1. Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn
Preceded by: Evil Dead, 1981 (6 years before)
RottenTomatoes Rating: 98% The Evil Dead is the ultimate low-budget '80s horror film. It has absolutely everything that any cult movie needs, and then some. It's a difficult thing to explain why it's such an influential and important film to the genre, especially to someone who isn't well acquainted with horror. It is a film, although somewhat dated today, that acts as a testament to what a few some good ideas, a little money and a lot of passion can achieve. More importantly, it lead to a sequel that became something even more. Evil Dead II came along a whopping six years later. A long time for a horror sequel, but Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell returned as eager as ever to make another film. And we should thank our lucky stars that they did, or we would never been given the wonderfully wacky, bloody horror-comedy treat that is Dead By Dawn (No one ever seems to call it that, though). What makes the sequel so brilliant - other than the return of the Raimi/Campbell dream-team - is the different approach in tone that the film takes. Although the first film has plenty of hilarious moments among the scares, I reckon the vast majority of those were unintentional. The first film is played out much straighter than II, which keeps up the horror elements and the colossal masses of gore, but adds a whole new level of tongue-in-cheek. The idea to try and be scary but try equally as hard (if not harder) to be funny this time around was an inspired choice by Raimi. Evil Dead II is something for everyone. The hardcore horror fans love it for the copious amounts of blood, gore, and Bruce Campbell. The less hardcore and more comedy-attracted fans love it for the copious amounts of slapstick, one-liners and Bruce Campbell. Groovy.
Hope you've enjoyed this list. Obviously there's a number of other good horror sequels. Believe me, I've seen my fair share. I welcome all thoughts, comments and suggestions warmly below.