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:
Creep 2 (2017) – 100% score, sequel of Creep (2014)
Slumber Party Massacre (2021) – 100% score, remake of the 1982 version
Aliens (1986) – 98% score, sequel of Alien (1979)
Prey (2022) – 94% score, prequel of Predator (1987)
The Fly (1986) – 93% score, remake of the 1958 version
On Metacritic, the top 5 horror continuations with the highest score are:
Aliens (1986) – 84 score, sequel of Alien (1979)
The Fly (1986) – 81 score, remake of the 1958 version
28 Weeks Later (2007) – 78 score, sequel of 28 Days Later (2002)
Pearl (2022) – 76 score, prequel of X (2022)
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.
Let’s face it. Martin is pretty fly for a monster alley.
It was February 1989 and a pretty highly spoken about film around the Mom-and-Pop video store (ACTION VIDEO) where I had frequented, rummaging around the horror video section like the very young gorehound I was, had just been released. At the time, I had only actually seen bits and pieces of David Cronenberg’s body horror masterpiece, THE FLY, mostly because I was six-years-old, and I had only caught a few scenes of the film courtesy of my cousins. The word around the video store via the owner and employees was that THE FLY II was highly anticipated around there, and I distinctly remember hearing those adult horror fanatic conversations as a young genre fan who had just made her crossover into able to rent slasher movies; (A Nightmare On Elm Street, Friday the 13th, etc…) I was truly fascinated by ugly movie monsters, so my parents allowed me to rent THE FLY for a watch so I could be cool like the clerks at Action Video. And holy fucking gross-out I had no idea what I was getting into.
And to be quite honest, nothing grossed me out and stuck with more than the hand-wrestling scene.
Now, being six-years-old, I didn’t really understand the true complexity of THE FLY. I knew it was gross, but also kind of sad. I also knew I kind of really dug it. So I had BEGGED my mother for us to go see the sequel because I knew it had to do with Brundle Fly Jr; and I had to see what the fuck would come next after this. She reluctantly agreed, and guess what? I lasted 30 mins before I began crying hysterically inside the theater over a beautiful dog that was turned into mush. I was immediately taken out and brought to the nearest Toys ‘R’ Us to try and help soothe my hyperventilating ass.
I cried for a damn week, y’all. Also, I’m reliving some PTSD and welling up now, even thinking of that image. Excuse me while I go cover my dog in kisses and hugs.
Anyway, it took me a few years and a lot of balls to finish the movie, I think I may have been around 12. Getting past the traumatic dog scenes was just as hard as it was the first time, but I managed to push through it- and beyond the PTSD, I actually rather enjoyed the movie.
Listen, we all know THE FLY II is in no way better than its predecessor, so let’s just get that out of the way. That being said, the sequel had some massive shoes to fill and with all the low-critic scoring on this one, I’m here to say that’s a bit unfair. Directed by the first film’s makeup and animatronic effects specialist Chris Walas, with a screenplay by Frank Darabont and Mick Garris, the sequel suffered “intense meddling” by studio execs on what they wanted to see; and according to Darabont himself, these were people that hadn’t even SEEN the first movie! That in itself is a crime and makes me want to regurgitate my own acid reflux.
That being said, THE FLY II went through at least several different ideas, scripts, and rewrites before settling on what we know starring Eric Stoltz as Martin Brundle (fun fact: Keanu Reeves was the studio’s first choice to play Brundlefly 2.0, but he turned it down), and Daphne Zuniga who took some time off from the Planet Druidia to play his love interest. We open with a woman who is supposed to look like Geena Davis giving birth in a laboratory surrounded by the assholes of Bartok Industries. She dies in childbirth as a horrified and hysterical and also now crippled, Stathis Borans looks on as what is pushed out is a wriggling larva pod (I’m so glad his smart ass in this movie) and the baby is now the sole property of Bartok Labs and what we see from the get-go, a very evil Dr. Bartok himself. The larva pod cracks and out comes a perfectly, beautiful baby boy! Or, well, so it looks like.
They name him Martin and the child grows at an enormous rate. When he’s 11 months old he looks like he is four; and to top it off his IQ surpasses that of even his own father, who he was told died of an aging disease that was passed down onto him. By year two, he looks to be about 10 and is becoming more curious about the world outside his small one, where he’s closely monitored. He eventually manages to copy a passkey that allows him to wander about the facilities late at night. He ends up in a room filled with animals that are used for experiments and befriends a cute Golden Retriever. He visits the dog often and it becomes his only friend and companion in a world where he’s led to believe he’s going to die soon from his disease. Then, that one part happens that fucking traumatized the hell out of me.
In one part of the facility, Seth Brundle’s telepods are being experimented with and of course, they decide to use Martin’s new friend as a guinea pig. And well. Ya’ know. Didn’t turn out so well. And poor Martin watched the whole thing.
Fast-forward to Martin (Stoltz) at his fifth birthday party and he is a fully grown man at this point. His gift from Dr. Bartok is his very own “private apartment” which turns out to be anything but, and his own work area where he can work on the secrets of his father’s telepods. Since Martin doesn’t sleep. he works all day and night and befriends Beth ( Daphne Zuniga) a night shift worker at the labs. The attraction to each other is noticeable right away and is kind of sweet. Kind of like watching a teenage kid discover love for the first time.
She invites him to a party at the lab and this is where the real heart of the story begins: Martin discovers that his dog hasn’t been put down, but rather being kept at the bottom of what looks like a dirty, dungeon. The mutated dog is in pain and barely mobile and Martin bursts into tears and runs away only to return later that evening and euthanize his old friend.
Things start to hit the shit fan from here.
Just like with Seth, Martin slowly begins to transform. The trigger point was an accident with an injection that left a wound that instead of healing began to ooze and drip out slimy, sticky goo. Just like with his discovery of the dog, he also finds out his real fate and what he is turning into and that Bartok is truly excited for his transformation. Hell, he straight up tells Martin upon the discovery, that’s why he’s kept him there and calm all those years. A truly devastated Martin, who looks at Bartok as the only parental figure he’s ever known,pushes him to the side and goes on a rampage inside the labs until he finally escapes. Ending up at Beth’s home, they both go on the run from Bartok and his cronies until Martin is physically unable to run anymore. A horrified Beth says he is getting worse.
But you know what, Martin at this point is starting to embrace this shit and delivers the best line of the whole movie.
Caught and taken back to the lab, Martin makes the full transformation and that’s where THE FLY II really starts to shine as a GREAT special effects monster movie of the 80s. The revenge and rampage of Martinfly is fucking perfect. IN Cronenberg’s THE FLY, we sympathize with Seth, and we feel sorry for him, but we’re really rooting for Geena Davis as Seth has completely lost his humanity side and just has “Insect Politics”brain. With Martin’s transformation, he is COMPLETELY in control. His humanity is still there. He might be a homicidal fly on the loose killing everyone in that lab, who goddamn deserves every bit of it mind you, but he still loves the puppies! And the puppies totally love him.
I fucking love this so much
Also, can we sit and appreciate the makeup effects? Chris Walas nad his huge team of artists really pulled it off here in making something similar, yet totally different from Cronenberg’s version. In fact, one could arguably say, superior in some regard as the devil is always in the details. You could see every damn insect hair on Martin’s body as clear as day and for me personally, it’s right up there with Pumpkinhead as far as extremely well-thought-out monsters go.
The killings along the way on the final rampage are gory as HELL. Also, quite satisfying as unbeknownst to Bartok and his cronies, Martin has actually figured out the cure for himself that involves swapping his DNA with another healthy human via the telepods. Of course, the human donor would render up dead pretty much so Martin, because he’s a pretty nice guy for a fly, never once considered it an option. Until NOW.
SPOLIER ALERT: Don’t continue if you’ve never seen this.
In a twist of beautiful fate and poetic justice, Martin has a showdown, wild west style, in the telepod lab with Bartok and once he tries to harm Beth, who was being held as bait for Martin, and then Martin being shot at by Bartok, Martin has enough of this shit and grabs that fat fuck, dragging him to the telepod for some Gene Swapping Therapy.
Once the teleportation is complete, Martin and Bartok are fused in a gooey mess but only by some sort of slime. Martin returns back into his human self as the gene swapping therapy was successful and Bartok.. Got his just deserts as he comes out looking just like Martin’s beloved dog. The kicker is he is placed in that SAME gross dungeon, force-fed gruel and to live the rest of his miserable and painful days paying for his karma as a terrible human.
I’ll never watch that dog scene again, but I’ll watch this a million times.
THE FLY II may not be the masterpiece that Cronenberg made, but it certainly has its own merits and deserves a little praise for the things it set out to accomplish with so much standing in the way. It’s a great revenge film with a cool as hell monster. It also has one of the most brutal kill scenes I’ve ever seen.
Why yes, Freddy you are, just like this batch of horror movie sequels I’m about to slash my way through.
In most cases regarding film franchises and sequels to blockbuster films, a trilogy is usually the answer and the most notable way to wrap up a movie series. It’s pretty damn rare for a movie to break that trilogy trope, entering into a fourth film and beyond that. Well, the 80s slasher movies era, I’d say, are solely responsible for a pitfall of sequels that broke all the rules that came before it. Friday the 13th was the first of the slasher films to stick its impervious middle finger to the rule of three and laid out the groundwork for a brigade of horror movies to follow. Of course, they weren’t the first film property to ever do this, as the Universal Monster films along with the Abbott and Costello crossovers offered a myriad of sequels and continuities to their previous installments. Jason was just the one to resurrect the flow of sequels beyond just three.
And he’s really good at resurrecting shit. Including himself.
Myers tho… I never want to hear Halloween and Resurrection in the same sentence ever again.
Anyway, some of these part-fours are better than others, and in some horror franchises like The Omen and Psycho, Part IV was their downfall and a rather unsatisfying ending to their retrospective counterparts. However, as the slasher genre ran dug a rabbit hole of sequels that continues on to this very day with movies like SCREAM and SAW, they created a shift in the horror movie game saying that more is never enough and really changed the way things had happened up to that point, whether they continued in a positive way or not. That being said, let’s forego the bad and take a look at the five best Part Fours of the horror game that not only satisfied our craving for our beloved franchises’, but had us clamoring for MORE.
If you’re new here, I’m just gonna start with the goddamn obvious.
Holy Blonde-Haired Michael Myers, how I love thee. Let me count the ways. After the commercial failure of Halloween III: The Season of the Witch, Moustapha Akkad, took control of John Carpenter’s immortal classic and gave fans what they wanted six years after the third movie bombed with viewers- The return of Michael Myers as well, the title so boldly states so audiences KNEW they were coming to see Myers come back from what was certain death to fuck up the lives of everyone in Haddonfield. A disfigured Dr. Loomis is back and on the trail of pure and simple evil as he hunts down his only heir left-niece Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris), daughter of Laurie, who had died eleven months earlier.
Halloween 4 has no damn business being as great as it was, but it is, perhaps, the best of all these part fours’ mentioned. We have a beautiful aesthetic that puts the viewer right there in the film with you, not to mention one of the best openers to any horror movie- ever. Rachel (Ellie Cornell), a final girl who is terribly underrated and probably the most relatable and likable character of the whole film series. And a highly satisfying ending that WOULD have been the absolute tits had the franchise decided to move forward with Jamie taking Michael’s place, like an heir to the boogeyman throne. But ya’ know, Revenge fucked all that up, and gave us the Thorn storyline instead. If I wanted to watch a Thorn timeline, I’d watch The Omen movies, thank you very much.
Ahh, well at least we have this one, and I’ll die on the hill of stating that Halloween 4 is the absolute GOAT for sequels and nostalgia as a whole, what with all the 80s’ feel to it that just brings you back to your childhood on Halloween day and night. ERM, without being chased up on a roof by your crazy uncle, that is. Or maybe you had a weirdo uncle like that? I don’t know. Either way. It’s the best and you can’t tell me any different.
In that same year, the highly anticipated follow-up to Dream Warriors, which was a damn masterpiece all on its own, was delivered to our eyeballs at the peak of Freddy-Mania. Dream Master, which follows the last of the Elm Street/Westin Hills teens and their group of friends into a whole new nightmare, was the biggest audience draw of the NOES franchise, ranking in a box-office gross of almost 50 million-only to be surpassed by Freddy Vs Jason sixteen years later. Those numbers backed up the greatness that is Dream Master, giving us a fresh new spin on the Springwood Slasher by mixing in a bit of light humor with sheer terror.
Freddy’s sick sense of humor first appeared slightly in Dream Warriors, but he really took it to another level in part 4 with those one-liners.
Alice (Lisa Wilcox), the film’s new heroine, is much like Rachel Carruthers. She’s incredibly relatable, especially for us introverts, and a total badass who finds her strength within herself, and well, with the help of her deceased friends. Also, incredibly underrated and hell she shouldn’t be. Not many people escape the claws of Freddy and managed to do so not once, but twice. Alice rules and can stand shoulder to shoulder with Nancy any damn day of the week.
Plus, Dream Master has a Dramarama song in it. Automatic win.
This might be a hot take for some Jason fans out there, but The Final Chapter for me, is by far superior to part 2 and 3. I know many might not share my sentiment, but whether you agree or not, I think we can all unanimously be of the same mind that part 4 of the Friday the 13th films, rules, and it rules HARD.
I can’t really explain why I seem to favor this one over the previous two, not counting the original of course, but maybe it’s because since this was supposed to be the final Friday film, hence the title, they ramped up the gore, the kills, and the nudity along with some actual likeable characters you want to root for. The previous Friday films, did have some decent characters of course, but you weren’t crazy invested in them like perhaps Tommy (Corey Feldman) and his sister Trish (Kimberly Beck), who offered some light-hearted moments and even some character development throughout the movie. We also have Crispin Glover, who does a whacky dance that I think all of us horror fans have tried to replicate at least once, and the cool as hell Ted White as Jason, who, like others mentioned in this article, doesn’t get nearly enough credit for his contribution to the franchise.
The film also opens up with what I think is, right behind Jason Lives of course, as the coolest intro to ANY of the Friday films of the series. Nostalgic recapping of the first three movies in a homicidal instrumental montage? Yes please. We need more of these.
Saw IV, or The Continuing Adventures of Jigsaw, The Guy Who Really Loves Messing With This One Extremely Incompetent Police Department Who Can Never Catch Him, Even After He’s Already Dead. Whichever you prefer.
I think if you’re going to try and pass the torch from one homicidal maniac to another, SAW IV is a good example of how to do it and do it well. Part 4 of Jigsaw’s torturous tale is even more violent, if at all possible, than the previous three, and that says a lot when the third film has one of the most fucked up traps Jigsaw ever concocted-The Rack. Seriously, fuck that scene.
With John Kramer (Tobin Bell) and Amanda (Shawnee Smith) now dead, that doesn’t mean the punishments are over. Detective Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) is still alive in the clutches of someone ELSE carrying on the work of Jigsaw and Agent Lindsey Perez (Athena Karkanis) and Agent Peter Strahm (Scott Patterson) are brought in on the case. Lieutenant Daniel Rigg (Lyriq Bent) is being framed as Kramer’s helper so he goes on the run and finds himself in the middle of Jigsaw’s shenanigans in a game of his own. The movie ends with one of the most WTF twists not seen since the first movie and a violent death you’ll not soon ever forget. Really incredible writing and they went to such painstaking lengths to sort of sew everything together to provide us with an amazing degree of continuity.
Some people think theSAW movies are nothing more than torture porn. I say those people fail to realize the deeper messages sprinkled throughout the series. With SAW IV, it’s a clear criticism of health insurance in the United States and the logic healthcare uses to determine whether someone is fit to live. Inserting these sorts of commentaries within a film like SAW is not only ballsy, but brilliant.
Speaking of ballsy, truly, the most horrific scene in that film is John Kramer’s dick. That’s something no one wanted to see, you bastards.
While I’m not TOO keen on changing an entire formula of what made a movie works in the first place, I guess there’s only so far you can go with the premise of a killer doll and how many times his soul is going to get stuck in a pseudo My Buddy plastic body. So what do we do? Bring in his female counterpart who is definitely more crazy than he is, all the while worshiping Martha Stewart and making Swedish meatballs in between murders.
Chucky (Brad Dourif) is back thanks to his old girlfriend Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly) and some voodoo for dummies. But the rekindled courtship doesn’t last long, and Chucky gives Tiffany a taste of his own medicine by killing her and transferring her soul into a doll, pretty much to spite her. The now fate-intertwined pair must both find human counterparts to finally free themselves, and the pair pretty much fall in love all over again while doing it.
I mean, it’s totally a toxic love, but hey, I’m here for the shit show.
Bride of Chucky is a far cry from the first film, as the original 1988 horror flick served to scare the shit out of people, and scare the shit out of us it did. But, I gotta say, adding Jennifer Tilly to the franchise and turning it into a campfest actually worked and it worked well. We laughed our asses off at the theater when this came out and I still do 25 years after the fact. I’ll never get over the fact this movie had the straight BALLS to have a doll sex scene. Well, shadow humping but still. It was goddamn weird and wild.
Bride of Chucky ushered in a whole new era for the killer doll without making it stale and it really was the smartest way to do it. Also paving the way for the Chucky series we have now.
Tiffany said it best, “Barbie, eat your heart out.”
As you can see, the power of four is not to be fucked with in the horror genre friends. Some other notable nods are The Final Destination and I’m gonna go there- Puppet Master 4 (hey it’s a fun movie, don’t judge me). Thoughts on my assessment here, nuggets? Or feel free to tell me I’ve lost my fuckin’ mind. Either way it’ll be fun time for both of us!
Nightmare Nostalgia 