The 8 Worst Horror Sequels Ever Made, Ranked
A New York native, Joe graduated from an avant-garde theater school upstate, where he was obsessed with sketch comedy. There, he and his lunatic friends founded The Sketchies — which still lives on at Skidmore College today. Living in New York City, a screenwriter friend of his then taught him how to write for film. This awakened a new passion in Joe. Since then his scripts have garnered over 200 festival selections, nominations, and wins all over the globe (including the BlueCat Best Feature award). Several of his screenplays have been made into feature films — some of them not that bad! Overall, he loves to create unique, hilarious, touching, and bizarre stories.
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When any film is successful, there is often a lot of pressure from the studio from whence it twas birthed for the filmmakers involved to do a follow-up (so the execs can keep cashing in on the original fanfare). In horror movies (at least in the ones where everyone doesn’t end up dead at the end), this can be especially true. However, conventional wisdom states that it is hard to capture lightning in a bottle twice — with the rare exceptions of Aliens, Dawn of the Dead, and Smile 2, which many suggest are some of the very few horror sequels that may have actually exceeded the original films. Most of the time, the sequels stink to low hell and only sully the gruesomely good name of the original.
Here are the eight worst horror sequels in history. These only include the first conventional sequels, meaning the second film to come after the original (ergo, no “8th installment of a franchise” picks here — so, sorry, Jaws: The Revenge, you'll have to wait for another kind of "worst" list). All the films here tried to capitalize on their predecessors’ success, and failed, oh so miserably. From second-place psychopaths to runner-up witches, here are the worst of the regurgitated worst.
8 'The Exorcist II: The Heretic' (1977)
Oh, poor Linda Blair. She rose to stardom as a young adolescent when The Exorcist debuted and skyrocketed her to fame (the film won two Oscars). So, obviously she was going to get typecast as the girl who gets possessed, since basically all of America identified her as that (and, probably, were terrified of her). So, there weren’t a ton of acting opportunities for her in the 70s…until, of course, the sequel, directed by John Boorman and Rospo Pallenberg, went into production. For Ms. Blair’s sake, we collectively really wish her agents had urged her to pass on this drivel. With the exception of a few notable fans, this movie is well-regarded as a dumpster fire of a disaster.
The all-over-the-place story follows a newly introduced priest, Father Philip Lamont (a mugging, most likely intoxicated Richard Burton), who has been tapped by “The Church” to figure out just what happened to Father Merrin during the disastrous Regan (Blair) exorcism. Meanwhile, Regan has left the nation’s capital and now resides in New York City, where she receives some bizarre sort of electrotherapy that unearths her subconscious memories… Father Lamont heads there, and while Regan is under hypnosis, learns that the demonic entity (Pazuzu) that possessed her a few years back once inhabited the body of a kid in Africa named Kokumo. So, Lamont naturally packs his bags for that very continent. Sure, why not… With The Exorcist instantly becoming a horror classic, and one of the scariest movies of all time, it was always going to be difficult to do a follow-up that even came close to the first film. It’s just, man, this film is a rough watch, and should’ve just been given last rites.
7 'The Ring Two' (2005)
With the overwhelmingly positive reception that The Ring received, you just knew that a sequel was imminent. When it was revealed that Academy Award-nominee Naomi Watts would be reprising her role in The Ring Two, expectations were pretty high. Yeesh. Too bad this thing should’ve remained at the bottom of a well for all eternity. Even with director Hideo Nakata (who actually helmed the real original film, Ringu) running the show, this is a sequel that never should’ve seen the (ring-shaped) light of day...
The (convoluted) story is centered on Rachel (Watts) and her son, Aidan (David Dorfman, also back at it), as they struggle to return to “normal” life after the harrowing supernatural incidents they experienced half a year prior. Of course, the vengeful spirit of Samara (Daveigh Chase) is back to wreak havoc on their lives again. It’s just that Samara’s motivation now is very watered-down (she wants Aidan’s soul for some unexplained reason), and the tension and mystery of the first film has been completely washed down the drain. Oh, well. One of the worst things about this movie, aside from the completely illogical plot, is the mid-2000s CGI. This is when movie-makers were getting all jazzed about the prospect of being able to create effects with, gasp, computers — instead of doing them practically. So, naturally, the tech wasn’t that smooth yet (deer attack scene, we’re looking in your awkward-as-a-teen’s-first-kiss direction), and this film, along with many others from the time, came out looking like a sloppy, poorly-drawn cartoon.
6 'Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2' (1987)
Nobody wanted this sad sequel left under their tree. Director and co-writer Lee Harry’s Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 is one of the worst films to ever disgrace the screen, for enough reasons to fill Santa’s whole sack. It’s the quintessential B-movie, yet without the coyly devious charm of Silent Night, Deadly Night. However, fans of the first film need not worry too much, as they were given the chance to basically see half of the original again. To elucidate, basically 50% of SNDN 2’s runtime is made up of flashbacks from the first movie. So, it’s not only a very ho-ho-hokey movie, it’s also not even a full movie.
The story follows a guy in a psychiatric hospital, Ricky Caldwell (Eric Freeman), who is the brother of the serial killer from the first movie. He tells his therapist all about his traumatic childhood — but then breaks out of the institution and (just like Big Bro) elects to go on a festive killing spree. This movie isn’t an absolute total waste, as it has a couple of humorous moments in it (mostly from just how random the kills are). In one scene, a dude gets shot in the chest while taking out the “trash” (prompting the now-famous-in-horror-chatrooms line “Garbage day!”). Hmm…maybe this fatally festive movie is more self-aware than previously thought…
5 Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000)
Wow. Just, wow. The first, found footage film, The Blair Witch Project, basically blew everybody’s minds. It was not only innovative in the way that it was shot, making it seem like a real documentary gone wrong, but it also boasted an amazing cast of unknowns, all fully committed to the overtly distressful filming process. The “cinema verité” style, coupled with the deep, dark woods setting, really helped to scare the socks off many audience members. So, the sequel should be fun then too, right? It should capture the DIY indie spirit of the original, right? In theory, yes. In practice…to quote Nikki in Obsession, “No, no, no, no, NO!”
Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2’s story is very meta, as the kids today would say. It follows a group of super-fans (including Erica Leerhsen as Erica) of the original movie, TBWP, who want to capture some footage of their very own of the mythical witch. They go to the allegedly real location of the movie’s setting, deep in the woods of Maryland. Here they meet a dude, Jeff (Jeffrey Donovan), who may or may not be crazy, who takes them on a Blair Witch tour of sorts. After they camp out in a dilapidated house, all their camera equipment ends up broken, and they have no memory of the previous five hours. No worries, they fire up their videotapes and try to see what went down. Oh...many worries. They are now led down a dark trail of insanity, where no one knows…which witch is which. Director Joe Berlinger has lamented that he wanted to make a nuanced film that explored the connection between fandom and works of art, which provided caustic social commentary — but was forced by the studio to do reshoots to make it fit into a more standard, cookie-cutter teen horror flick format (that just happened to blow chunks, by the way). Suuure, blame it on the studio…
4 'Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever' (2009)
Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever is not the worst movie in the world. How could it be, with horror sensation Ti West (of X, Pearl, and Maxxxine fame) directing? The issue is that it’s tonally all over the place, it looks extremely low budget, it’s not funny at all — and all of this is underscored by just how much the first film was a success in all these arenas. Yes, where Cabin Fever is pitch-perfect in terms of the film’s timbre and mood, really cool special effects makeup, and searing satire, Cabin Fever 2 is basically trash on all fronts.
The general premise isn’t the worst idea for a sequel. It has one of the infected characters from the original, Paul (Rider Strong), contaminating the water that a widespread bottling brand uses. Bottles of the flesh-eating-virus-infected water end up at a high school, just in time for prom. Of course, all the corny, stereotypical characters drink the water, and the big dance ends in big, bloody tragedy. The movie is very predictable and poorly executed in all possible ways. The ending feels like an after-thought, and definitely leaves a bad taste in the viewer’s mouth… West blamed the fairly awful final product on the studio, whom he said recut the film into a nonsensical mess. Of course, of course...it’s always the “studio’s” fault…(yet in this case, it definitely feels that they share at least a portion of the blame).
3 'The Birds II: Land's End' (1994)
It’s not often in Hollywood that a director wants to have their name completely removed from one of their films. Well, this may have been the only smart choice that Rick Rosenthal made in connection to The Birds II: Land's End (in the onscreen credits, it officially was “directed” by the fictitious person “Alan Smithee”). All right, so it obviously is difficult to do a sequel to any Alfred Hitchcock film, and even remotely do the original justice, but this pile of direct-to-cable bird poo is even worse than anyone expected.
The story doesn’t seem that horrendous on paper. A family (including Brad Johnson as Ted, and Chelsea Field as May) dealing with the loss of their young son seek to escape the trauma of their hometown and relocate to a place called “Gull Island.” Much like in the original film, a bunch of loony birds begin attacking the family (and residents of the island) for no apparent reason other than that they hate the inhabitants’ blatant lack of feathers. Unlike in the original, where Hitchcock was able to create a looming dread and ferocious tension throughout, this movie is lame at every hen-pecked turn. One of the most inexplicable things about it is that the filmmakers were able to get the first film’s star, Tippi Hedren, to actually be in this movie…but here she plays a totally different character (named Helen). Huh? Why?? Her character in the original, named Melanie Daniels, actually survived. Not bringing her back in the sequel seems like a really bird-brained idea. This movie doesn’t land on this list as the absolute worst horror sequel because it’s so corny that there are enough people out there who enjoy it for its overly campy, so-bad-it’s-terrible, fun vibes.
2 'American Psycho 2' (2002)
Every once in a while, a “sequel” comes along that has absolutely zero relation to the “first” film. Directed by Morgan J. Freeman (note the “J.”), American Psycho 2 is the perfect example of this. If this boring wannabe-slasher film feels completely detached from the original, it’s because it was made from a script that was initially titled The Girl Who Wouldn't Die (which in itself sounds like a Bond movie knockoff), and the filmmakers just slapped another scene with the Patrick Bateman character in it at the beginning (obviously, not played by Christian Bale, as he wouldn’t come near this detritus with a ten-meter pole).
The plot follows Rachel (Mila Kunis, in a role that she has publicly stated that she very much regrets taking), a criminal justice student with her sights set on a career in the FBI. She gets a gig as a T.A. to a professor, Robert Starkman (William Shatner, who provides the only bright spot in this film…simply by being William Shatner). Rachel is relentless in her drive (so, that seems to be where they made the American Psycho connection in the first place…), and she begins unnecessarily murdering classmates that stand in her way. The first movie is a satirical horror classic with scathing social commentary and stunning performances. One needs to be borderline psychotic themselves to even make it through a viewing of this “second” film.
1 'The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence)' (2011)
Oddly enough, this weird film is not the first sequel to be about someone obsessing over the initial movie in the series — heck, it’s not even the only movie that addresses this subject that’s on this list. The utterly bizarre, and unique, thing about the first film, The Human Centipede (First Sequence), was that it pushed the most extreme boundaries of decency, but, hey, at least it was a very original concept. Here, in the soggy sequel, all the depravity remains, but absolutely none of the ingenuity.
Writer-director Tom Six’s sicko story follows Martin (Laurence R. Harvey, who, hey, at least he really threw himself into this “edgy,” revolting role), a security guard who appears to be suffering from a mental disability. However, his love for the cult favorite film The Human Centipede is unparalleled (which, in retrospect, does say something about the intended audience for the first film…). So, seeing as how he doesn’t have the most robust social life and does have quite a bit of spare time on his hands, he decides to create a human centipede of his own, in “real” life…just with way more segments (people). If the meta-theatricality here doesn’t impress you right off the batt, you’re not alone. This movie is basically a disgusting attempt at keeping the putrid premise of the original alive, but all it succeeds in doing is grossing out the audience even more. Oh, but it’s in black and white…so perhaps it is “art,” after all? (No, not a chance. But it is the worst sequel in horror history).
The Human Centipede 2
- Release Date
- August 30, 2009
- Runtime
- 88 Minutes
- Director
- Tom Six
- Writers
- Tom Six
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