Film Best horror film franchise

Had a think about this yesterday night and still believe the best two franchises that are pure horror are Scream and Evil Dead.
 
Ainu said:
I would say The Thing is horror first and sci-fi second, while it's the other way around for Alien. There's a sort of Lovecraftian, cosmic horror element to The Thing, which makes it such an effective horror story.
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Could well be. It is the svi-fo bit that gets them over the line for me as the horror isn't supernatural.
 
Dirty Schwein said:
Had a think about this yesterday night and still believe the best two franchises that are pure horror are Scream and Evil Dead.
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The first Scream was a classic, with a couple of surprises and the twist at the end, but seemed diminishing returns after that and more about creative deaths. Final Destination was great for those and they were formulaic but entertaining.
 
Jippy said:
The first Scream was a classic, with a couple of surprises and the twist at the end, but seemed diminishing returns after that and more about creative deaths. Final Destination was great for those and they were formulaic but entertaining.
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I thought Scream 1 was excellent and 2, 5 and 6 were also ok.

But Evil Dead is by far the best. The original trilogy was excellent, the remake by Fede was really good and I also enjoyed the new one by Lee Cronin. Not an awful entry in that franchise.
 
Very few modern horrors compare to the classic below classics which for me are

The Exorcist
The Shining
The Omen
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Halloween

These I think all still hold up today and are genuinely scary and unsettling movies, with no silly stuff - I consider Alien and The Thing Sci-Fi so they don’t fall in the horror category

The only modern movies that I think will be looked upon in years to come as classics would be Hereditary and The Witch. I think all the new Conjuring movies and spin offs are poor.

Also have a lot of love for the 80's horrors, although none have stood the test of time; Nightmare 1 and 3, Poltergeist, Friday 13th, Hellraiser etc...

Apart from all these Blair Witch would be up there with one of my favourites but that neither falls into old classic or modern



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isnt the Scream series more comedy / slasher rather than horror?
 
Paranormal Activity was quite popular at the time. Never watched the sequels.
 
The Thing is certainly a horror movie. you can't call something not horror just because it has creature from other planet killing people instead of ghost or animal.
 
A Quiet Place is going to end up being a fantastic trilogy. Day one was a great watch too.
 
Dirty Schwein said:
I thought Scream 1 was excellent and 2, 5 and 6 were also ok.

But Evil Dead is by far the best. The original trilogy was excellent, the remake by Fede was really good and I also enjoyed the new one by Lee Cronin. Not an awful entry in that franchise.
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I'm struggling to distinguish between the Scream sequels, but think 2 was ok, but remember one where the crap twist was it was two killers again but one was a totally obscure nobody character who either wasn't in the film earlier or was for a nanosecond.

I enjoyed Evil Dead, but not seen it in years and not sure how it will have aged. I need to check out the remake too.

Is Midsommar any good by the way? I saw it was on Emby the other day and I like pagan horror- loved The Wicker Man.
 
Jippy said:
I'm struggling to distinguish between the Scream sequels, but think 2 was ok, but remember one where the crap twist was it was two killers again but one was a totally obscure nobody character who either wasn't in the film earlier or was for a nanosecond.

I enjoyed Evil Dead, but not seen it in years and not sure how it will have aged. I need to check out the remake too.

Is Midsommar any good by the way? I saw it was on Emby the other day and I like pagan horror- loved The Wicker Man.
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I thought Midsommar was decent but flawed. Too long, a bit too silly at times etc. But people love it so worth a watch.
 
Dirty Schwein said:
I thought Midsommar was decent but flawed. Too long, a bit too silly at times etc. But people love it so worth a watch.
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Cool, thanks. Saw it was 2.5hrs or so, but I'm a sucker for watching those types of films and will give it a go.
 
I would put as single films:
Exorcist
Night of the Living Dead BW
Jaws? - seen it when it came out and didn’t go swimming that summer
The Omen
The Shining
Rosemary’s Baby
Race With the Devil
The Ring 1st one
 
This is a good question, and a tough one too, because when you look at the franchises do you look at them as products of the time they were made in, or as a whole. If you look at Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th they were amazing back in the day, but you look back and watch them now and they are cheesy as feck. Halloween could only really be considered a great for its staying power, rather than its quality.
The Evil Dead as a franchise keeps going and they make new ones now and then, including the show, so that's a fantastic one. Scream also seems to be staying around despite its best efforts. Final Destination as a franchise did something no other did, in that the killer was nor corporeal and those movies, whilst a little cheesy sometimes, are incredible.

The Saw movies would probably be my pick for best, at least for the last 20-30 years, as they have incredible staying power and draw people in like not many horror movies can. The same way Terrifier is doing now, and maybe that will be a great in the future.

But then you have the ghost franchise with The Conjuring and Insidious, the latter having released a movie recently, the former spawning countless spinoffs that are going strong. And when we talk about ghost franchises we have to talk about Paranormal Activity, 7 movies in total and whilst they haven't all received great reviews they are money makers and people love them.

And this is just talking about American horror movies, we haven't even gotten into Japanese horror franchises such as Ju-On The Grudge and Ringu, both of which have spawned plenty of movies, remakes and tv shows.

Talking about which horror franchise is the beat is truly such a nuanced discussion and it all depends on how you want to determine what constitutes the best: staying power, money made, reviews, personal taste, spinoffs, lasting impressions on the world, etc.
 
Jippy said:
Is Midsommar any good by the way? I saw it was on Emby the other day and I like pagan horror- loved The Wicker Man.
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Yep, you will love Midsommar.

George Owen said:
Humans are way more scary than ghosts.

Midsommar made me feel quite uncomfortable at times, because of the tension building up.

Same with "The Wickerman" (The original). Another one that makes you feel uncomfortable.
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If you have done magic shrooms before, you will enjoy it even more. The filmography/photography reflects the state of mind of the protagonists (sober or high on shrooms).
 
Going to have to watch The Conjuring, I was pretty much stuck in the 80s horror films and never found the newer stuff any good but plenty of approvals so will have to give it a bash.
 
Alvin and the Chipmunks has to be up there.

A bunch of high pitched malevolent rodents who make human lives a living nightmare; and each movie is more horrid than the one before it.
 
Dirty Schwein said:
Rotten Tomato has it ranked as a top 10:

1. Hannibal Lector
2. Scream
3. Evil Dead
4. Alien
5. The Conjuring Universe
6. George Romero's Dead
7. Saw
8. Nightmare On Elm Street
9. Insidious
10. Predator

This is actually a pretty good list.
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Phantasm isn't on that list, ergo it's shite.
 
I've been trying to come up with an answer here, but like @Dirty Schwein initially said, I don't think there is a good horror franchise.

All of the iconic horror movies that had sequels just recycled themselves: Halloween, Friday the 13th, Hellraiser, Alien, Phantasm, Scream, etc. Usually the sequels end up highlighting how ridiculously plotted the original film was, or they end up magnifying the plot holes.

I think a big reason the sequels always suck is because when it's a new, or "new", idea, you as the viewer are in a heightened state of alarm cuz you don't know what crazy shit is about to hit your eyes and you don't know what the "rules" are. If the initial entry in a series is any good it's going to have an actual ending. The cheapo horror films of recent vintage only have sequels in mind so they don't provide a satisfying conclusion. It's okay, maybe even preferable, to have something to think about afterwards, like the photograph at the end of The Shining. They could have made Shining Two: Shine Harder, but didn't, even though we never got an explanation for what caused the Overlook Hotel to be evil.
 
Horror sequels are hard. I think the few exceptions nearly change genre like Alien where the second one is an action movie as much as horror. Evil Dead is a good example - the second is more of a comedy, the 3rd is a fantasy movie. I wouldn't particularly rate the newer ones where they're decent but dont add anything.
But then i'd have a hard time naming a movie franchise i liked so maybe its not a question for me. Studios tend to milk them till they're dead and they have a couple of turkeys.

Most of the Chucky movies are watchable. I have no idea how Friday the 13th became a franchise where the first 3+ are boring and barely watchable. I think the 6th or so is probably the best and Jason in Space is one of the better entries.
 
The Paranormal Activity movies were decent. At least the first 2 anyway. I always preferred horrors where they don't show the scary thing and used tension and build up to get you going.

However, as other people have said the Evil Dead franchise is tops as well as George A Romero's zombie movies. Danny Boyles 28.... Series is quite good as well.
 
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