13 Frustratingly Underrated Horror Movie Sequels

Original Film:

Paranormal Activity, a film which scored critical acclaim and spawned a huge franchise despite being terrible. A sequel, which was a (very) slight improvement, was released a year later.

Plot:

This goes back 20 years into the past and depicts Katie and Kristi when they were children and their first encounter with the entities.

This is, by far and away, the best of the Paranormal Activity films.

It's the only installment that's genuinely scary and the final 15 minutes in particular are a real nail-biter. It's also a clever shocker; while the other PA films coast by on lazy found-footage cinematography, this performs neat camera tricks such as having a camera panning back and forth on a fan in a kitchen, which allows for some excellent scares.

With only 5.8 on IMDb and a rating of 69% on Rotten Tomatoes (that's a good, appropriate rating but it is unfortunately still lower-rated than the original), both critics and the public have rarely acknowledged this as the franchise high-point that it truly was. This is basically the epitome of a good film in a bad franchise and, considering how awful most found-footage horror films are, this deserves more love.

Two irredeemably awful sequels (that were even worse than the first film) followed in 2012 and 2015 and in-between them a highly forgettable spin-off titled Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones came out in 2014. 2015's Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension ended the series... for now anyway. Let's hope so.