10 Horror Franchises That Spectacularly Bounced Back

2. The Exorcist

Chucky Tiffany Valentine Nica Pierce
FOX

No, not last year's turd-tastic The Exorcist: Believer, but it's FOX's criminally-cancelled Exorcist TV series which saw the property bounce back in spectacular fashion.

Of course, William Friedkin's The Exorcist is an iconic picture that changed the face of cinema. Away from that, 1990's The Exorcist III is a hugely underappreciated classic that finally seems to be getting a little more love in recent years. But elsewhere? Yeah, it's been a pretty rough ride for this franchise.

Exorcist II: The Heretic is largely viewed as one of the worst big-name horror pictures of all time, whilst post-Exorcist III offerings The Beginning and Dominion were likewise total stinkers. As such, expectations were extremely low when FOX announced an Exorcist TV show for 2016.

Somewhat surprisingly, the series - simply titled The Exorcist - proved to be a phenomenal return to form for an IP that had been starved of quality for over 25 years. With this Jeremy Slater-created small-screen effort, horror hounds were given a tense, terrifying, slow-building spectacular which crafted its own, fresh story before that jaw-dropping reveal which brought Regan MacNeil to the fore and tethered this show to Friedkin's original.

Sadly, declining viewership saw The Exorcist axed after two seasons, with the property instead continuing on with David Gordon Green's dire Believer; a movie which serves as the launching point for a new trilogy of Exorcist films.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.