10 Horror Sequels Not Worth Waiting Decades For

The Exorcist prequel is the movie so bad they made it twice.

There had been a fourteen year gap since the last Exorcist movie by the time that the prequel came out, but that's not really the relevant gap because the prequel essentially ignores any previous instalment beyond the original (and directly contradicts details of a similar backstory in Exorcist II: The Heretic). In fact, therefore, the prequel came out all of 31 one years after the movie it is following up. And, boy, was it not worth the wait. Twice.

Originally in the hands of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull writer Paul Schrader, the prequel, in which Stellan Skarsgård plays a younger Father Merrin having his first demonic encounter at an archaeological site in Africa, was deemed too cerebral (read: tediously slow) by studio Morgan Creek.

Schrader was replaced by Deep Blue Sea and Die Hard 2's Renny Harlin to beef up the action and gore, and the movie was almost entirely reshot. When released in 2004, as Exorcist: The Beginning, Harlin's movie was so bad that original Exorcist creator William Peter Blatty described it as "my most humiliating professional experience."

It was also bad enough that Morgan Creek gave Schrader enough money to complete his own original vision, which was released a year later as Dominion: Prequel To The Exorcist, about which the nicest thing that you can probably say is "at least it's better than Exorcist: The Beginning."