My 2 cents on 4 things that can destroy a second entry.
With all the horror movies that are released every year, and with the ones that have already been released, most if not all of the profitable ones, are continued with a sequel, and in some cases sequels. and As with most things in life, the second time around doesn't always compare to the first time. Sometimes in rare cases, it does. Most of the time it falls a bit short, and other times, it flat out makes a totally embarassing effort and is trashed by almost every horror movie fan alive. It's because of this, that the question gets asked. "What exactly makes a bad sequel?". What makes the continuation of a story fall totally flat, and makes the actors/actresses, and everyone involved totally deny they played any part in the process of making that film?
There are alot of answers to this question, all of which will be examined in this article. The first and foremost thing that makes a sequel bad,terrible,a huge piece of crap, etc, is straying from the original storyline. Now I'm sure you're asking yourself right now, why would someone make a sequel to a movie that did well, but not stick with the same plot formula? Well there really is no clear answer to this question. You could speculate, maybe the studio geniuses wanted to try something new, or maybe they wanted to make the series a compilation of films, all different from the one before it. But one thing is for sure, this is something that never works, and can cripple a blooming horror movie series completely. Perfect examples of what can happen when someone gets the idea in their head to switch stories after the original installments, are the "Halloween" and "Urban Legend" series. The "Halloween" series tried to do this after Michael Myers was stalking his sister Laurie for 2 films, and failed on both occasions to kill her, and was left a flaming corpse at the end of the first sequel. Then Carpenter decided to switch things up, with "Halloween 3:Season of the Witch". A film which revovled around robots, killer halloween masks, and one of the most annoying jingles in world history. Sure this film was a total disaster, and by most, not all, but by most horror fans, is hated with a passion. Despite this, the "Halloween" series was able to get back on track with a 4th film which returned Michael Myers, and here we are in 2005, and part 9 is scheduled to go into production very soon. "Urban Legend", which revolved around a college campus killer using the creepy folktales we all know and love, as a way of disposing of their victims. The film was a surprise hit, and for the most part, a rare original slasher. However, part 2 didn't turn out so well. It's only tie in to part 1, was urban legends being used to off the killers victims. The same characters, killer, and storyline involving the killer from the original film were no where to be seen. Instead, we got a bunch of first timers, the younger brother from the long cancelled "Blossom", and one of the worst motives in horror movie history. Thus, "Urban Legends:Final Cut" despite opening in first place with a meek 12 million in it's opening weekend, fell fast, and really didn't make much profit for the studio as it's predecessor. Rumors of a third film are leaked every now and then, but it's been 4 years, and the chances aren't looking good for a part 3. The second thing that makes a bad sequel, is rushing for the all mighty $$$. By this I mean not taking time with the story, casting, etc, and rather rushing the film into production to profit from the success of the original. "Jeepers Creepers 2" (in my opinion atleast) is a perfect example of this. Rather than taking time with the story, and expanding on the origins of the winged antagonist known as The Creeper, we got a rushed sequel with some teens trapped in a bus for an hour plus. Had they taken more time with the sequel, would we have gotten a more complete film? Most likely, but that didn't happen. The third thing that kills a sequel, is not returning important and vital characters from the original film. Once again, I use "Jeepers Creepers 2" as an example. At the end of the first film, Trishes brother Darry was taken away by the creeper. One would think with an ending like that, surely we would see the character who suffers a huge loss at the end of the first movie returned as a nemesis to the antagonist, and a storyline focal point for the sequel. However, that wasn't the case. "Jeepers Creepers 2" stuck us with the typical cardboard teens we could really careless about. Thus, the film fell flat partially due to the absence of a very important main character from the first movie. Lastly, one of the main 4 things that can kill a sequel, is nothing fresh. Theres nothing worse that a sequel that rehashes the first movie, and doesn't give the audience anything new to chew on. Every sequel has to have a new twist, such as a second killer, a surprise killer, a mystery relative, a big secret revealed, etc. If you roll out the same ole same ole, that the audience got in the first movie, more than likely, your sequel won't succeed at the box office, and even if it does, won't be liked by many because of it's lack of fresh material. To sum things up, if you avoid these 4 potholes when making a horror movie sequel, be it part 2,3, or even 9 or 10, chances are, you're gonna have a profitable film on your hands, that most importantly, horror fans will enjoy. In a perfect world, every film would be able to avoid these 4 cardnal sins of horror movie making, but it's not a perfect world, and we will undoubtedly get many more sequels which will disappoint or not live up to the high expectations set for them. But on the flipside, studios are learning, somewhat, so we will get just as much if not more good when it comes to sequels, than bad. Now, if we could just get studios to stop making sequels to horror films which never needed any sequels, *cough* *cough* "Leprechaun" and "28 Days Later".
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