10 Horror Sequels That Are Actually Worth Watching
Horror sequels: the home of diminishing returns. But occasionally there's one worth watching.
Franchise building is what the horror genre was designed to do, with the adage of one final scare translating across sequels and spinoffs ad infinitum. Unfortunately, a lot of the content that results from this ethos is the work of studios trying to make a quick buck, and often as not the quality is, well, lacking.
Certainly, most horror sequels simply aren't worth the time, doing a roaring trade in obsolescence and pointlessness, and frequently lacking anything new to say or contribute to the series they hail from. But once in a while there’s an outlier, a gem of a movie that arrives with purpose and flair, and makes everyone lose their lunch.
Some of these exceptional sequels, like Terrifier 2 or The Purge: Anarchy, right the wrongs of their predecessors and give us a reason to follow a franchise; the likes of Gremlins 2 and M3GAN 2.0 take things in a satisfying different direction, remixing the genre and altering the tone; a select few like 28 Years Later and Aliens manage the unthinkable: to continue what was good about the original while redefining and, dare we say, even improving it.
In each of these 10 films, there’s something genuinely worth your while to watch.
10. Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016)
Set in the ‘60s, Ouija: Origin of Evil charts the origins of the Ouija curse that haunted the first film, and cracks open a world of retro spills and scares. Widow Alice Zander (Elizabeth Reaser) runs a spiritual medium grift out of her own home, with her own daughters, 15-year-old Lina and 9-year-old Doris (Annalise Basso and Lulu Wilson) helping sell the con to the needy and grief-stricken public. But after Alice incorporates a Ouija board into her act, she brings forth a real spirit that possesses Doris and destroys what’s left of their family.
Earning the rare accolade of being better than the original, the surprise isn’t really that Origin of Evil surpasses its predecessor, but that the previous film’s achingly lacklustre plot and dismal critical reception got it greenlit at all. Oh, it made $100 million box office against an $8 million budget, you say? Well then.
Mike Flanagan’s Origin of Evil cost slightly more and made slightly less, no doubt suffering from audience expectations based on Stiles White’s original disasterpiece. Nonetheless, Flanagan’s is far and away the superior film - and a great film in its own right - managing to create an authentic ‘60s feel, integrate some great practical effects and really scare the bejesus out of us.