With the seemingly never-ending Saw series notching up its sixth instalment this week — that’s six in just six years, which must be some kind of series record — weary audiences and critics may well be wondering whether it’s time for the filmmakers to put down the torture tools. (Of course, that’s unlikely to happen if the reliable Halloween grosses continue to roll in on as predicted.) How will Jigsaw’s latest outing rank next to these horror franchises, whose part sixes invariably rank among the series’ very worst?
Oh and don’t get us started on Cosby riding an ostrich. The horror, the horror…
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Having killed off all but one of the teens of his dream town, Freddy gets a visit from his long-lost daughter whose death inspired his own initial rampage. Sorry, what? This was followed by Wes Craven’s New Nightmare: talk about false advertising.
Series status: The remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street is released next year.
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You know him now as the funnyman from I Love You, Man, but 15 years ago Paul Rudd was Tommy, teenager terrorised by Michael Myers, aka The Shape — who’d been introduced to the world in the 1978 slasher classic Halloween. Ominously, The Shape survived stabbing, a hail of bullets, a fall and Donald Pleasence’s overacting in the original, and has been coming back ever since. Episode six tried explain such invincibility via the mystic, age-old “Curse Of The Thorn”. But of course!
Series status: Rob Zombie’s remake of Halloween II makes it 10 films and counting.
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At the start, Jason — old hockey-mask face himself — is dead and buried. So what better way for a former near-victim currently in a mental asylum to get closure but than to dig up his body? Convenient lightning resurrects Jason , who, naturally, wants to keep killing. Even more conveniently, camp Crystal Lake has been reopened and it’s stocked with fresh counsellors just waiting to get hacked up. At the end of this one, Jason goes to the bottom of said lake — but drowning ain’t gonna keep him dead!
Series status: This year’s remake of Friday the 13th was a success, so they’re “reimagining” Friday the 13th Part II.
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1993’s schlocky Leprechaun introduced Jennifer Aniston and inspired an entire franchise. This wack sequel finds the little Irish monster trying to get his gold back from a bunch of unfortunate homeboys and girls.
Series status: This was the last: star Warwick Davis has his hands full with the slightly classier Harry Potter series.
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The original Stephen King short story was made into a 1984 movie about kids in a corn farming town who killed off their parents under the evil influence of teen preacher Isaac and the demonic spirit they worship, known as He Who Walks Behind The Rows. Here Reverend Isaac comes out of the coma he’s lain in for 19 years and before you know it corny horror reaches new heights — or lows.
Series status: Series status: Part 7 followed. The film was remade for TV this year and will soon be “reimagined” for the big screen.
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Horror, you say? Nothing’s as scary as this Bill Cosby “comedy” in which he plays a spy called out of retirement to fight an evil vegetarian and her… army of hypnotised animals! Even Cosby warned people off this one during his PR tour at the time.
Series status: The “joke” of the title was that this was the only film in the series. Thankfully.
