10 Horror Movie Sequels That DITCHED The Horror

James Cameron's Aliens is the touchstone for a sequel to a horror movie that lurches into another genre.

Ridley Scott's original Alien is of course a masterfully executed slow-burn horror film, but when Cameron was brought aboard for the sequel, he had little desire to simply repeat the formula of the first.

And so, he designed Aliens as a beefy militaristic action film that's epic and bombastic in all the ways that Alien is slow, subtle, and atmospheric, yet while still managing to deepen the characterisation of protagonist Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver).

While the Xenomorphs still retain their inherently visceral appeal and there are select sequences which rub elbows with the horror genre, the emphasis this time around is on the unrelenting intensity of the sustained, high-wire set-pieces.

Aliens marked such a successful genre shift that numerous other horror and horror-adjacent franchises have attempted to move into sci-fi action territory, often with wildly mixed results.