10 Horror Movie Sequels That Should Have Ended Their Series

After the embarrassing failure that was Exorcist 2: The Heretic, many felt that that the Exorcist series would simply retreat to the shadows to lick its wounds for eternity, but leave it to the original film's scribe William Peter Blatty to turn the tides with The Exorcist III, a much more refined and sophisticated tale that has since gone on to earn almost as much love and praise as William Friedkin's original masterpiece.

Things seemed all gravy in Exorcist land until 2004 when they followed it up with Exorcist: The Beginning, a perfunctory, pedestrian, and ultimately mind-numbing affair that added nothing of value to the series.

To make matters worse, The Exorcist: The Beginning was the result of gratuitous re-shoots. Initially conceived as Dominion, the studio was not happy with the film's slow-paced psychological edge and had an estimated 95% of the film re-shot and re-edited into something more akin to what the producers had in mind.

Dominion was eventually released too, but even with it's more atmospheric approach and greater emphasis on character development, it's still a big old clunker that added the final death nail to the franchise's already securely-sealed coffin.