10 Horror Movie Franchises You've (Probably) Never Seen

Try and find yourself a horror fan who doesn't love immersing themselves in a franchise - a saga, even. 

For while very few horror franchises can maintain consistency across, say, seven or eight entries, it's still great fun to spend a few days losing yourself in the twisted mythology of a horror IP.

While there are of course many classic, long-running horror franchises most of us have seen - the Halloweens, Elm Streets, Friday the 13ths, Screams, and so on - there are others that have passed most of us by.

You may well have stumbled across their cover art online or, if you're old enough, scoured their VHS case at a rental store back in the day, but at best you've probably only ever seen the original movie in the series, not the glut of sequels that followed.

Now to be fair, these niche horror franchises all vary wildly in quality, but each have their own small but dedicated cult of fans. 

In some cases these horror series are well worth checking out, though you certainly couldn't be blamed for giving some of them an incredibly wide berth...

It's telling that despite being an eight-part found footage franchise that's been averaging one movie per year since 2017, The Blackwell Ghost still doesn't even have its own Wikipedia page.

Now granted, the first film may not be immediately inviting to many - its corny key art, extremely low budget, and mere 59-minute runtime don't exactly suggest a classic in the making, nor the firm foundations of an ongoing series.

But the original film, about a filmmaker (played by the real-life director, Turner Clay) being terrorised by ghosts while trying to capture their existence, is a surprisingly effective romp, elevated by its moody minimalism, eerie low-fi style, bloat-free pacing, and surprisingly believable performances.

The film evidently did well enough for Clay to forge ahead producing a glut of sequels, which while varying somewhat in quality largely cling to a similar formula. 

And yet, even many die-hard horror fans still have no earthly idea this microbudget IP exists at all.

In the very least, all eight films are short enough that you could conceivably binge the whole lot in a single day.