10 Horror Movie Sequels That Started In Surprising Ways
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00:00No genre of cinema is more synonymous with sequels than the murky realm of horror.
00:04While certain sequels often retread the same plot points as their predecessors,
00:08in turn bringing a predictability to them, there are those follow-ups that manage to
00:12do something different, something eye-grabbing, and something surprising.
00:16And it's on those particular sequels that the attention is on here.
00:19So, with that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture,
00:22here with 10 horror movie sequels that started in surprising ways.
00:26Number 10. Slumber Party Massacre 2
00:29Slumber Party Massacre is everything you'd expect from a slasher film released in 1982.
00:34Overflowing with the cliches of the subgenre, this Amy Holden Jones-helmed offering presents
00:38a group of disposable teens, a drill-wielding killer, and the sort of chaos and carnage
00:42one automatically associates with the slashers of that time.
00:45While Russ Thorne, the villain of Slumber Party Massacre, is offed at the end of the movie,
00:49that didn't stop him from technically returning for the 1987 follow-up picture.
00:53Rather than the middle-aged mass murderer seen in the first film,
00:56the big surprise of Slumber Party Massacre 2 is how Russ is presented
01:00upon being resurrected for another dose of bloodshed.
01:02As shown in the opening moments of the sequel, this rogue is now a hip and cool 1950s greaser,
01:08decked out in leather and sporting a guitar that's fitted with a drill bit.
01:11Oh, and he also sings. Like, a lot.
01:13So much so, Slumber Party Massacre 2 borders on being an all-out musical at times.
01:17For better or worse, Slumber Party Massacre 2's first 15 minutes sets out to make you
01:21fully aware that this is very much a different film to its predecessor.
01:259. Lost Boys The Thirst
01:28With fans having waited 21 years for a Lost Boys sequel, they were eventually served up
01:33two such movies in 2008's Lost Boys The Tribe and 2010's Lost Boys The Thirst.
01:38To be blunt, neither of these follow-ups were particularly good,
01:41though there was a certain charm to revisiting some of the characters
01:44from Joel Schumacher's iconic 1987 effort.
01:47Pivotal parts of Schumacher's movie were Edgar and Alan Frog, two young warriors looking to
01:51fight the good fight against the goddamn shitsucking vampires of Santa Carla, California.
01:56Played by Corey Feldman and Jameson Newlander, respectively, in that picture,
01:59the two actors were set to reprise their roles for The Tribe. Unfortunately for Newlander,
02:04he ended up being part of an alternate ending that didn't make the final cut of that offering.
02:08Still, Jameson did get to be a significant part of Lost Boys The Thirst alongside Feldman's Edgar
02:14Frog. What was surprising about the opening of The Thirst, though, is that Newlander's Alan ends
02:18up becoming a half-vampire after being forced to drink vampire blood. From there, the film jumps
02:22ahead five years to find a depressed recluse Alan living out his days surviving on animal blood.
02:28Number 8. House 4 The Repossession
02:31Steve Miner's House is a relatively family-friendly horror with just the right
02:35amount of humor to go along with its terror and tension. Unfortunately,
02:38the two subsequent follow-ups to Miner's 1982 effort veered in vastly different
02:43directions to that first House, with House 2, the second story, leaning way too much into
02:48slapstick comedy and House 3, the horror show, veering too much towards excessive gore and
02:52violence for the sake of excessive gore and violence. Still, 1992's House 4 The Repossession
02:57ended up being a fitting end for the franchise, managing to recapture the same balance of horror
03:02and humor as the original movie. The Repossession also brought back the first film's lead character,
03:06William Catt's Roger. In House, Roger is spooked by plentiful bumps in the night at his deceased
03:12aunt's old house. That picture also sees him separated from his wife and puts Catt's character
03:16on the hunt for his missing young son, Jimmy. For the audience, House 4 The Repossession has
03:20quite the surprise where Roger is concerned. When we pick things up with Roger, his prior wife and
03:24son are completely ignored by the film. Instead, he's now married to someone else, Kelly, with whom
03:29he has a daughter, Laurel. Also, while the events of House 4 are meant to take place in the same
03:33house as, well, House, it's clearly a totally different building. If all of that wasn't
03:38surprising enough, the biggest shocker of The Repossession's opening is how it opts to kill off
03:42Roger in an explosive car crash. Number 7. The Devil's Rejects
03:47What was surprising about the start of Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects is how it immediately
03:51put the Firefly plan on the back foot. In 2003's House of 1000 Corpses, the Fireflies were introduced
03:57as a family who operated under their own grisly, grimy rules of murder and mayhem, and who were
04:01always one step ahead of the law. That MO was perfectly showcased in how Mother Firefly,
04:06Otis, Baby, Captain Spaulding, and co. duped and brutally slaughtered a group of police officers
04:11who visited their abode as part of a missing persons hunt. Surprisingly, the opening sequence
04:15of The Devil's Rejects turns the tables on the Fireflies. For this 2005 sequel, it opens with
04:20a hefty armed bunch of state troopers ambushing the Firefly household while the family sleeps.
04:25Said ambush results in the death of Rufus Firefly, the incarceration of Mother Firefly,
04:29and puts Otis, Baby, and Spaulding on the run as they look to evade the law and plot the rescue
04:34of Leslie Easterbrook's mother. A rescue that doesn't happen, with Easterbrook's character
04:38murdered by the vengeance-seeking Sheriff Wydell. Of course, 3 From Hell, the third entry in this
04:43series, likewise opened in surprising fashion, killing off Sid Haig's Spaulding. Unfortunately,
04:47that was a decision made by Zombie after it became apparent that Haig's poor health would
04:51restrict his involvement, with the actor sadly passing away in September 2019, just days after
04:573 From Hell premiered. Number 6. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, The Dream Master
05:02With A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Dream Warriors seeing franchise fave Nancy use her last breaths
05:08to help kill off Freddy Krueger, many pondered just how Krueger would resurface once it was
05:12announced that Rennie Harlan would be bringing a fourth Elm Street picture to the silver screen
05:16in 1988. After all, you couldn't do an Elm Street offering and not feature Robert England's
05:20fedora-adorned child killer, right? Freddy would indeed, obviously, return for A Nightmare on Elm
05:25Street 4, The Dream Master, and Elm Street 5, The Dream Child. And Freddy's dead, the final
05:30nightmare, and kind of for Wes Craven's new nightmare, plus Freddy vs Jason and even the
05:34awful 2010 remake. But the more shocking matter was how England's character was reintroduced
05:39in The Dream Master. When Elm Street 3 survivor King Cade finds himself joined by his dog Jason
05:44in a dream, it soon becomes apparent that the duo are near the remains of Freddy Krueger.
05:48In one of the most baffling, bizarre moments in mainstream horror history,
05:52the pooch takes a literal flaming piss on Krueger's bones, which somehow resurrects
05:56the villain and allows him to carry on with his vendetta against the children of Springwood.
06:005. Hellbound Hellraiser 2
06:03Having won plentiful praise for its sinister visuals, unnerving atmosphere, and ominous
06:07dialogue, 1987's Hellraiser introduced moviegoers to Pinhead and his Cenobites.
06:12Presenting these sinister sorts as an otherworldly force, after all, they do reside in Hell,
06:17Clive Barker's directorial debut set these pleasure-and-pain-obsessed figures up as
06:21something totally foreign to the real world. Catching many a horror hound off guard, follow
06:25up Hellbound Hellraiser 2 opened by surprisingly humanizing Pinhead. Released just a year after
06:31its predecessor, this sequel started by showcasing Pinhead before he was Pinhead.
06:35Rather than forever being some pseudo-supernatural being that's only ever called the murky depths of
06:39Hell home, Hellbound's opening teased that Pinhead was previously a human soldier,
06:44who was ultimately corrupted by the infamous Lament Configuration.
06:47The film would later identify this man as Elliot Spencer, a British army captain during World War
06:52I. And with that, Pinhead now had a backstory. A backstory which itself would be further
06:56elaborated on and fleshed out in 1992's Hellraiser 3, Hell on Earth. In fact, that
07:01prequel went in the bold direction of utilizing Pinhead and Spencer as two entirely separate
07:06entities who have been unbonded following the events of Hellbound's finale.
07:114. Hostel Part 2
07:13Oh, Paxton. Having survived a whole bunch of Achilles-slicing,
07:16eye-popping, finger-chopping antics in 2005's Hostel,
07:20J. Hernandez's Paxton had been put through quite the wringer. Of course, such an experience will
07:25leave one traumatized, and that's clearly the case for our sole Hostel survivor by the time
07:28we pick things up with him at the start of Hostel Part 2. Living in seclusion with his girlfriend,
07:32we find a Paxton who is dealing with severe PTSD. It also doesn't help Hernandez's character that
07:37his beau believes he's exaggerating his trauma, with her feeling that A, Paxton's time in Slovakia
07:43can't have been that bad, and B, there's absolutely zero chance of the nefarious elite hunting group
07:48being able to track Paxton down. How wrong was she?
07:51In a jarring move, Hostel Part 2's opening sequence ends with Paxton's girlfriend finding
07:55his headless corpse in the pair's kitchen. From there, we see Paxton's decapitated head
07:59couriered to the waiting hands of Sasha, the big boss of the aforementioned elite hunting group.
08:04With that, the first Hostel sequel switches its attention to a trio of new female characters,
08:09who soon find themselves in the sinister clutches of Sasha's organization.
08:133. Jason Goes to Hell – The Final Friday
08:17With any long-sounding horror franchise that has a particular villain constantly at its core,
08:22the big question of any sequel tends to revolve around how exactly this bad guy
08:26or gal will be brought back after having been stopped at the end of the previous picture.
08:30In the case of Jason Goes to Hell – The Final Friday, the big opening moment surprise wasn't
08:34how Jason Voorhees was resurrected, but more how he was shockingly killed off. Well, sort of.
08:39Having ended Friday the 13th Part 8, Jason takes Manhattan in the form of a young boy following a
08:44run-in with some New York toxic waste. Yep, it makes zero sense, just go with it. 1993's The
08:49Final Friday opens up with Jason very much alive as a hulking adult who's stalking an unsuspecting
08:54female in a Camp Crystal Lake cabin. While there's zero explanation as to how Jason reverted to his
09:00adult self and departed the bright lights of New York City following Part 8, even more surprising
09:05is how Voorhees is blown to smithereens mere minutes into Jason Goes to Hell.
09:09You see, the aforementioned unsuspecting female was really an FBI agent who was
09:13tasked with luring Jason into an ambush from a SWAT team that shoot the shit out
09:16of that serial killer and blow him up. From here, The Final Friday devolved into an odd
09:20movie about the spirit of Jason, which looked like a turd, being passed from person to person,
09:25with the physical form of Voorhees absent for the vast majority of the film.
09:302. The Grudge 2
09:32Having survived plentiful supernatural chicanery in 2004's The Grudge, Sarah Michelle Gellar's
09:37Karen Davis was back for another round of spooky shenanigans for that movie's 2006 follow-up.
09:43As The Grudge 2 begins, we come to learn that Karen is laid up in a Japanese hospital
09:47following the fiery finale of the first film. When Karen's sister Aubrey heads to Tokyo to
09:52retrieve her elder sibling, things immediately take a turn for the worst during the picture's
09:56opening moments. When Karen panics after seeing the sinister Kayako spirit which
10:00plagued her in The Grudge, she bolts from her hospital bed and winds up on the building's roof.
10:04Convinced that the visage of Kayako is merely her own mind playing tricks on her,
10:08Sarah Michelle Gellar's character finds out the hard way that that's not the case,
10:11with Kayako flinging Karen to her death from the hospital rooftop.
10:15In a surprise move, it then becomes clear that The Grudge 2 will instead follow the story of
10:19Amber Tamblyn's Aubrey, as she takes center stage and has to deal with her own supernatural chicanery
10:24in this so-so sequel.
10:261. Halloween Resurrection
10:29In terms of shocking horror sequel opening, it doesn't get more jarring than seeing the
10:33greatest franchise protagonist in horror history being brutally killed off in the first few minutes.
10:38For the off-lumbasted Halloween Resurrection, that's exactly what it ended up doing.
10:42Picking things up after Laurie Strode had beheaded Michael Myers after the conclusion of Halloween
10:46H20, Resurrection finds Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie locked up in a mental institution.
10:51There, it's detailed how Michael had pulled a switcheroo in H20, putting his famed mask
10:56on a poor paramedic, who Strode then decapitated. Thus, Laurie was traumatized and left as an
11:01institutionalized mute. Of course, Curtis' character was really playing possum here,
11:05for yes, while she was locked up, she was merely biding her time for Michael to come and find her.
11:09In typical Myers fashion, the shape does indeed turn up at the facility housing Laurie,
11:14with a rooftop battle between the two actually seeing Strode get the better of her long-time
11:18rival. When Laurie hesitates in killing her then-canon brother, for fear of it being another
11:23innocent under the mask, Michael seizes the moment to stab his sibling and throw her body
11:27to its death. And with that, Halloween Resurrection peaked, as the film then descends
11:31into a farce that culminates with buster rhymes busting out some kung-fu moves on Michael Myers.
11:36And that concludes our list. If you think we missed any, then do let us know in the comments
11:39below, and while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification bell.
11:43Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there, and I can be found across various social medias
11:47just by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with WhatCulture,
11:50I hope you have a magical day, and I'll see you real soon.