8 Horror Movie Survivors Who Were Quickly Killed Off In The Sequel

Because survival isn't always a permanent arrangement.

the grudge 2 sarah michelle gellar
Ghost House Pictures

When watching a horror film, so often we as fans find ourselves cheering on the protagonists of the picture, hoping for at least one or two of them to make it out of the movie alive and well.

In horror, that 'alive and well' doesn't always come to pass, and that's due to the genre often being built around clinical, brutal, and unstoppable killing machines who forever get the job done. But that's not to say that there aren't characters who do manage to successfully navigate the horror landscape and survive whatever pitfalls that come their way.

Sadly for some of those faces, surviving a horror film doesn't make you immune from the lurking figure of the Grim Reaper, and that means that a horror survivor has to forever be on their toes. And while somebody like the Scream franchise's Sidney Prescott has managed to navigate four movies and still be alive, the same can't be said about certain other horror survivors.

With all of that in mind, then, here are eight horror movie survivors who were unceremoniously killed off in swift fashion by the time a sequel offering was given the green light.

8. Cotton Weary - Scream 3

the grudge 2 sarah michelle gellar
Dimension Films

The image here is of Cotton Weary swooping in to save the day at the conclusion of Scream 2. But while Liev Schrieber's Cotton was the timely hero, he was quickly killed off during the opening scene of 2000's Scream 3.

When Scream 3 begins, Cotton is now at a point where he's put his wrongful imprisonment behind him and has finally managed to achieve his mission of becoming famous - with him now the host of his own talk show, 100% Cotton.

After receiving a flirtatious phone call on his way home, that opening to Scream 3 soon reveals that Cotton is really talking to Ghostface. And not just Ghostface, but a Ghostface who is lurking in the shadows waiting to attack Weary's partner.

By the time Cotton gets to the scene, his girlfriend Christine is already dead, and only a matter of minutes later we find Cotton Weary sharing the same fate as his beau.

This whole sequence was certainly a hard-hitting and impactful way to start Scream 3 with a bang, and it served as a wake-up call for Sidney, Gale, Dewey, and the watching audience that anything could happen in this threequel.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.