After a blockbuster detour with Furious 7, director James Wan returns to his horror roots for like the fifth time in his career with The Conjuring 2, which follows Conju-Uno‘s Ed and Lorraine Warren into their next really true scary case. The original 2013 film was a Certified Fresh smash for Wan and company, notable because it’s rare for horror movies to get Fresh Tomatometer scores, and even rarer for their franchise sequels. So the fact Conjuring 2 is drawing sorta the same praise as its predecessor…well, that inspires this week’s gallery: 24 best-reviewed horror sequels!
A “best-reviewed” horror sequel for this gallery needs to be Fresh (60% and above), a hurdle James Cameron’s xenomorph massacre easily clears.
28 Weeks Later
Year: 2007
Tomatometer: 70%
The rage pandemic goes global in the mid-budget follow-up to Danny Boyle’s revolutionary running zombie starter.
Final Destination 5
Year: 2011
Tomatometer: 61%
Shooting Death’s grisly agenda in 3D brought critics on board for the novelty, though this was the lowest grossing Final D in the States.
Curse of Chucky
Year: 2013
Tomatometer: 81%
Child’s Play creator Don Mancini ditches the comedy elements that overtook the series, making this the highest rated Chucky movie.
Scream 2
Year: 1997
Tomatometer: 81%
A horror sequel sending up sequelitis (following an original that skewered slasher tropes) saw this series at the height of its incisive wit.
Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
Year: 1987
Tomatometer: 74%
The series’ intersection of terror and comedy was at its finest here, before the Freddy Krueger persona and off-color jokes became stars of the series.
New Nightmare
Year: 1994
Tomatometer: 77%
Before making meta his calling card with the Scream franchise, director Wes Craven took a stab at it by pulling Krueger out of the celluloid world and made him an ostensibly real-life menace.
Evil Dead 2
Year: 1987
Tomatometer: 98%
Evil Dead: the only horror franchise where every entry is Fresh or Certified Fresh. Groovy.
Army of Darkness
Year: 1993
Tomatometer: 72%
Though the horror stuff sat more on the tattered fringes, AoD gave Bruce Campbell’s Ash the opportunity to deliver his most beloved lines.
Evil Dead
Year: 2013
Tomatometer: 61%
Soft continuation of the original movie that series creator Sam Raimi and Campbell produced to get fans to stop harassing them for a new true ED movie. Didn’t work.
Ash vs. Evil Dead
Year: 2016
Tomatometer: 98%
STARZ pulls Ash from the woods and S-Mart and into his natural habitats (crappy bars and even crappier trailer parks, apparently) in this bloody TV sequel series.
Paranormal Activity 3
Year: 2011
Tomatometer: 68%
After their Catfish hat trick, Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman were hired to steer Paranormal Activity, and made 3 the second-highest rated movie (after the original) and the biggest-grossing worldwide for the franchise.
[rec] 2
Year: 2010
Tomatometer: 71%
Set mere seconds after [rec]‘s shock finale, and continuing the franchise’s signature frantic mix of found footage and zombie outbreak mayhem.
[REC] 4: Apocalypse
Year: 2015
Tomatometer: 78%
Again set right after [rec] 2 (and overlooking the Rotten-rated, loosely related third [rec]), Apocalypse saw heroine Manuela Velasco return to conclude the story.
Dawn of the Dead
Year: 1978
Tomatometer: 92%
George A. Romero upped the action and social commentary in his legendary follow-up to the already legendary Night of the Living Dead.
Day of the Dead
Year: 1985
Tomatometer: 82%
Military shenanigans are thrown at the screen in Romero’s 3rd Dead movie, which dares to ask, “Is man the true monster?” (A: DUH.)
Land of the Dead
Year: 2005
Tomatometer: 73%
Long-gestating big-budget Day successor concluded the Dead epic.
Diary of the Dead
Year: 2007
Tomatometer: 62%
Romero did a quick-and-dirty revision of his universe before losing his zombie fastball with the Rotten Survival of the Dead.
Hostel: Part III
Year: 2011
Tomatometer: 60%
A change in location revitalized this series: Who knew beneath the wholesome veneer of Las Vegas lie a cabal of for-profit murderpreneurs?
Tremors 2: Aftershocks
Year: 1996
Tomatometer: 63%
Degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon allowed this Tremors sequel to keep the budget low and the bloody fun high.
Tremors 3: Back to Perfection
Year: 2001
Tomatometer: 67%
Ad hoc series star Michael Gross closed out the original trilogy before returning for 2004’s Tremors prequel, playing his character’s own grandpa.
Wrong Turn 2: Dead End
Year: 2007
Tomatometer: 78%
This Henry Rollins vehicle is the only movie in the Wrong Turn franchise to turn a Fresh Tomatometer.
The Bride of Frankenstein
Year: 1935
Tomatometer: 100%
Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, both directed by James Whale and starring Boris Karloff, are likewise both 100% Certified Fresh.
Gremlins 2: The New Batch
Year: 1990
Tomatometer: 67%
An essential commentary on pop culture: Read Nathan Rabin’s special column on how this bizarre sequel went off the rails in spectacular fashion.
