According to Scream 2, “sequels suck.” Except they don’t, not always. What brings most sequels down is the audience’s belief that in order to be worth watching, a sequel must be as good or better than the original. But that’s crazy talk. A sequel doesn’t have to be as good as the original, it just has to be good in its own right, right?
After all, can you imagine if we judged everything by these standards? Can you imagine if every time you had sex you had to compare it directly to the best sex you’ve ever had? It’s just not a fair standard. Good sex is good sex, good movies are good movies, and fortunately many of those movies are available on instant streaming at the click of a button. (The sex, not so much, but someone’s probably working on that as we speak.)
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Since Sinister 2 is opening this weekend, Now Streaming is taking this opportunity to focus specifically on horror sequels, most of which are quickly and cheaply produced, and many of which do – in fact – suck. But there are lots of great or at least very fun horror sequels that take the original concept and run with it, straight into Hell. Let’s go along for the ride with these, The Best Horror Sequels on Instant Streaming.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre II (Amazon Prime)
Paramount
The original Texas Chain Saw Massacre was a masterpiece of scuzzy plausibility, in which a group of young adults just happened to find themselves wandering into the lives of a group of secluded cannibals. Twelve years later, director Tobe Hooper returned to make another installment and abandoned any sense of realism, crafting instead one of the most nightmarish and bizarre horror sequels ever made.
Gruesomely comic, and wildly over the top, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre II finds the original family living in an infernal amusement park, winning local chili contests and setting their sights on a local DJ (Caroline Williams), who winds up in cahoots with Lt. “Lefty” Enright (Dennis Hopper), the uncle of two of the original victims. A descent into madness awaits them, along with one of the greatest cinematic chainsaw duels ever filmed, and many of the more grotesque images in the history of this already morbid franchise.
It may be a drastic departure for fans of the original, or the too-serious Platinum Dunes reboots, but it’s one incredible horror sequel that you’ll have to see to believe.
Waxwork II: Lost in Time (Amazon Prime)
Lionsgate
Speaking of “lost in time,” the two Waxwork movies are actually among the best horror comedies around, but they never quite found their audience the way that Re-Animator or Return of the Living Dead did. The first film was a fun and inventive flick about a group of kids visiting a spooky wax museum, only to find themselves transported into the grisly scenes themselves. But the second… well, the second Waxwork takes place in “God’s Nintendo,” and that’s a cool place to be.
Picking up where the original left off, with the protagonists struggling to explain in court why so many dead bodies were found under mysterious circumstances, Waxwork II: Lost in Time kicks in when they decide to prove that magic exists and get stuck in a series of alternate dimensions. Most of these worlds are elaborate horror knockoffs (they spent a lot of money on that Alien riff, and Bruce Campbell is a hoot in the Haunting satire), and all of them a total blast. Waxwork II eventually segues out of the horror genre entirely into straight-up fantasy adventure, but you’ll hardly notice, and you’ll never complain.
If you’ve never seen either of the Waxwork movies, fix that right now. You’ll thank us in the end.
Hellbound: Hellraiser II (Hulu Plus/Shudder)
Image Entertainment
There are two kinds of people in this world: those who prefer the original Hellraiser, and those who prefer Hellbound: Hellraiser II. We are in the second camp. Whereas Clive Barker’s original shocker was notable for its elaborate gore effects and hints at a grander, satanic mythology, the sequel goes above and beyond in both categories, presenting one phantasmagoric image after another and taking us on a trip to the netherworld that feels totally wrong, yet absolutely right.
Kirsty (Ashley Lawrence), the lone survivor of the original film, wakes up in a mental hospital where her doctor, Philip Channard (Kenneth Cranham) has developed an unhealthy fixation on the Lament Configuration puzzle box, and plans to use it to become a Cenobite, like the pain-addicted Hell priests Pinhead (Doug Bradley), Chatterer (Nicholas Vince) and Butterball (Simon Bamford). Soon they are all trapped in a nefarious labyrinth of suffering and torture in the classic Clive Barker mould, and to get out they have to make deals with the Devil and wear icky, sticky flesh suits.
The allure of Hell and the absolute terror it inspires are equally potent in Hellbound: Hellraiser II. But that’s the whole point of this franchise: “Pain and pleasure, indivisible.”
Evil Dead II (Hulu Plus)
Lionsgate
There’s not much left to say about Sam Raimi’s horror-comedy classic Evil Dead II. Whereas the original film was an ultra-low budget gorefest that scared the crap out of Stephen King, the sequel was a Three Stooges whirlwind of bloody slapstick and perfectly timed jump scares. It won’t give you nightmares but it will definitely spill your popcorn, and no matter how many times you see it, you’ll always be exhilarated.
The plot barely exists: Bruce Campbell goes to a cabin in the woods, is driven insane by demons and forced to dismember everyone who just happens to come along. But the energy is everywhere. This is the sort of bravura filmmaking that very few filmmakers have ever been able to capture, full of vitality and invention, both visually dynamic and completely lacking in pretension. It continues to inspire generation after generation of horror movie fanatics, but few of them have even attempted to step up to the plate and make something as thoroughly manic. “They just don’t make them like this anymore,” the old chestnut goes. In the case of Evil Dead II, that seems particularly sad.
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (Netflix)
New Line Cinema
Wes Craven invented one of cinema’s great boogeymen in 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, and then watched in disappointment as the nightmare murderer Freddy Krueger became a pop culture icon, cracking jokes, rapping with The Fat Boys and thoroughly failing to scare anybody. So when the time came for Craven to revisit the series with its seventh installment (after co-writing and co-producing the third film, Dream Warriors, which is easily the third best film in the franchise), he brought Freddy back in a very real way: this time, he’s attacking the “real” world, and all the people who make his movies, and who haven’t been making them well in nearly a decade.
It should have been just a cheesy piece of schadenfreude, in which Craven gets revenge on everyone who sullied his original, great idea. Instead it’s one of the great horror films of the 1990s, operating on a truly terrifying level in spite and because of its high concept. Craven makes the powerful statement that our fiction is very real, because the human psyche needs an outlet for our worst fears and impulses. If horror cannot provide that release, it will be released in real life. So neutering Freddy Krueger was a dangerous proposition for which everyone involved must pay.
Meanwhile he’s straight up subverting his original film, by making the teenaged Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) into the mother who doesn’t believe anything horrible is really happening to her child. Audiences now see essentially the same story from a different perspective, and find a new way to sympathize with and be scared by the original, all over again.
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare is perhaps the ultimate horror sequel, commenting on its own existence whilst simultaneously proving its own need to exist, and reminding us all that as fun as the other over the top and wacky sequels can be, the real trick really is making a follow-up that’s just as scary as the original. It may not be necessary but perhaps, at least, it should be the goal.
There are a lot of great horror sequels out there, but very few that can pull it off. Fortunately, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare is available right now. Just click on it.
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
