20 Awesome Horror Movies That Never Got Sequels
These fantastic horror flicks never got the sequels everyone expected.
The horror genre sure does love sequels, and it's a pretty fair bet that if a movie performs well at the box office or becomes a pop-culture phenomenon in some fashion, it's coming back for another go-around.
Such is basically the horror tradition - make one great movie, knock out a few decent sequels, and then perhaps run the whole property into the ground when the creative juices run out before rebooting it from the ground-up.
With all this in mind, then, it's a rarity for a great horror movie to just come out and then never spawn a sequel of any kind. After all, why wouldn't the studio want to milk a great horror flick for every last franchise drop?
The reasons can be varied and complex - sometimes the filmmaker has enough clout to ensure their baby doesn't get dragged through the IP quagmire, or perhaps the movie in question actually flopped on original release and only became a hit years later on home video, muddying the financial waters somewhat.
Whatever the reason, these fantastic horror movies remain glorious one-offs with no direct follow-ups whatsoever...
20. Shaun of the Dead
Shaun of the Dead is undeniably one of the greatest zombie films of the last 25 years, if not ever, and launched the careers of Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost as a result.
It also became enough of a surprise hit that Wright, Pegg, and Frost did genuinely consider producing a sequel, hilariously titled From Dusk Till Shaun.
There certainly would've been a massive audience for it, but ultimately the trio decided they weren't keen to retread the same creative ground, preferring instead to develop their disparate Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy of films, with acclaimed follow-ups Hot Fuzz and The World's End.
While it would've been great to be reunited with the surviving characters once more, you also can't really blame Wright and co. for wanting to do something fresh and different instead, especially as the original film is such an insanely hard act to follow.
Shaun of the Dead is a stellar example of a masterful one-and-done movie that said everything it needed to the first time around.