratings score, and Estimated return on investment.

Also, all hail the John Goodman.

For more data on these films along with a visual table, head on over to Vegas Insider by clicking here!

News

FIRST LOOK and TRAILER FOR MICKEY MOUSE HORROR FILM DROPS: “MICKEY’S MOUSE TRAP”

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Well, that didn’t take very long! It’s been public knowledge for some time that in January 2024, Mickey Mouse’s first short, “STEAMBOAT WILLIE” and his likeness would enter the public domain; opening the beloved mouse up for a shitload of fuckery to be had with us, the public. Not even 24 hours into 2024, the first horror movie starring the creepy, early version of the mouse has been announced with a trailer attached!

Magnificent.

The horror comedy thriller MICKEY’S MOUSE TRAP directed by Jamie Bailey stars Sophie McIntosh, Callum Sywyk, Allegra Nocita, Ben Harris, Damir Kovic, Mackenzie Mills, Nick Biskupek and Simon Phillips. Bailey states, ““We just wanted to have fun with it all.I mean, it’s Steamboat Willie’s Mickey Mouse murdering people. It’s ridiculous. We ran with it and had fun doing it and I think it shows” 

The film’s basic plot: It’s Alex’s 21st Birthday, but she’s stuck at the amusement arcade on a late shift so her friends decide to surprise her, but a masked killer dressed as Mickey Mouse decides to play a game of his own with them which she must survive.

The film itself is still awaiting a confirmed release date – but is expected in March 2024. In the meantime, enjoy this wild as fuck trailer!

News

Nightmare Nostalgia’s 5-Year Celebration Halloween Giveaway!

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Well, here we are nostalgic nuggets! Another year and another nostalgic Halloween giveaway is upon us, However, this one is a little special to me because NN is celebrating five years old on the giant interwebs!

This calls for some bony booty slappin’.

Back in 2014, a friend of mine pitched the idea of me writing for a horror website that was looking for writers, and it wasn’t a tiny website either. It had a rather well-established following and although that was a little intimidating; I said fuck it, why not? Who cares that I had ZERO experience writing a blog or for any website. I was knowledgeable, passionate and said fuck a lot. That’s pretty much all you need to write about horror movies, right? My first piece was of course, about the “Scary Stories To Tell In the Dark” books and the owner loved it so much he took me on as a regular writer, and later one of the three head editors for the site, which had grown from 300,000 followers when I joined, to over 4 million to when I departed.

Why leave a good thing, you may ask? Well, I had already dipped my toes into other horror websites, very well-known ones, written for a couple horror magazines, and staying where I was would just leave me stagnant and unfulfilled. I wasn’t freely able to express myself and rant about the things I wanted to scream and with the toxic environment that is the internet, I wanted to build an escape mechanism for people like me to walk down memory lane, and get those nostalgic fuzzies about the first time they walked the aisles of their Mom and Pop Video Store. Or perhaps the first time they ever watched THE FUNHOUSE. Or hell, that time you actually tried out some of Maurice’s pranks from LITTLE MONSTERS on your parents. These are the little things that we remember that make life a little less shitty, and the community we’ve built here together into an army of nostalgic nuggets makes my pet monster heart melt. So, in return, I’ve gathered up a pretty cool giveaway to readers that have followed me for a decade, and those just discovering this snake pit of utter nostalgic madness!

For a little context, I wanted to make this easy and just post a picture on Facebook, but the Zuck is cracking down on those types of posts and flagging them as spam. But honestly, this kinda works out, so I could write an essay on the gratitude that I have for all of you.

Anyway, let’s get to it! Here’s the haul that is a perfect nostalgic Halloween treat for some lucky person! Rules are posted at the bottom of the page!

First up is a Frankenstein mash-up of a 1993 McDonald’s Halloween Pail with a Carl’s JR handle from their line of Halloween buckets from the same year! It’s one-of-a-kind, and I can almost guarantee probably no one else has sitting in their bedroom right now.

A Jason Voorhees coffee mug since there’s a Friday the 13th in October and a plushy handpicked by me because nothing wakes you up faster than a Leatherface in your cup.

MONSTER CRUNCH! THE BREAKFAST BATTLE GAME featuring our Monster Cereal heroes! If you’re not into board games, the pieces included in the box itself are worth just staring at for hours.

Something old and something new! Next up, we have the Unofficial Horror Movie Coloring Book that is filled with AMAZING pages of drawn art from our favorite horror movies for you to color in! Also, is a copy of a Universal Monsters Frightening Facts Movie Book from 1992! If this doesn’t ring a bell, also how dare you, this is a quiz book essentially where you take the marker, choose a question and pick an answer, and color over it and see if you got it right! Plus it’s got some sick cut-outs of all the Universal Monsters!

And finally, some handpicked NN favorites from my own collection because it ain’t Halloween without some slasher movies! Blu-ray of HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH, a first pressing copy DVD of HALLOWEEN 666: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS, and the killer cut Blu-ray of 2009’s FRIDAY THE 13TH!

The Rules:

Obviously, I wanted to keep this open to as many people as possible so all you have to do to enter is to do one, or all of the following- if you do all four that means you get four entries!

  1. Comment on this blog post your favorite Halloween memory!
  2. Share this post on Facebook from the original post on NN’s facebook page! (must be public for me to see)
  3. Share the NN’s giveaway post on Instagram! Look for my post regarding the giveaway @nightmarenostalgia
  4. Tweet this out on Twitter. Or X. Or whatever the fuck it’s being called today.

Must be a US resident and the contest will run from Friday, October 13th, 2023 until Monday, October 16th. Good luck nuggets and thanks for sticking around to hear me rant about Halloween 4 500 times!