10 Horror Movie Sequels That Killed Franchises

More often than not, horror is extremely reliable when it comes to box office

Take the insatiable appetite of us horror fans and mix that with the generally low cost of producing so many horror films

and bingo, studios usually have an easy money spinner on their hands, regardless of a film's quality

And while most successful horror movies spawn at least a sequel or two

there comes a time when a sequel inevitably brings a halt to an IP

and that is what the focus is on here today. I'm Andrew from WhatCultureHorror

and here are the horror movie sequels that killed franchises. Paranormal Activity, next of kin

In 2015, Paranormal Activity The Ghost Dimension The Six Movie was meant to bring Paranormal Activity to an end

and to be fair, it was clearly about time. The law of diminishing returns had realistically kicked in

with the fourth film. Of course, The Ghost Dimension was a total, total mess, a barely

coherent story with a garish 3D gimmick tacked on as an act of desperation, and it became

the lowest grossing of all the Paranormal Activity movies. Even then though, the film

still took home $79 million worldwide, from a budget of just $10 million, again highlighting

how even awful horror movies can spin a very solid profit. Anyways, skip ahead to

2021, and Paramount decided that, yep, we needed a seventh film, a standalone sequel

That would be Paranormal Activity, next of kin. Heading straight to streaming, because pandemic, this was a tepid, unoriginal, embarrassingly

cliched movie that added zero to the franchise. Bad enough that even its own producer, Jason Blum, called the film terrible and assured

audiences that Paranormal Activity was being totally shelved. Well, at least for now

Sinister 2 When Sinister released in 2012 and took home nearly $90 million from a measly $3 million budget

yeah, it was no surprise that a sequel was quickly given the green light

But without original director Scott Derrickson in the director's chair this time

instead serving as a co-writer with Kieran Foy directing, Sinister 2 ultimately felt like nothing more than a slapdash half-arsed paycheck gig for Derrickson

and fellow returning co-writer C. Robert Cargill. And this was seemingly reflected in Sinister 2's commercial performance

taking nearly half the box office of the first movie, but made for over three times the budget

Much like Jason Blum with Next of Kin, Scott Derrickson has since admitted he and Cargill dropped the ball on Sinister 2

though he has at times expressed interest in maybe returning to the franchise at some point

However, given how it's now been a decade since Sinister 2, and Derrickson and Cargill are busy with the likes of the Black Foam franchise

sinister, it remains as dead as a dodo. Gremlins 2 The New Batch

Considering how much of a huge mainstream hit Gremlins was, it genuinely surprising to realise that it took six years for a sequel to hit the big screen That would be Gremlins 2 The New Batch in 1990 After years of struggles to find a suitable director for the sequel original director Joe Dante agreed to return to the fold

solely on the conditions of having full creative control and more than triple the first film's budget

The end result is one of the most gloriously unhinged sequels of all time

a cartoonish parody of both the first movie and of Hollywood sequels in general

Not to mention we've got some truly astonishing practical effects here. To some, The New Badge is one of the greatest sequels ever made

But for other audiences at the time, it was deemed a more goofy experience that lacked some of the horror elements of its predecessor

Resulting in it being a box office bomb, taking just over $40 million from a budget that was believed to be as much as $50 million all in all

And given how Gremlins took a mammoth $212 million, yep, Warner Bros. decided to put the franchise to bed

Hannibal Rising. Right, okay, okay, this one technically is not a sequel

but it is a follow-up all the same. 1986's Manhunter was the first adaptation of Thomas Harris' Hannibal Lecter novels

though it was obviously 1991's The Silence of the Lambs that made Hannibal a pop culture phenomenon

That itself saw more of Harris' work taken to the big screen with Hannibal and Red Dragon

both commercially successful in their own right. And then, well, then we have 2007's Hannibal Rising

an adaptation of a prequel novel that Thomas Harris didn't even want to write in the first place

In fact, the only reason he agreed to write that was because producer Dino DeLorentes

threatened to hire another writer if Thomas Harris did not do it

So, we've a lack of creative energy, a lack of real want from the writer here

There's a total absence of Anthony Hopkins, of course, because it's a prequel, and it's no surprise then that Hannibal Rising was a critical and commercial failure

Now 18 years since its release, which that makes me feel really old, we've not had a single other Hannibal movie since

with the IP only living on through the short-lived but brilliant Mads Mikkelsen starring TV series

Oh, yeah, and then there's the also disappointing Scrapped After One Season Clarice series 2

Hostel Part 3 For better or for worse, and let's face it, it is for worse

Eli Roth's Hostel is one of the films so often credited with popularising the whole torture porn subgenre

with an emphasis on prolonged, brutal, pain and suffering. And not any Hellraiser way either

That first Hostel film did a cracking number at the box office, turning $82 million from a $4.5 million budget

And Hostel Part 2 did solid enough, less than half the original, but still decent enough, though not enough for Eli Roth to stick around though

With him deciding to exit the franchise when Hostel Part 3 came around

A film that went straight to video in 2011 and featured zero returning characters from the previous two movies

That 3quel was rightly panned by fans and it received barely any attention even from critics doing so poorly that Sony seemingly just decided to yep no peace out we giving up on this franchise

Blair Witch For those of us around at the time, it is hard to fully put into words

just how much a phenomenon the Blair Witch Project was back in 1999

an age where the internet was still a shiny new toy, an age where everything you saw online, it was taken as fact

Because why would people make things up, right? It was just absolutely genius

As reflected by a box office of nearly $250 million for a movie that had an initial budget of no more than $60,000

Just insane. Think of those numbers. And so, while it was no surprise that a sequel happened

it was certainly a choice to go with a conventionally formed sequel

rather than another found footage film. That would be Book of Shadows Blair Witch 2

which arrived one year later. The reviews were rough. The box office was way down, and the whole Blair Witch stuff just kind of drifted away after that

The burgeoning franchise put to bed after just two movies. That was until the property was resurrected in 2016 with Blair Witch, a direct sequel to the original

shot in secret, and directed by the usually great Adam Wingard. I mean, Adam Wingard, you've got your next, and the guest is just two fantastic films to his name

The marketing for Blair Witch, it was also pretty decent. building up the mystique around the film

Only, sadly, for the end result to be just so, so disappointing

The writing just feeling a little off, and a lot of the movie just feeling like a lazy rehash of the original film

To the point that Blair Witch even took home less at the box office

than the awful Buck of Shadows, which, let's face it, that says a lot

Killing all plans, and any appetite for further sequels. Even if a reboot has kind of been spinning its wheels on and off since 2022

but that is never seen in the light of day. Let's face it. Poltergeist 3

Tobey Hooper and Steven Spielberg's Poltergeist is not only an exceptional horror movie

it made a total killing out the box office, particularly by horror standards at the time of its release in 1982

Granted, Poltergeist 2 The Other Side, which released in 1986, yeah, that underperformed financially

but it still turned enough of a profit for a third movie to be produced

Unfortunately, that third film is one tinged in sadness, mainly due to the tragic death of young Heather O'Rourke during post-production

at just 12 years of age. It's absolutely heartbreaking, even all these years later

Director Gary Sherman, not to mention the rest of the cast and the crew, were naturally despondent

about completing Poltergeist 3, which now required a new ending to be shot, and resulting in a very

obvious body double being used in place of Heather. By the time Poltergeist 3 finally made it to

cinemas, it was critically panned and a financial disaster, taking home just $40 million, which was

barely 10% of the box office of the original Poltergeist. The critical lambast in, the dreadful

box office, and just the entire sad tragedy of the production, that was enough to call time on the

Poltergeist movie franchise back then Yes a remake was pushed out in 2015 but yeah that was extremely meh as bang average as bang average remakes go which then that prompted MGM to once again make the IP dormant Megan 2 One of 2022 surprise box office hits

it was hoped that the bigger budget sequel to Megan would repeat that same success

Spoilers, it totally did not. Compared to Megan's box office haul of over $180 million

dollars, Megan 2.0 didn't even cross the 40 million dollar line, being made as well for double the

budget of that first movie. One of the big issues with Megan 2.0 was the decision to shift the tone

towards goofier sci-fi action comedy, all at the expense of the horror aspects that made the first

movie so effective and so popular. Meaning plenty of those who did show up to watch Megan 2.0

they were left disappointed, and plenty of other people they just simply opted to, no, stay away

And so it now looks extremely unlikely that Blumhouse will move forward with the previously planned third main mega movie

Though erotic thriller spin-off Soulmate, that has already been shot and will release early next year

And that will surely be the last we'll see of this fumbled, fumbled IP

Doctor Sleep. Stanley Kubrick's The Shining never needed any sort of sequel whatsoever

being a one-off masterpiece that did everything that that story needed to do

Of course, Hollywood loves nothing more than adapting Stephen King novels. And so, when King penned a follow-up in the form of Doctor Sleep in 2013

yeah, that was always going to be spun for the big screen at some point. To be fair, once the great Mike Flanagan was brought on board to write and direct

and with Hugh McGregor signed on to play the adult Danny Torrance, it was kind of tough not to be excited for this

And you know what? Mike Flanagan and his team, his cast, his crew, they absolutely delivered a very worthy follow-up to The Shining

Unfortunately, though, Doctor Sleep flopped big at the box office, grossing $72 million from a budget that was around $55 million

to the point that all plans for a direct sequel focusing on the Abra Stone character

and a prequel revolving around Dick Halloran, yeah, both of those movies were totally scrapped by Warner Brothers

The ABCs of Death 2 The ABCs of Death is a frustratingly short-lived horror anthology franchise

centered around a very, very simple, but a very, very fun gimmick

where each anthology is made up of 26 short films, and each of those short films is inspired by a different letter of the alphabet

such as say, T is for toilet. The first ABCs of Death received fairly mixed reviews at the time

but it did well enough that a sequel happened and arrived, which, while received more positively, it did struggle commercially

with the producers blaming fans who, instead of buying the movie, paying to watch the movie, they decided that, nah, we're just gonna pirate this one, we're

gonna watch it illegally on streaming. As a result, the planned ABCs of Death 3 was never made

And instead, we got the ABCs of Death 2.5. Because the ABCs of Death 2.5 came in and went without making too much of a dent back

in 2016, there's been zero real movement since, which is a real, real shame, man, since the

concept of the series. It is so darn fun, begging for some sort of revival on a platform such as Shudder, just saying

Thank you