10 Horror Sequels That Are Actually Worth Watching

The trailers for James DeMonaco’s The Purge (2013) had everyone psyched, promising a home invasion with an all-new twist: all crime is legal for 12 hours, and nobody is coming to help. Unfortunately the execution was not what many viewers had hoped, and became a fairly rote home invasion movie by the end, with only a ultimately lip-service engagement with the social justice theme it was trying to advance, failing to make the most of its exciting premise.

But we only had to wait a year for this wrong to be righted in sequel The Purge: Anarchy. Here, characters are out and about on the streets of LA as purge night descends, caught between the blood-thirsty public, politicians, assassins, and the warring factions of the fascist totalitarian government known as the New Founding Fathers of America and the anti-Purge resistance group.

Anarchy is the film responsible for the hallmarks of the franchise. It takes the purge night out into the larger world, introduces the crazy masks, costumes, weapons and traps into the mix, and engages more fully with the politics of the event itself. Moving from set-piece to set-piece with a scale that belies its modest $10 million budget, it manages to be just the right balance of action, horror and personal human drama to keep us engaged throughout.

Is it the best film ever? No. But is it fun, thrilling and the kind of film that makes rewatching easy? Hell yes.