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!