10 Horror Movie Sequels That Had No Right To Be This Good

No genre of film has the propensity to spawn sequel after sequel after sequel as much as the horror genre.

If a movie becomes even modestly successfully, the relatively low costs of producing horror pictures means that a follow-up is inevitable. Even if a film isn't particularly good, again, the costs involved mean that it's well worth a punt to revisit your initial concept with a sequel or even prequel. Take the Leprechaun series, as an example. Eight movies, seven of which are totally naff and one - the 1993 original - that's just about passable.

Of course, just because a film is a sequel doesn't automatically mean it's going to be a stinker. The problem is, that's the expectation that the masses have long held for these movies, and that's down to how many times we've all been burned by a turd of a follow-up over the years.

Still, in amongst the actually decent sequels of the horror realm, some of them absolutely didn't have the right to be as outright good as they ultimately proved to be. Here, those pictures get some time in the spotlight, as we delve into the follow-ups that managed to work brilliantly despite having plenty of forces against them.

How many times have we seen a phenomenal original movie spawn multiple dour, dire sequels? Far too many to count.

In the case of The Exorcist, that's a legendary piece of horror cinema - or cinema, period, to be fair - that has been followed by four pretty darn dreadful entries in what's now clearly a franchise. Away from the aforementioned four stinkers, though, and there's a genuine diamond in the rough in the shape of The Exorcist III.

Released in 1990 - 17 years after The Exorcist and 13 years after The Exorcist II: The Heretic - this William Peter Blatty-helmed picture is way, way better than anyone could've hoped. After the 1973 first film, The Heretic was such a massive disappointment. So, by the time The Exorcist III rolled around so many years later, expectation was extremely low for this threequel.

Moving away from the outright horror associated with the series by this point, this third film takes a rather different approach to its tale by adding in layers of a classic mystery or whodunit affair, as George C. Scott's Lt. Kinderman attempts to solve a case that seems to have plentiful ties to the events which troubled Regan MacNeil and Father Karras back in '73.

The Exorcist III is just as much a detective thriller as it is a horror movie, and the end result is something truly spectacular.