1. Aliens (1986)
Following up Ridley Scotts Alien by trying to make a more horrifying sequel would have been impossible. So director James Cameron wisely went another route, taking the set up of the first film and developing a totally different sort of follow up. Where the first film was all horror, Camerons Aliens is a war film, an all out action picture that grabs us by the throat and rarely lets up. It takes us back to LV-426, the mysterious planet that started the madness in Alien, and answers (and asks) more questions about the constantly corrupt Weyland-Yutani corporation and what they want with the titular Aliens. But more than anything else, Camerons film completes Ripleys character, fully rounding her into both a warrior and mother, a character that fights her personal demons while also fighting to protect the surrogate daughter she finds along the way. The final showdown between Ripley and the Alien Queen is essentially two mothers battling to protect their children at all costs, a primal fight for their own survival and the survival of those that they consider their own. If Alien made Ripley a hero, Aliens made her an icon, front and center in a genre traditional dominated by male characters. By avoiding straight horror and making his own film, Cameron escaped the fate of having Aliens forever compared to Scotts original. Instead, the two stand side by side as two pieces of the same puzzle, each equally regarded as masterpieces of their respective genres. These are, in my opinion, the sequels to horror films that are most worth watching, the ones that you'll get the most out of. Of course, feel free to comment with any horror sequels that you find particularly effective, frightening, or that I may have overlooked.
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