6 horror sequels that weirdly defined the franchises

There are few traditions as hallowed in cinema as the horror film sequel. The first movie is haunting, refreshing, and groundbreaking, and now that it’s made a ton of cash, it’s time to attempt to repeat its success till the wheels fall off. In significantly lengthy sequence, a few of the components that made them well-known are inclined to run collectively a bit. Have they been pre-installed since the starting, or did they present up someplace alongside the manner and audiences simply accepted them as gospel?

What points are in the authentic recipe, and which got here in later to spice issues up? It’s time to dive into that query relating to iconic bits of six prolonged horror sequence — bits that may appear to have been foundational textual content however really didn’t get inserted till slightly later.

Frankenstein’s monster’s iconic stroll

Frankenstein’s monster walks with his arms outstretched, with his shadow behind him

The Frankenstein movies had been the bread and butter of the golden age of Universal horror, with two incredible movies by James Whale (Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein,) a particularly stable flip starring Basil Rathbone (Son of Frankenstein) after which a fast descent into cheaper, clunkier efforts. Boris Karloff, who performed the titular monster in the first three movies, delivers a considerate, tragic efficiency, so it’s slightly bizarre that the iconography that’s remained is that of a person together with his arms raised, clumsily shuffling by means of fort units.

This character-defining picture wasn’t really set till the last moments of the fourth movie, The Ghost of Frankenstein. (Quick synopsis: The monster, performed right here by Lon Chaney Jr., has his mind changed together with his conniving sidekick Ygor’s, performed with raucous malice by Bela Lugosi. This permits him to talk and plot, however because of a medical mishap, he’s fairly instantly rendered blind.) The monster spends the previous couple of minutes of the flick groping round after which, in the sequel, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, he exhibits up with arms outstretched.

In the subsequent films, nobody ever mentions he’s now blind, whether or not it’s in his Wolf Man battle or House of Frankenstein or Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. So the Frankenstein stroll that would come to outline the time interval not solely didn’t happen till the finish of the fourth film, however is a part of a plot level that no subsequent film might be bothered to recollect.

Jason’s hockey masks

Jason Voorhees, wearing his signature hockey mask, holds both hands over his head about to slice somebody in Friday the 13th Part III.

If there’s any merchandise on this record that has gone down in the annals of horror trivia, it’s this one. In the first Friday the thirteenth, it’s Jason’s sweater-wearing mom Pamela doing the killing. In the second movie, Jason lastly exhibits up, however he’s donning overalls and a burlap sack over his head. It’s solely in the third film that he robs a comic-relief character of his hockey masks and decides that’s the look to maintain. Since then, Jason has been irreversibly tied to that explicit masks, one that has come to symbolize the slasher style as an entire.

However, it’s nonetheless essential to deliver up as a result of this omnipresence diminishes simply how rad Jason seems to be in Part 2. Lanky and unkempt, Jason feels a bit extra like a man that would really be hanging out in the woods exterior of a summer season camp slightly than the model identify he’d evolve into. Also enjoyable is the relative lack of machete in Part 2 — Jason’s common toolkit is fairly numerous right here, and the weapon he makes use of in the climax is a My Bloody Valentine-esque pickax.

Godzilla as a great man

The 1954 Godzilla, about to take down a bunch of power lines

When Godzilla exhibits up in the authentic 1954 movie, it’s atomic nightmare incarnate. It is the loss of life and mass devastation of nuclear holocaust delivered to life in the type of an unstoppable creature, one that can’t be understood or reasoned with because it menaces Japan with blistering hellfire. And then, in 1955’s Godzilla Raids Again, it’s principally round to wrestle with one other monster and knock stuff over. This first sequel would set the template for a majority of Godzilla movies going ahead — Godzilla is heavyweight champion of the kaiju division, and one that’s able to rumble with all challengers.

Even although Godzilla fought different monsters, that doesn’t imply there was a job reversal the minute one thing else wished to throw down. In the first 4 movies, Godzilla is an unambiguous asshole, much less a defender of Japan and extra like the nation’s terrible landlord who involves evict any new monster tenants. In the third film, King Kong is given the unstated ethical excessive floor, and in the fourth one, Mothra and her younger symbolize the fantastic thing about nature, whereas Godzilla symbolizes the fantastic thing about what issues seem like after they’re on fireplace.

It’s not till the fifth movie, Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster, that Godzilla, now compelled to staff as much as sort out an extraterrestrial dragon, really shifts into hero mode. And the change doesn’t come with out prodding — one among Mothra’s larvae from the final movie has to entreat Godzilla into being pleasant for a change. Going ahead, the large lizard simply has to hope Japan has forgotten about the complete “I am become death” section.

Freddy Krueger’s one-liners

Freddy Krueger has syringes for hands in A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

Freddy Krueger, the dream-invading villain from the Nightmare on Elm Street sequence, has at all times been a li’l scamp. Since the starting, he’s beloved tormenting individuals, and by Freddy’s Revenge, it’s clear that he additionally has a eager sense of irony. Does a personality have an curiosity in bicycles? Freddy will crush them with a wheel whereas shouting “BETTER PUMP THE BRAKES!” A personality with a ingesting drawback? Freddy skewers them with a toothpick and gulps them down in an enormous martini whereas winking at the viewers: “DRINK RESPONSIBLY!”

You get the concept.

It wasn’t at all times to this magnitude, although. Freddy’s embrace of puns solely actually grew to become a defining a part of his character with Dream Warriors, the third movie. It’s right here that almost each Freddy kill comes with some form of wordplay or one-liner, turning him into equal elements slasher icon and late-night host. It’s a pure match, with actor Robert Englund being one among the few horror stars to be adept at each stage of his character’s evolution.

Pinhead’s identify

The cenobite Pinhead in Hellraiser, with needles all up in his head

Pinhead is a type of hole-in-one horror designs — no notes wanted. It’s immediately iconic, which makes all of it the extra attention-grabbing that there was no precise identify hooked up to him when he joined the pantheon of Freddy, Jason, and Michael. He’s anonymous in the authentic novel by Clive Barker, The Hellbound Heart, and the first movie credit him as “Lead Cenobite,” a moniker that in all probability wouldn’t look good on posters. Barker later refers to him as the “Hell Priest,” having actually disliked the identify Pinhead.

So the place did “Pinhead” come from? It exhibits up in the credit of the severely underrated Hellbound: Hellraiser II, however the first time anybody calls him Pinhead happens in the third film and the identify is form of a joke. But it caught, and fortunately, in the 2022 reboot movie, the character has managed to reclaim slightly little bit of dignity. (They’re now generally known as merely “the Priest.”)

Leatherface’s identify

Leatherface is contemplative in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with a mask on his face

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 is a delirious darkish comedy and a comically brutal slasher movie, taking something that may’ve appeared delicate in the authentic and turning the quantity as much as deafening ranges. In brief, it’s stunning, and it acknowledges that you possibly can’t actually outdo the grisly macabre of the authentic. Returning director Tobe Hooper doesn’t strive, permitting his favourite clan of cannibals to spiral into freewheeling self-parody. He additionally offers them names: the Sawyers. Get it?

If you’ve solely seen the authentic, launched 12 years earlier than Part 2, and that identify sounds unfamiliar, it’s for good cause — nobody actually has a reputation in the first film. The “Bubba Sawyer” of the sequel is simply known as “Leatherface” there, and oddly sufficient, the “Cook” (or “Old Man,” as he’s referred to in the script) asks Leatherface, “Why didn’t you wait for Bubba?” seemingly referring to his hitchhiking brother. If you’ve by no means heard it, I don’t blame you — it’s barely audible over all of the screaming.

But that brother isn’t known as “Bubba” once more in the 1974 authentic, the identify having been handed on to Leatherface himself by the sequel, with the now-deceased brother known as “Nubbins” Sawyer. Now, it might simply be that the Cook was calling him “bubba” as in “your brother,” which is a typical Southern colloquialism, however it’s humorous in the context of the wider sequence. The final identify Sawyer is carried into the third movie, however by the fourth, the household is now generally known as the equally specific Slaughters. Look, it’s America’s most treasured chronicle of flesh-eating Texans. This form of factor issues.