10 Horror Movie Sequels That Saved The Franchise
1. Bride Of Chucky
Don Mancini's killer doll Chucky was always skating on thin ice since his first cinematic outing in 1988's Child's Play.
The film was an enjoyable blackly comic slasher, but the premise of a sweary, murderous children's toy was pretty laughably once the initial novelty wore off. In the early nineties slasher movies were falling out of popularity with audiences, and the more-of-the-same sequels Child's Play 2 and 3 did little to excite viewers.
The third film being erroneously blamed for contributing to a tragic murder case in the UK proved the death knell for this franchise, and Mancini spent five years working on other projects.
However Chucky returned to our screens in 1998 with a blushing bride in tow, and Ronny Yu’s hilarious post-Scream meta-satire Bride of Chucky was just what the killer doll franchise needed to stop taking itself so seriously. Sillier and filled with self-referential gags for horror fans, the flick nonetheless featured enough genuine gore and tension to satisfy slasher devotees.
Oddly enough, the director went on to kill off a pair of franchises with the underwhelming grudge match Freddy Vs Jason, a lesser sequel which doomed both series to equally subpar remakes in the late noughties.