10 Movie Franchises That Became Parodies Of Themselves

10. A Nightmare On Elm Street

Wes Craven may have made a name for himself thanks to the controversial gore of The Last House on the Left, but it's A Nightmare On Elm Street that will serve as his enduring legacy. Seeing a bunch of teens haunted in their dreams by child killer Freddy Krueger, the film came right at the height of the slasher-boom of the eighties, but stood out thanks to its creative deaths and memorable villain; you'd not sleep easy for weeks. As was customary, the film spawned a string of sequels. Although they weren't as unanimously awful as its contemporary franchises Halloween and Friday The 13th (Dream Warriors, the third film, is a particular stand-out), they did alter the whole concept. The elements of Robert Englund's performance that had proved so popular (particular his more comedic notes) were amped up as the series went on and by the time the now-defunctly named Final Nightmare rolled around he was basically a comic shadow of the original monster. Thankfully, Wes Craven's New Nightmare, a meta film showing the director coming up against his creation, dropped much of the comedy, making something altogether scarier.