11 Movie Sequels That Turned Badasses Into Total Wimps

7. Freddy Krueger - Every Single Sequel

Freddy Krueger is a curious case of a character's popularity enduring despite pretty much every movie he appeared in and it's largely thanks to his first appearance, some genuinely great casting and an irresistible mythology. All of that combined to ensure that Freddy transcended beyond the limits of the abusive films made in his name to become a cultural phenomenon in his own right.

The issue for Freddy - after an astonishingly affecting first appearance - was always comedy, and as the attempted funnies began to creep in alongside the agenda to freak out and frighten, the child killer lost his edge until finally he became little more than a walking, terrible punch-line. And by the end of the franchise, Krueger was no longer a real threat, he was more just like a really annoying imaginary friend, trading all too consciously on the mythology of his own legend.

The biggest problem was that the film-makers knew how iconic Krueger was, and instead of recognising that the artfulness of the first film's technique they simply stripped everything away, boiled away the horror movie elements and basically made a series of bloody cartoons.