20 Great Movie Franchises That Became Unwatchable

The other side of the aforementioned Freddy vs. Jason coin is, of course, Jason Voorhees, who himself wasn't actually the main villain of the original Friday the 13th. The 1980 slasher legend saw Jason's mother, Pamela (Betsy Palmer), avenging her son's death, and you could argue that the franchise was never the same after Jason himself returned.

This brought the supernatural element into play that, while working for Freddy Krueger, only caused problems for Jason. Backstory changes, events of the paranormal, and hacky resurrections have all damaged the character and the reputation of the franchise in the years since.

While a necessity for disturbing off-screen reasons, killing off one of the best final girls of all time, Alice Hardy (Adrienne King), within the opening minutes of Friday the 13th Part 2 didn't help, and taking the Jason character and the story to space was arguably the franchise's low point.

In an eerily similar path to A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th was watered down by way too many sequels, before underwhelming in what should have been an epic crossover with Robert Englund's character, and then getting the remake treatment in 2009. The property had spent years spinning its wheels since that redo, with the in-development Crystal Lake TV series now on the way next year, and hoping to revitalise the franchise.