Your favourite franchise horror

Necronomicon

As it says, which of the old classics that have churned out 3+ sequels are your favourites?

Obviously, when a film is succeeded by so many sequels there will inevitably be some pieces of turd; there are some truly cringe-worthy Friday the 13th, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street etc sequels. With that said, I'd probably have to give my vote to Romero's "Dead" series. Aside from Romero's films, there are also two fantastic remakes in the 1991 version of Night and 2004's Dawn (I can't comment on the Day remake because I haven't seen it, but I know how awful it's said to be). Land of the Dead IMO was criminally under-rated and, while I didn't see the point of interrupting the time-line of the series, I thought Diary was very good as well.

So what's your favourite? Which are the best/worst sequels? Who'd win in a fight between Jason and Michael Myers?

mike65

Police Academy, don't tell me thats not horror. None to be honest, no horror series has sustained beyond the first one or two as far as I can recall. Unless you want to include Cormans Edgar Allen Poe series in the 60s.

Mike.

Karl Hungus

By a wide mark, easily Romero's Dead films.

I feel with a lot of the franchises, they were great original ideas that were spun on past any logic by the studios, usually without the original director's involvement. Nightmare on Elm Street is a good example of an absolutely terrific film by Wes Craven, yet the sequels that were churned out by the studio were (apart from Part 3) abysmal garbage. Hellraiser is the same, just garbage sequels that keep on going beyond any sense, reason or artistic vision. The endless stream of Saw films are another example.

Romero's films are the only ones that have still kept an artistic vision and integrity, and I would agree with Land of the Dead being criminally underrated. That said, I haven't seen Diary of the Dead yet.

Otis Driftwood

No question Romeros original trilogy.I really wasnt feeling Land for some reason and havnt seen diary but the first 3 piss all over every horror franchise,IMHO.

Necronomicon

I was happy with Diary, especially given all the luke-warm reviews. Being shot on a hand-held camera gives it a much different feel than its predecessors, but as I said, what I wasn't crazy about was interrupting the chronology of the series. One of the things I liked about Land was that it hit the ground running - the characters were well educated on the zombies and had a system to deal with them. In Diary, it reverts back to that first night of the outbreak, meaning for the first half an hour or so we have the central characters arguing about what the hell is going on.

spooky donkey

WEll I went for the dead also. Probabally cause ive been playing dead rising on my xbox, one funny game that.

Anyway with all the films listed there I suprised ya dident include SAW in that lot or is it too new. Not better then the dead but better than some of the other franchises. SAW 4 is out this halloween I believe.

Necronomicon

spooky donkey wrote: »

Anyway with all the films listed there I suprised ya dident include SAW in that lot or is it too new. Not better then the dead but better than some of the other franchises. SAW 4 is out this halloween I believe.

I thought about it, but left it due to my complete and utter contempt for anything that came out after the first film

Otis Driftwood

Is it not up to Saw 5 at this stage?
Anyways,they are all $hite,with every sequel reaching new levels of sucktitude and dont deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as TCM,Halloween or the Dead movies.

spooky donkey

FUnny I thought 2 was crap. I liked 3 and never really liked the 1st one cause so many people told me about every death before I saw it.

TerrorFirmer

Saw IV has been and gone, Donkey, and it sucked. Saw through Saw III were actually OK, varying quality in differing aspects but all in all, decent. The last one was a farce, will go to see the fifth but wouldn't be anticipating it remotely as much.

Romero here, as well. I thought Diary was merely OK, Land was a masterpiece.

Makaveli

I went for the Dead as well. Consistenly good which is something you don't often associate with films that run past 2 sequels. I haven't seen Diary. Land of the Dead was decent although I found it a little tiresome to watch. Night of the Living Dead remake is excellent as is the Dawn of the Dead remake.

Hellraiser is decent, although I think there's something like 6 or 7 films now [edit 8!] and I can't imagine they are much use towards the latter numbers. The first and second were good, 3 was a bit cheesey, the one with the new cenobites that were just lame (one guy shot vinyl or something). They have dated badly though, the effects look pretty awful in Hellraiser II. I like Hellraiser 4 though, I thought it was a return to form. I don't remember if I've seen 5 (have it on DVD though because it came with 4), definitely haven't seen anything after 5 anyway.

Saw, the first one was such a hamfest, the acting seriously detracted from the suspense. Cary Elwes just hammed it up and made it farsical. Saw II I prefered to the first, the premise was decent. Really I just liked that absolute nut job in the house

the guy that went psycho and cut the number off the back of his own neck

. Saw III just seemed to be graphic for the sake of it and was pretty crap. I honestly didn't care what happened in the end. Saw IV I haven't seen but I don't see how they could even continue the franchise after III.

glenjamin

Defintly the Dead series. Although the remake of Day of the Dead was just awful.

For me the most consistant franchise is the Don Casceralli's Phantasm series. Unlike so many franchises The Tall Man never became a parody of himself relying on cheap one liners and gags in order to see the films. The original is now quite dated but retains a sense of dread that most modern horror films would die for.

A fifth film is currently in the works but given the decades between some sequels I'm not holding my breath, though that said anyone looking for a damn good read should get their hands on Roger Avery's script for Phantasm's End. It's one of the most entertaining scripts I've ever read and would have made a truly great film. Shame no one wnated to finance it.

Otis Driftwood

Ya Phantasm is a great series.As for the fifth movie,well we can but hope.
:-(

niallon

I'm saying Halloween simply cause I'm obsessed with it and Romero has enough fans!

I'm not gonna try and argue that the sequels got horrendously bad by the end but in all I think they all served well to build a lasting legacy for the Michael Myers character that could possibly have not happened without them. They never quite hit parody levels and so kept the boogeyman aspect very much alive.....until Resurrection when they put eye liner on him!!!