Ranking long-running horror series

Cafe Society
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Here’s a thread to try to rank those horror series that manage to get a million sequels. If you’re a fan of one of them (or PARTS of some of them), it’ll also give a chance to let us know which are actually worth our time, and which aren’t. I could use that advice for the Halloweens & Nightmare on Elm Streets, for example. I’ll allow open spoilers, cuz honestly, how much can you even spoiler a movie - you know if the villain gets killed, he’ll just find a way to come back!
Friday the 13th:

  1. Part 6: Jason Lives - The best of the batch. Jason with a spear! This is the first movie where he’s truly a zombie, which made him even stronger. He heads back to his own stomping grounds, where the kids have no idea what’s coming for them. Having the whole thing take place at night (a cold and stormy one, at that) was a nice touch too

  2. Part 10: Jason X - Jason in space. It actually worked, also the funniest in the series.

  3. Part 4: The Final Chapter - The one where Jason finally goes down…taken down by a kid no less. Much scarier than most of the other movies in the series.

  4. Part 9: Jason Goes to Hell - Gets extra credit for having a shoutout to my hometown. The director of the original film returns, and this is the only film where they actually try to explore what makes Jason tick.

  5. Part 2 - The first film where Jason is the main character, wearing a potato sack rather than a hockey mask. I think this was also the bloodiest of the series.

  6. Freddy vs Jason - This movie seemed to appeal more to Freddy fans than Jason fans, but then again Freddy is a more charismatic villain…

  7. The Original - I’m sure you all know what the twist for this one was. Lots of suspense, but not as “creative” as the sequels

  8. Part 3-D: The first F13 I ever saw, so it still holds a place in my heart. It’s so obvious that this was originally 3-D that it gets pretty distracting in some scenes.

  9. Part 7: The New Blood - The psychic storyline just didn’t belong in a F13 movie!

  10. Part 5: A New Beginning - The one with a Jason copycat. Lame.

  11. Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan - aka Jason on a boat. Absolutely horrible, and of all the movies filmed in Canada and made to look like NYC, this one fails the most. The sewer sequence was such a copout that they ignored it when making Part 9.
    The Saw’s:

  12. 1 - Nothing compares to the original!

  13. 3 - Does a nice job of explaining just how Jigsaw works…definitely the most gory of the series.

  14. 5 - Finally saw this last night, and it was a lot better than I was hoping it’d be. The second funhouse was more interesting since it actually had a teamwork concept to it, plus I liked seeing more insight to how Jigsaw sets up his games.

  15. 2 - The funhouse in this one was way less interesting than 5’s. I still have a bit of shock of how different it was from the original too.

  16. 4 - Horrible. The SWAT-guy storyline of “don’t try to save everyone” made no sense at all, nor did any of his actions.

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Hellraiser II: Hellbound
Hellraiser (the original) close behind
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Hellraiser III

And that’s all I’ve taken the time to see, though I’m sure there would be more than two notches between them & III.

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A Nightmare on Elm Street (NOES)

NOES; The Original, introduced the Child-Killer-Freed-On-a-Technicality-then-Hunted-Down-and-Burned-Alive-In-His-Boiler-Room (CKFOaTtHDaBAIHBR) turned Dream-Demon Freddy Krueger to a terrified horror movie viewing public, making them afraid to fall asleep… One Two, Freddy’s Coming for You!

NOES 2; Strangely enough, there is NO NOES 2, strangely, the series jumps from NOES to NOES 3 (detailed below), there have been rumors of a supposed movie circulating that claims to be the missing NOES 2 but the fact remains that there IS NO NOES 2!

NOES 3 Dream Warriors; Freddy gains an offbeat (and oddly endearing) sense of humor in this installment, and becomes a kind of “Homicidal Stand-Up-Comedian”, using bad puns, and other groaners in addition to his patented Razor Glove™ to dispatch his teenage quarry… Three, Four, better lock your door!

NOES 4 The Dream Master; Freddy finishes the incomplete job he started in NOES 3, this time tormenting the remaining teens in the psychiatric hospital they’ve been put in, highlights include a gruesome “marionette” sequence, a teen girl getting that “Big Break In TV” she always wanted, and mute Joey having a rather…memorable…experience with one of the attractive nurses in the ward (Heloooo…Nurse!)…Five, Six Grab your Crucifix (even though that only works on Vampires and although Freddy may shed copius amounts of blood, he never drinks it…)

NOES 5 The Dream Child; Freddy tries to be a “Step-Dad” to the unborn child of mental hospital survivor Alice, by feeding the developing sprog the souls of his victims, one of the weaker installments in the series, and not just because I hate kids…Seven, Eight, better stay up late

NOES 6 Freddy’s Dead, the Final Nightmare (yeah, right) ; Another weak installment, Freddy, still the wisecracking dream demon, tries to make it out of Springwood Ohio (the state is identified for the first time in the series) because “Every town has an Elm Street!” to continue his teenicidal ways, Alice Cooper has an amusing cameo as teen Freddy’s Dad and first kill, Freddy makes fun of the old Nintendo “Power Glove” peripheral, takes a stoner teen on a really “bad trip”, and continues his non-stop wisecracks, the last fifteen minutes of the film were shown in the theatres in headache-inducing 3-D (red/blue 3-D) …Nine Ten, Never Sleep Again!

NOES 7 Wes Craven’s New Nightmare; Director Wes Craven returns to the NOES series (he penned NOES 1 and assisted in 3, all the others he had nothing to do with) and makes a “film-about-a-film” with a distinctly darker and more evil Freddy tormenting the actors of the previous films, Robert Englund plays a triple role as both Movie Freddy, RealEvilFreddy and Robert Englund (and I’ll bet he was only paid for one role, poor guy…)

NOES 8; (unofficial) Freddy Versus Jason; an extremely honestly titled film, Freddy is in “Hell”, forgotten by the kids and teens of Springwood Ohio, thanks to the dream-suppessant drug “Hypnocil” (introduced in NOES 3), he releases Jason Voorhees from his slumber to get the kids afraid again, using their fear to gain back his strength (wait a tic, in NOES 5, he said the SOULS of children gave him his strength…) and then plans to put Jason “back in the box”, obviously, it doesn’t go according to plan, so F and J face off in battle to see who will get the rights to continue the killing spree. who will win, smart, cynical Freddy, or the hulking thuggish brute Jason?..

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As far as how I rank the NOES series;

1;NOES
2;NOES 3 Dream Warriors
3;New Nightmare
4;Freddy Vs. Jason
5;NOES 4 The Dream Master
6;Freddy’s Dead
7;NOES 5 The Dream Child

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Can I play? I wrote long shot-by-shot reviews of the seven Nightmare on Elm Street movies back in 2002. They’re way too long to reproduce here, or even select clips. I’ll try to summarize:

A Nightmare on Elm Street: as usual, the first in the series is the best. This movie basically created New Line, which didn’t even have a real logo when it was released. And it features the first film appearance of Johnny Depp, complete with poofy 80s hair.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge: Rushed out to release about a year after the first movie to capitalize on its success. No point in pretending it didn’t exist, because it does. When I first saw it, I considered it the worst movie I’d ever seen. Now, I recognize that it’s not even the worst of the Nightmare sequels. Still, it’s a complete mess, lots of stuff that doesn’t make sense and isn’t scary, virtually no killing or blood, and so much homoerotic imagery and dialogue, you’ll start to question the director’s motivations in making the movie. I’m being completely serious here, the director had way, way too much fun taking pictures of boys in their underwear. Two bare male asses and no boobs? That’s an unthinkable ratio for a horror movie!

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors: They took two years with this one, so it’s an improvement over the last chapter. People remember this one fondly, but it’s still pretty silly. By this point in the franchise, the “joking Freddy” thing is solidifying, and will continue (and get much worse) in the next few movies, at the expense of actual, you know, horror. Remember when Freddy was a serial killer with a cool glove? Yeah, now he turns into snakes and puppeteers and TVs and crap. The protagonists are also significantly less whiny than “Jessie”, the androgynous man-child victim in Part 2. Overall, this one’s pretty solid.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master: While I can’t recommend this film for any reason, I wouldn’t actively prevent someone from watching it if they really wanted to. Still, the list of corny jokes is getting longer, while the list of cool stuff is getting shorter. The reasons for Fred’s resurrection and destruction are paper-thin and poorly thought out. This is also the point in the series when they run out of Elm Street kids and have to come up with a flimsy premise to keep things going.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child: The series has been “going wrong” up to this point; now it’s firmly in the middle of “wrong.” Instead of traditional slasher-movie scenes, here we’re presented with a lot of “scared mommy moments.” Yeah, that’ll fill seats. Overall, part 5 is a big bowl of suck. If your friends or family members want to watch this one, stop them, even if you have to beat them with a fireplace poker. And most amazingly, this is not the bottom of the barrel!

Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare: Here I’ll quote the end of my old review verbatim: “Jesus fucking Christ. Fuck fuck fuck, shit shitty shit shit shit. I’d forgotten just how bad this movie sucked. It more than sucks, it creates its own field of suck. Other movies that don’t normally suck begin to suck when placed too close to this one. And it sucks more than other movies that would otherwise suck equally, because this one sucks in three dimensions.” Yes, this movie had a cheesy 3-D sequence at the end featuring childhood memories and “demons” that look like skeletal sperm. First-time director Rachel Talalay, who apparently still finds work somehow, totally botched this supposed final film, due to her complete lack of understanding of what actually scares people. It’s stupid and it’s dull. Quoting again: “Part 4 was bad, but you didn’t have to prevent people from seeing it. Part 5 was so bad that you should actively prevent people from seeing it. Part 6, this one, is so bad that you should kill people who express intent to see it, because clearly such people have no regard for their own health or sanity, and are very likely too stupid to live.”

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare: I don’t know what they paid Craven to come back to the series, but the money should be considered a penance. This one’s actually pretty good, despite a low body count; there’s actual creepiness, no stupid jokes or theme killings, and Freddy is menacing rather than clownish. The movie also has a clever “film within a film” structure, featuring Craven himself, writing the movie as it happens. Who knew, it’s actually possible to make a Nightmare movie that doesn’t suck.

In the end, the order I chose for the Nightmare movies, from best to absolute crap, is this: 1-7-3-4-2-5-6.

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No, No NO!! there IS NO NOES 2, I refuse to believe such an abomonation exists, the next thing you’ll be telling me is there was a Star Trek 5 too…

all kidding aside, I mean, c’mon, one of the biggest flaws with NOES 2, aside from the horror that was the “hero” character, whassisname, “WhinyBoy!”, the film itself broke the cardinal rule of the NOES series, that Freddy existed in the dream universe only and if you die in your dream, you’re dead for real, bring Freddy into reality and all you have is a wiry thin Jason with Charisma

…but then again, since there IS no NOES 2, this discussion is moot really, there is no NOES 2 (lalalalala I’m not listening, no NOES 2!)

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Oh, I agree. The hero character has the androgynous name “Jesse”, and he’s a huge problem with the movie, though by no means the only one. Are we really supposed to be afraid of toaster fires, exploding canaries, and a faulty thermostat? It’s just a major misfire on all accounts. Because I’m an attention whore who likes quoting himself, here’s the ending of the full review I wrote way back when for Freddy’s Revenge:

"Well now. This one sucked. And it very nearly killed the highly-successful franchise in only its second outing. It’s difficult to imagine just what was going through the minds of the filmmakers. There’s no audio commentary on the DVD, unfortunately. However, in the cast and crew bios section, I note that the director, Jack Sholder, calls the script a “Beauty and the Beast” type story. Mm-hmm. Somehow, I don’t think he had Lisa in mind when he was talking about “Beauty.”

Speaking of which, just what was with all the homosexual overtones in this one? That could well be the biggest reason for the movie’s bombing. I haven’t felt this queasy about seeing a director’s fantasies on screen since Clownhouse. If you’ve never seen Clownhouse, here’s the deal: you know how periodically, a movie gets released, and some folks boycott it because the director was convicted for molesting children? Well, the director is Victor Salva, and reportedly he was jailed for taking liberties with one or more of his child actors while he was directing Clownhouse. It’s not a horrible movie; it has some genuinely creepy moments, and the directing is good. However, you can’t help but think while watching it that there are entirely too many shots of boys in their underwear. Well, that’s pretty much the same way I felt about Freddy’s Revenge: to me, it seemed like the director was having way too much fun taking pictures of men with their pants off.

Director Jack Sholder has gone on to direct nothing of consequence (well, maybe The Hidden). Our star, Jesse, completely vanished from the screen after Freddy’s Revenge. Basically, it appears that this movie was just a loser all-around. And yet, like I noted at the beginning, this isn’t the worst of the series. No, that will be part 6, where they decided to kill the franchise and stopped giving a damn. If you can bear to stick around that long, I’ll have some fun tearing that one up. Of course, the franchise didn’t stay dead…

So, what’s to like about this movie, then? Well, there are a few cool things, like Freddy’s leap through the glass doors, though not enough. And, at least, a lot of stuff happens, so you’re never really bored. On the down side, it takes entirely too long before the killing starts, and what killing there is is relatively bloodless. The “soul” of Freddy really got lost between the first movie and this one; Sholder apparently didn’t even like slasher movies, which may account for the lack of much actual “slashing” in this slasher. Oh well, Wes Craven still got his paycheck."

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Anybody else think this thread was going to be about ranking tv horror serials like Twilight Zone (original and remake), Outer Limits (likewise), Tales From the Darkside, and (yes) the TV version of Friday the 13th?

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So I guess this is as good a place as any to put this…they remade Friday the 13th? I mean, I’ve seen the commercial a couple of times, so I have to believe this is so. Does anyone have any inkling why? It’s not as though the movie depended on a special effects spectacular or anything.

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The answer to “why” is almost certainly money. Horror movies are cheap to make and, while they don’t often make hundreds of millions, they do tend to draw enough of an audience to make a very nice profit. With a Friday the 13th remake, they automatically benefit from the name recognition, plus they can get away with making a movie that doesn’t have to be very good (people have fairly low expectations of the series).

Remakes that hardly even register on the radar are still making solid money. The Prom Night remake pulled in over $40 million. The cheesy My Bloody Valentine movie out right now has made $38 million and still counting. The Halloween remake made $58 million, and even the poorly-reviewed When A Stranger Calls took in $47 million (and these are domestic numbers; overseas, they made even more). With that kind of cash waiting, who could resist remaking a well-known vintage horror flick?

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It wasn’t remade. It’s a new movie, and they’re following the incredibly stupid trend of calling a new chapter in a series by the original title’s name. It’s Jason, Crystal Lake, the usual…then again, you could consider parts 3,4,6,7,9 to be “remakes” of part 2…or part 2 to be a remake of part 1 with a different villain…

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OK, I’ll play–George Romero’s “Dead” series:

Day of the Dead: The one that, for me anyway, stands up the best to repeated viewings. The acting is far better than its two predecessors (except for Rhodes, of course, but he’s such a hoot to watch that I don’t care), the setting of the missile silo gives a certain atmosphere that truly points up the bleakness and futility of the whole situation, and “Bub” just makes the film. For the first time in the series, one of the zombies is actually played as a character, interacting with the humans and reminding us of the fact that they were once us.

Land of the Dead: I know I’ll get a lot of disagreement here, but the twenty years’ wait was well worth it. Now we have a budget, A-list (or at least B+ list) actors, and, IMHO, a better representation of our society than Dawn. While Dawn’s focus was consumerism, Land shows that, ultimately, society will attempt to adapt to a situation (though not always for the better.) Probably the best future representation of the divisions inherent in modern society since Carpenter’s They Live.

Night of the Living Dead: What can be said about the original? The return of the low-budget, B&W “grindhouse” flick, and the one that brought gore into the mainstream. Truly a classic, but oversaturation has taken some of its magic away. I actually enjoyed Savini’s remake more.

Dawn of the Dead: I put this one last because, though I really like it a lot, it tends to sacrifice the horror elements in favor of the “consumer” allegory. The scenes of violence lean too much toward the cartoonish, and by the end, I was rooting for the biker gang. Also the worst-acted and least-scary of the series IMO. OK, maybe Night’s acting isn’t top-notch either, but when you expand your setting and increase your budget, the performances should be better as well.

I have yet to see Diary of the Dead, but from what I’ve heard, I’m not missing much. I will eventually see it, if only because I feel I must.