5 Horror Franchises That Have Shitty Sequels.
By Nick Peron
Okay, I know what you're going to say "I know plenty of horror franchises that suck ass!" and you're right we all do. But I'm going to be a little more specific with this little write up. See when it comes to franchises with shitty sequels not all of them start that way, sometimes the shitty sequels come after one or two really good movies. And that's the purpose of this little write up, I'm going to take a look at a number of different franchises and put in my two cents about what was good about the original, where it started to go wrong and if they've actually redeemed themselves.
From this list you'll notice a distinct lack of the "Big Four" Horror franchises... Namely Nightmare on Elm St, Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Halloween... Because well I think everyone has written at length about the good and bad parts of these franchises. But don't worry, I have some more better known series herein. Depending on how I feel, you could expect there to be more features like this in the future.
But let's get this show on the road:
Pumpkinhead:
Films: Pumpkinhead
The Concept: The premise of the Pumpkinhead movies is that the monster known as Pumpkinhead is a vengeance demon that is summoned by someone to get revenge on someone who caused you a great wrong. The summoner would be linked to Pumpkinhead and witness/feel his victims deaths. Once Pumpkinhead finished it's job or the summoner is killed Pumpkinhead would burst into flames and the summoner would take it's place as the new Pumpkinhead.
The Original: The original follows the story of a father who's son is accidentally run down and killed by some city folk and so contacts an old witch to summon Pumpkinhead for revenge. When Pumpkinhead actually starts killing his victims, and he feels their deaths he realizes that the price of vengeance is too much and so tries to stop the creature from killing the remaining city kids. In the end he gets the last survivor to kill him in order to stop Pumpkinhead, however his body is changed into a new Pumpkinhead and is put to rest.
Where Things Started To Go Wrong: Right into first sequel did things start to go wrong with this franchise because it didn't honor all the "rules" of the first movie. In the 2nd film Pumpkinhead comes to life after an old woman burns to death due to an accident caused by a group of punks called the Blood Wings. It continues to further negate things because there is no living summoner, and Pumpkinhead can be harmed by conventional weapons. Also in each of the succeeding films, I think that advanced technology and CGI graphics made Pumpkinhead less believable. The first film, like a lot of serious horror films in the 80's had a certain ambiance, certain lightening and the special effects done differently back then. The most recent incarnations of Pumpkinhead were bland and dull, probably given the fact that they were Sci-Fi Network made for TV movies that were filmed in Romania (to keep the cost down over anything else.) and the quality of the Pumpkinhead creature suffered for it.
While the last two sequels were made almost 20 years after the original, it also seems bad that they tried to infuse plot elements (such as the ghost of the father from the original, having a grown up hick kid from the first film etc.) into the story. It just doesn't seem to work so well because really it's been so long since the first movie that it just doesn't make sense to drawing back from the original for anything other than the original premise.
Franchise Redemption: The most disappointing part of the Pumpkinhead franchise is the 2nd film Blood Wings, it's the odd man out. Like so many other franchises (See Nightmare on Elm St 2 or Halloween 3) it just happened that the person who wrote the screenplay either didn't give a shit about what was established in the first movie, or just really didn't get it. The last two sequels did however bring it back to basics and put it back on track with the original film. However, where they lost things was in the attempt at a tie in some 20 years after the original movie, by this point most of your viewing audience probably doesn't remember, nor really cared about the characters in the first movie because it's been so damned long. It's great that they were able to get Lance Henrikson to reprise his role of Ed Harley again, but when you consider horror movies where most characters are cannon fodder from one movie to the next, it's not that spectacular to have him appear post humaniously (or rather his character, Lance isn't dead.) Keep the original premise, but only bring back old cast members if they have some practical contribution to the plot. In order for somebody to make a great story they should keep the basic principal of the series (the monster, the franchises "rules" etc.) but focus more on developing new stories that don't borrow from the past movie in terms of characters. For example, they 
could do a film that features the origin of the first Pumpkinhead, and any number of prequel movies that happen prior to the first film. Since Pumpkinhead is an eternal character there's a lot they can do with him without resorting to lame gimmicks other franchises go for (keep reading you'll see what I mean.)
The other thing the sequels failed on, at least after the 2nd film, was the special effects -- Specifically the appearance of Pumpkinhead. Without the proper lighting and ambiance the character doesn't look quite as menacing, and while using CGI effects makes the monster capable of doing a whole lot more it still doesn't have the same je ne c'est qui that the old animatronic/guy in a costume method the original film used. While they did use a guy in a suit for some of the scenes in the third and fourth films in the series, it just wasn't the same quality, and they had changed the anatomy of the character (the inverted knee caps) probably to cut down the cost and make it easier for the actor to maneuver in the costume. While these cost saving measures insured the creation of said films, I think to make a better movie they'd have to invest the money in a very convincing Pumpkinhead monster using the same techniques used in the first film. It may be antiquated, but it certainly make it seem more real than the emotionless spackle of CGI effects.
The final nail in the coffin for the series is the fact that the last two films were made for TV movies that were done for the Sci-Fi Network. Which is better than no sequels at all I suppose, but it does put restrictions on what they can put into the films because the Sci-Fi Network is one of those channels that follows the typical US censorship laws. The DVD Releases of said films have the same content as the film. The fact that they had to stick to made for TV movies goes to show just how popular the franchise is, and it's probably going to be stuck in made-for-TV Hell unless one of the big studios decides to give it the remake treatment that most horror movies seem to be getting these days. But that doesn't mean that these movies have to suffer, at least when it comes to releasing the film on DVD. I don't see how they could film extra footage for an "un-rated" DVD edition of the movie. If you make a good film to begin with, someone who is going to want to go out and buy the DVD is going probably want something with a little more than what they saw on TV. Pumpkinhead was never big on gore, but being able to show more than what network TV will let you get away with will certainly get people buying the movie when it comes out on video.
Critters:
Films:
Critters
The Concept: Features a bunch of intelligent critters from outer space that are intergalactic criminals due to their excessively cannibalistic nature. They seem to have a habit of making pit stops or laying their eggs on Earth, which usually warrants the intervention of annoying kids and intergalactic bounty hunters that can shape change into 80's hair metal musicians.
The Original: I more or less covered it up in the "concept", but I'll get into more detail here: So the Critters were just rounded up by intergalactic bounty hunters, but they make their escape to Earth. There they crash land in the town of Grover's Bend, the kind of town that's full of lovable rednecks who are all quirky in their own right. Stereotypes include the bumbling sheriff, the demeaning father, the slutty sister, and the town drunk. Of course the Critters decide to put the people of Grover's Bend (and anything else made of meat) on the main course, but they are thwarted by the arrival of two bounty hunters, one of them taking on the form of a "popular" 80's hair metal musician. In the end they end up blowing up all the Critters and leaving Earth with the town drunk. However they neglect to notice that one of the Critters had laid a bunch of eggs, which lead to the sequel....
Where Things Started To Go Wrong: The sequel, Critters 2: The Main Course, was a good follow up, continuing where the first one left off, having the eggs hatch and terrorize Grover's Bend again, the bounty hunters come back to destroy this new batch of Critters. To give the little bastards a dynamic spin (pardon the pun) they wrote in that they could clump together into one GIANT ball of quills, claws, and teeth that could pick a body clean just by rolling over it. However, I think where they started going wrong with this series started with the 3rd film. The first sign of trouble is the fact that it stars a young Leonard DeCaprio as the main character. That alone should signal the starting death spasms of your horror franchise.
The second thing is that for the most part the films take a total disconnection from the first two films except for the title characters. The third movie suddenly places the Critters in the city, and quickly does away with any characters related with the previous two films in a quick cameo. And there's also the total lack of space bounty hunters. Since these bounty hunters were so hell bent to return to Earth and blow up all the Critters again and again, you'd figure they wouldn't stop until they were absolutely sure that all the Critters were killed or at the very least make a return call to the planet when they started cropping up again.
The fourth film attempts to take the film back to it's outer space roots, but it falls very short and it appears that it was written by people that had a vague idea of what the first three films were all about. But the first thing wrong was taking it back into outer space, because there is a simple rule to horror franchises that I think rings true every time: Setting your sequel in outer space is the kiss of the death. This is going to be a recurring theme you're going to see when I'm doing this review. And Critters 4 suffers from this same affliction even though the monsters themselves came from outer space. They also take the back seat in the film and make sparse appearances.
Franchise Redemption: They kind of had the right idea with bringing back the whole space bounty hunter thing, however it wasn't executed in quite the right way, and not to mention the fact that the lack of Critters in the film and the lack of the dark comedy that was present in the three previous films pretty much put the final nail in the coffin in the Critters franchise. There were plans to make a 5th movie (A Christmas themed one... I'm sure that one would have been just as great as the last two) were sacked due to the horrible reception of the last two films. And considering how much of a disappointment they were, that's no surprise at all.
If they were to make another Critters movie, they'd have to do a lot of making up, that's for sure. The biggest problem with the later films is that the number of Critters were greatly diminished, and that might have been for budgetary reasons, I doubt the puppets they used were very cheap to produce. In this day and age they could easily make the same number -- if not more -- Critters in a future film that would equal or rival that of the first two, with CGI. But the problem with that is that they're going to have to do a damn good job at making the Critters look as good and as menacing as they did in the original films. If you're audience can't believe the monster on the screen is anything more than a computer generated image, then you failed at making a convincing monster.
The problem with a new Critters movie will probably be the fact that if New Line Cinema even intimates the idea of doing so, it's going to have a limited budget and any CGI they're going to use is going to be far removed from their usual eye candy you'd expect after seeing movies like Lord of the Rings. Chances are that since it is New Line Cinema that owns the rights to Critters, if they're going to do anything with the franchise it'll probably be a revamp and remake of the original much like what they've done with Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and are planning to do with Nightmare on Elm St and Friday the 13th. I wouldn't hold ones breath for that to happen anytime soon.
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