10 Film Franchises That Successfully Recovered From Awful Entries
8. A Nightmare On Elm Street
The Awful Entry – Everything After Dream Warriors (1987)
The vast majority of horror franchises seem to go down an identical path. Each begins with a fantastic original concept, made on a low budget with organic scares and a captivating yet truly terrifying villain.
They then descend into farce over time as each sequel tries to outdo its immediate predecessor and place more focus on the villain, eventually turning them into someone that the audience cheers for instead of fears. These sequels deliver faltering returns and eventually become bargain bin fodder, cheapening the brilliance of their originals by association.
That description could apply to Friday the 13th, Halloween, A Nightmare On Elm Street or any number of notable horror series. The latter stands out from its counterparts in that after realising the depths of mediocrity that their franchise had sunk to after six films, the brains behind it saw fit to throw a curveball into the mix in an attempt to reverse its decline.
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare was something of a precursor to Scream, which Craven subsequently worked on after the release of the film in 1994. Highly meta in nature, it rips on its predecessors with a menacing story that involves the ‘character’ of Freddy Kreuger coming to life in the real world and pursuing star Heather Langenkamp.
The franchise returned to mediocrity with Freddy vs. Jason and the ill-advised 2010 reboot, but at least had one more positive moment in the spotlight.