10 Horror Movie Sequels That Started In Surprising Ways

8. House IV: The Repossession

The Grudge 2 Karen Davis Kyako Sarah Michelle Gellar
New Line Cinema

Steve Miner's House is a (relatively) family-friendly horror with just the right amount of humour to go along with its terror and tension. Unfortunately, the two subsequent follow-ups to Miner's 1982 effort veered in vastly different directions to that first House, with House II: The Second Story leaning way too much into slapstick comedy, and House III: The Horror Show veering too much towards excessive gore and violence for the sake of excessive gore and violence.

Still, 1992's House IV: The Repossession ending up being a fitting end for the franchise, managing to recapture the same balance of horror and humour as the original movie. The Repossession also brought back the first film's lead character, William Katt's Roger.

In House, Roger is spooked by plentiful bumps in the night at his deceased aunt's old house. That picture also sees him separated from his wife, and puts Katt's character on the hunt for his missing young son, Jimmy. For the audience, House IV: The Repossession has quite the surprise where Roger is concerned.

When we pick things up with Rog, his prior wife and son are completely ignored by the film. Instead, he's now married to someone else, Kelly, with whom he has a daughter, Laurel. Also, while the events of House IV are meant to take place in the same house as, well, House, it's clearly a totally different building.

If all of that wasn't surprising enough, the biggest shocker of The Repossession's opening is how it opts to kill off Roger in an explosive car crash.

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