I’ve talked about the best, now it’s time to snap on that rubber glove and dig around the U-bend for the worst…
An American Werewolf in Paris
Also one of the most unnecessary sequels of all time. It aims to incorporate many familiar elements of the first and misfires at every turn. The most grievous offense: Replacing Rick Baker’s groundbreaking practical effects transformations with less convincing CG than your average Playstation one game.
Halloween: Resurrection
H20 was a decent effort to wrap the series up. Pretty much ignoring Halloween 2-6, it restored Michael Myers to his original incarnation and provided an epic showdown between he and Neme-sis Laurie Strode which I found personally satisfying. Then came “Resurrection” to piss on all that good work with the worst piece of retconning ever, only to go ahead and retread the same old ground afterward. The lowest moment of this feature (and possibly any horror franchise ever) comes when the seemingly unstoppable Myers is Kung Fu kicked to death by a one liner spouting Busta Rhymes. Oh the indignity.
The Exorcist 2: The Heretic
Q, How do you follow one of the greatest horror films of all time?
A, Make the most incoherent horror film of all time.
Before and since filming, Director John Boorman (Deliverance) has made several comments betraying his contempt of the original (which he thankfully turned down the chance to direct) but he really shows it with the product he put up on screen under its name..
Lost Boys: The Tribe
They had twenty years to come up with a story and they gave us surfing vampires. Sounds like fun though right? Like something Troma might make. But it isn’t fun, at all, A quick glance at the cast should’ve served as warning enough-Tad Hilgenbrink? Angus Sutherland? Even wheeling out original Frog brother Corey Feldman fails to conjure the goodwill needed to slog through all 92 minutes. I only made it to 47.
American Psycho 2: All American Girl
I have to admit, I’ve never actually seen this, but I don’t think I really have to in order to know that it’s terrible. The fact it has absolutely nothing to do with the brilliantly funny original, or the far more disturbing, yet no less funny, source material says it all: It’s just a title tacked on to some bottom shelf straight to dvd crap in an attempt to cash in on the original’s cult success. Here Patrick Bateman is dead apparently and in place of Christian Bale’s iconic yuppie maniac we get Mila Kunis murdering her way through college, or something. No thanks.
Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare
Easily the dumbest and campest of the series with Looney Tunes style slapstick, a Wizard of Oz parody, the shameless Nintendo plug, the Johnny Depp cameo, Rosanne Barr? and a pointlessly 3D death scene for the titular character which isn’t any more definitive than the other five times we’ve already seen him die.
And it didn’t stop him coming back again anyway.
Nice touch having Alice Cooper as Freddy’s Dad though.
Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3
It was a toss up between this and TCM: The Next Generation (though I haven’t seen the most recent offering, otherwise I’m sure that’d be a contender) but I give it to this largely because it’s so stupid: See Leatherface repeatedly spell “Food” on a children’s toy when it asks him to spell “clown”, see an 80 pound chainsaw somehow float in water and continue running, see a human ear get blown clean off by rifle shot and land intact on a hot stove, see Ken Foree survive a chainsaw to the head because test audiences like his character, and see set pieces from the first recreated poorly-again. Even Viggo Mortensen can’t save this.
Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning
Much like Myers getting his ass handed to him by a cartoonish rapper, I always felt Jason got a poor sendoff in the inaccurately titled “The Final Chapter”, where he was hacked to death by ickle Corey Feldman (him again?). It was an outcome which led to a new killer (yawn) assuming Jason’s mantle with a motive similar to Pamela Voorhees’ in the original. At least we got the series’ arguable high point “Jason Lives” as a result of the backlash and the first on screen kill by Mark Venturini (Suicide from ROTLD) is unintentionally hilarious.
Check it out-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoZDSctyBE0
Howling 2: Your Sister is a Werewolf
A movie so bad that Christopher Lee actually apologized to the original’s director (Joe Dante) for appearing in it.
Hellraiser: Revelations
Like others mentioned here this franchise had seen some low points (Bloodline, Deader) and some very low points (Hellworld) but this lifeless little effort really buried the bar. Said to have been thrown together at the last minute so that Dimension films could retain the rights to the property, It’s still no excuse.They didn’t even get Doug Bradley in.
And on his name being tenuously attached, Clive Barker offered this shining endorsement “ I want to put on record that the flick out there using the word Hellraiser IS NO FUCKING CHILD OF MINE! I have NOTHING to do with the fucking thing. If they claim it’s from the mind of Clive Barker, it’s a lie. It’s not even from my butt-hole.”
What have we learned?
- Never wait too long for a sequel, but don’t move too quickly either.
- Don’t stray too far from the original, but don’t just halfheartedly recreate bits from it.
- If you announce in the title that you’re going to kill off your monster then make it good and make it final.
- Having a subtitle isn’t always necessary.
- Just because you can make it doesn’t mean that you should.
- And if you must make it at least have the decency to leave rappers, retcons and Corey Feldman out of it.
Halloween & Pink Panther series titles
Maybe H20 should’ve been called “Michael Myers strikes again”?
Season of the Witch may not be great, but it’s a decent effort full of unusual and memorable moments.Although it’s not officially Carpenter’s his fingerprints are all over it: The pitch black tone, the doomy synth soundtrack, the satire and of course Tom Atkins.It sits well alongside the likes of the overlooked Prince of Darkness and the equally underrated The Fog.
After the death of Michael Myers at the end of Halloween 2 Carpenter had come up with the idea of offering an entirely new and unrelated Halloween themed horror every year. Unfortunately Season of the Witch flopped, seemingly killing the franchise until the studio decided to bring Myers back a few years later.
I often think it would’ve been far more interesting if they had done away with Michael Myers and persevered with Carpenter’s plan.
I met him, fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and, the blackest eyes… the *devil’s* eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized what was living behind that boy’s eyes was purely and simply… *evil*.
