9 Movie Franchises That Completely Spiraled Out Of Control
5. Friday the 13th
Is there any better example of a franchise that ends in a completely different place than it started than Friday the 13th? In the original movie, Jason only appears briefly at the end in a throwaway gag, and the actual killer is Jasons mother. It wasnt until the sequel that Jason became the villain. And while at first Jason was only killing neglectful camp counsellors, by the second half of the series, he was really just killing whoever he saw. The fourth movie was laughably titled Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, a film that actually killed Jason for real and seemed to be a conclusive end to the franchise. Then, in Jason Lives, lightning hit his grave and he comes back to life. Umm, okay then. By this point, its pretty clear Jason is literally invincible. In Part VII: The New Blood, our main character is a girl with telepathy who fights Jason, so now this series has both zombies and actual superpowers. In Jason Goes To Hell, he possesses some girl and gets her to kill people. Disappointingly, there is no fight between Jason and Satan. And then in Jason X,he goes to space. What better sign is there that a franchise is out of ideas than the character literally being sent to space? Aside from one last outing with Freddy vs. Jason, that was enough to kill the series until the 2009 reboot. Friday the 13th was never exactly high art, but at least the first few outings took themselves somewhat seriously and had their own logic to them. Even with some of the kills being pretty silly, the idea of a mysterious masked man in the woods is pretty terrifying. But by the end of the series, this is basically a cartoon, and I really doubt anyone's getting scared by a Jason with a metallic hockey mask killing people in space.
