9 Once Terrifying Horror Villains Rendered Lame By Sequels
Freddy turned into a real nightmare.
If you ask any fans out there to name their favourite horror villain, you’ll likely get a line-up of the usual icons like Jason or Chucky. Ask them to name their favourite movie with the character, however, you’ll notice a pattern emerge quickly; it’s almost always the first movie.
That’s because the original is when the character was fresh. They probably barely appear and their backstory is a mystery, which only adds to their menace. They can never be fresh again, so they become less terrifying with each passing sequel - they get more screentime, we learn more about their past and soon they become parodies of the original concept. You may find him scary, but odds are Friday The 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan isn’t your favourite Jason movie.
Sadly this rot is unavoidable, and the further a series gets dragged out the worse it becomes. Here’s a line-up of famous villains who suffered the most from sequelitis.
9. Michael Myers
What made Michael Myers so terrifying in the original was that he wasn’t a person; he was a force of nature. He had no motive or empathy, but when the sequel revealed Laurie Strode was his sister things went downhill fast, and he got lamer with each passing sequel.
The more screentime he received the less frightening he became, his mask kept getting terrible redesigns and any attempt to humanise him (like the time his niece made him cry) ended in embarrassment.
They even tried to explain his evil in part six by claiming he was a member of an ancient cult, something that was swiftly swept under the rug when fans laughed it off the screen. The Rob Zombie remakes get points for trying a different approach, but giving more backstory to Michael was a bad experiment.
Series creator John Carpenter was contractually bound to make Halloween II, and said he hated doing it because there was no story left. Cut to nearly forty years later and it’s easy to see his point. That said, he’s returning to help the next movie, so we’ll see how well that turns out.