15 Insane Movies That Shouldn't Have Worked

7. Crank 2: High Voltage (2008)

When Jason Statham's high-concept video game-esque thriller Crank came out in 2006, just about nobody expected a sequel to follow, especially considering the clear implication that Statham's Chev Chelios died at the end.

Driven by the cult success of the original, a sequel was quickly given the greenlight, switching Chelios' faulty ticker for an artificial heart, which requires constant charges of electricity to keep him alive. The tagline for Crank 2: High Voltage naturally read, "He was dead...but he got better." Brilliant.

Amusingly, the concept is probably the most sensible thing about the entire movie, which takes the eccentric humour of the first film and, ahem, cranks it up to 12. There are oddball flashbacks to Chelios' youth, a Godzilla-esque fight scene, a sex scene at a racetrack, strippers getting shot and their breast implants exploding, a shotgun getting shoved up some guy's butt...and so, so much more.

Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor took what seemed like a lazy cash-in sequel and forced it to snort an unhealthy dose of bath salts, the result of which is a movie that exceeds the original in every single way.

Technically ambitious for its budget and gleefully throwing cinematic convention to the wind while proving genuinely clever and creative, we can only wish for more sequels to set fire to the rule book this enthusiastically. Crank 3D, when?