10 Horror Movie Sequels MASSIVELY Better Than The Original

The original The Purge felt like such an underwhelming treatment of a fascinating, John Carpenter-esque premise, by confining a night of government-sanctioned carnage to a single house presumably for budgetary reasons.

Yet after The Purge grossed almost $90 million against a mere $3 million price tag, Blumhouse gave the sequel a beefy $11 million budget, allowing it to basically be the movie the first one should've been all along.

The Purge: Anarchy quite sensibly moves the action away from its predecessor's single location setup to a more sprawling night of mayhem across Los Angeles.

Led by Frank Grillo, who is perfectly cast as the Punisher-esque protagonist Leo Barnes, this is a superior sequel in basically every way: the characters, drama, action, and visuals all effortlessly trump the original's relatively sleepy home invasion flick.

Sure, its politics are heavy-handed and clumsy at the best of times, but at least in this instance it felt like returning filmmaker James DeMonaco was basically given free reign to do whatever the hell he wanted, whereas the first Purge felt like a major creative compromise.