From a decade ago...
The summer movies are coming out, and almost all of them end in the number 3. Sequels and franchises have been a part of movies since the early days - and the beloved THIN MAN series although they may have been greeted with "Not another damned Thin Man movie" back in the 1940s. We love all of those Rathbone/Bruce SHERLOCK HOLMES movies, but they really lost quality after the third or fourth one - and the rest (where Sherlock was usually battling Nazis) were just the studio cashing in. The more things change the more they remain the same.
Horror movies always seem to end up franchises. The first one makes money, so they milk the premise for as many films as they can. But Horror films follow a strange pattern with their sequels....
Movie #1 sets up the series - though usually no one ever intended it to be a series..
Movie #2 sends in the military. ALIENS, the original DAWN OF THE DEAD, the new HILLS HAVE EYES 2... all send in the military to fight the monster.
Movie #3 is in 3D. JAWS 3D, FRIDAY THE 13th 3D, and many more.
After that, there’s always a movie where they Take Manhattan (Jason and The Muppets have both done this!)
Then there’s a movie where the monster is in The Hood. (LEPRECHAUN and a few others).
Then there’s one that gives us New Blood. (FRIDAY THE 13th did this).
Then they send the monster into outer space (JASON X, LEPRECHAUN 4, one of the HELLRAISER movies).
After that, they get to fight whoever wins the Alien vs. Predator bout later this summer.
Okay - what horror movie sequel cliches did I miss? What movies fit these patterns that I didn’t mention? And when will they send the shark from JAWS to the hood?
- Bill
11 comments:
There's always the one that's just an excuse for more nudity (always women, always thin, always attractive) with some particularly gruesome killings inbetween. Wait a minute... that's pretty much every sequel!
I'm really enjoying your blog, by the way (been hanging around your website for a few years now and recently found the link there). A great insight for wannabe screenwriters like me.
Leigh
I love the horror movie cliche where they rewrite/ignore the ending of the previous one in order to have the kill rampage again.
"And when will they send the shark from JAWS to the hood?"
Deep Blue Sea?
It always seems when they realize the juice isn't coming sufficient enough and things are practically dead, they ressurect something "special", like the return of the main character of the first movie/s or the bad guy turns good or has to fight another franchise monster.
Or when it's just too boring and no more ideas are around, they turn the franchise into a comedy for an attempt, just to fail.
And the stupidest cliche of all is when the victims reference the previous incidents of the series and try to be kinda smart about what went wrong, they make the same boring mistakes over and over again. - Isn't that lazy writing???
There's also the relocate it to the past sequel (Back to the Future, Tremors, Evil Dead, Austin Powers), bring in a comedian as the main villain (Batman Forever and Superman III), have the bad guy from earlier films fight a female version of himself (Terminator, Species), or bring in the family (Legend of Zorro, Shrek 2, every single Disney DTV film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade).
The prequel, or how it all began sequel, seems to becoming a cliche also.
There’s the “utterly unrelated” approach. The most egregious example I’m aware of is Halloween III: Season of the Witch.
”And when will they send the shark from JAWS to the hood”
Well, the shark in My Super Ex-Girlfriend was thrown into a hood. Not the hood, but close.
Then there's the thing where they get some element of the first movie back for, like, Part 7 or whatever.
Like getting Wes Craven to do The NEW Nightmare.
Or Sean Cunningham to produce Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (which wasn't).
Or Jamie Lee Curtis to do her cameo in H20.
Or getting Daniel Pearl back as cinematographer in the Texas Chainsaw remake.
Bleh.
-danny boy (thanks, James, now I can't get that "Silver Shamrock" song from SOTW out of my mind ... ):-)
"And when will they send the shark from JAWS to the hood?"
Yep, sorry. I wrote that one:
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0818672/
Although you wouldn't know it from the cover or the blurb - it's about a shark which sprouts legs and wanders into London to seek revenge. Maybe not quite the hood, but close enough to be ashamed of, surely?
Hi, Bill. I ordered your book, Secrets, 6 weeks ago. Still waiting for it. Can someone let me know when to expect it? Thanks. Marcus marcus0011@yahoo.com
The "Bad Guy who became popular with audiences" reframed as a potential good guy (Darth Vader, Dr. Zaius, the Terminator, 'Jaws' of Bond villain fame, etc.).
Post a Comment