10 Smartest Decisions Made In Horror Movie Sequels

If there's one thing horror movie characters are known for, it's being on the stupid side

An abandoned house, you say? Let's break into it in the middle of the night

A Ouija board? Ooh, let's play with it. A book of ancient spells that says don't read this under

any circumstances ever? Well, you get the idea. This is why it's so surprising when a character

in horror actually does something halfway intelligent, like escaping a villain's trap

or turning their own strengths against them. Believe it or not, there are enough examples

of this to make a list, even when we're just focusing on horror sequels. So with that in mind

I'm Ellie for WhatCulture, and these are the 10 smartest decisions made in horror movie sequels

Number 10. Heading for them all, Dawn of the Dead. Though it doesn't feature any of the same

characters from George A. Romero's 1968's Night of the Living Dead, 1978's Dawn of the Dead is

considered a spiritual sequel, as well as being the second in a large series of Of the Dead films

made by the horror maestro. In the wake of a zombie apocalypse, four survivors team up to find

a safe haven. Whilst flying around in their commandeered helicopter, the group spot the

perfect place to hide out, an abandoned shopping mall. In terms of zombie refuges, it doesn't get

much better than this. Large building with a fortified entrance? Check. Good supply of food

drink and other necessities? Check. Chance to run around all the stores you weren't allowed in as a

kid, that is also a check. Holing up in the mall was a genius idea that has been copied many times

in subsequent zombie fiction, and one that keeps the group safe for a majority of the film. Sure

it all backfires on them when a group of bikers break in, but before that, things were going swell

9. No gun, no problem. Zombieland Double Tap Speaking of malls, that's precisely where the subject of this entry joins the party in this

horror comedy sequel. In Zombieland Double Tap, the follow-up to the excellent Zombieland from 2009

Columbus and Tallahassee discover a new survivor named Madison hiding out in a shopping complex

Madison is your stereotypical dumb blonde, more focused on looking good than staying alive

and with about as much brain power as a reanimated corpse, if not less

Still, at a key point in the movie, she shows that she's not a total lost cause

Later in the film, Wichita is under attack from an undead assailant. Despite being the only member of the gang without a gun, Madison wades into battle and distracts the zombie with a can of pepper spray she had in her bag

This gives Wichita time to escape her grisly fate. So there you have it The so bimbo wasn actually as stupid as she looked Well actually she was still pretty stupid This was kind of just a one but still don judge a book by its cover Number 8 Using the camcorders Blair Witch

After Book of Shadows, Blair Witch 2 wiped out pretty much all of the goodwill generated by the first movie

a new movie was released to try and resurrect the iconic franchise

Spoilers, it did not succeed. Whilst Blair Witch from 2016 turned out to be nothing more than a diluted rerun of the first film

at least it gave fans this moment of horror protagonists using their resources to their advantage

Lisa Arlington is the last surviving member of a group of teenagers who set out to discover what happened during the original film

Lisa realises that anyone who has looked at the evil spirit has been killed so cleverly

She uses the camcorder of a fallen group member to spy on the creature without directly engaging with it

The plan goes really well as Lisa is able to walk backwards around the room without being attacked

Sadly, the spirit uses the voice of one of her friends to get her to turn around, leading to her demise

But that being said, the original camcorder idea was pretty smart 7. Keeping a gun handy, Curse of Chucky

The sixth installment of the Child's Play franchise, Curse of Chucky is largely separate from the rest of the series, with a few exceptions

However, when the post-credit scene rolls around, the movie is taken back to where it all began

After the main events of the film, which begin with Chucky being sent in the mail to his next victim

the murderous doll once again packages himself up and arrives in the home of an unsuspecting man

The poor fella in question is a grown-up Andy Barkley, Chucky's owner in the first Child's Play film

The red-headed menace thinks he finally got one over on his former foe, but just before Chucky attacks him with a knife

Andy turns around and blasts the doll with a shotgun. How many horror characters have survived one movie

only to take their eye off the ball and then get splattered in a sequel. Andy knew that Chucky wasn't going to go away

and so he kept himself armed in case his past returned to haunt him. This might seem a little pessimistic

but without this attitude, Andy would have definitely been dead meat. Number six, making a chainsaw hand, Evil Dead 2

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. Or in the case of Ash Williams, when life takes away your hand

you make a badass weapon. After the critical success of the first Evil Dead film

Bruce Campbell returned to the role of the quip spitting hero to take on even more deadites in the middle of a secluded wood

Unfortunately for our hero his right hand gets infected by the demon's evil curse

Knowing that it will spread to the rest of his body if he's not careful Ash grabs a nearby chainsaw and severs it leaving a bloody stump in its place Still let try and look on the bright side eh Not wanting to be at a disadvantage against the Horde and having seen what the Garden Tool can do

Ash decides to modify the chainsaw so it can be fitted to the end of his arm

With a boomstick in one hand and the saw in place of the other, Ash is now a bona fide Deadite killing machine

Now, whilst this idea is very cool within the realms of fiction, please do not try this at home

Number 5. Shredding Michael, Halloween Ends The third and final instalment of the recent Halloween trilogy

which smartly ignores most of the guff that followed John Carpenter's original

is called Halloween Ends, an apt title for the movie that finally finished off Michael Myers

After battling both Michael and her granddaughter Alison's murderous new boyfriend, Laurie Strode is finally able to defeat the masked monster that has haunted her for so long

slicing his wrist and letting him bleed out, and also cutting his throat

Michael is dead, but Laurie is no fool and decides to finish the job once and for all

Laurie and Alison take Michael's corpse to the local salvage yard, where, accompanied by the residents of Haddonfield, all of whom have suffered at Michael's hand

they chuck the demented killer's body into an industrial shredder. Yep, that ought to do it

So many horror movie villains have come back from near death, including Myers himself

so Laurie was incredibly wise to go that extra mile to ensure the shape never returns

Number four, checking into a psychiatric ward, Final Destination 2. Surviving murderers, demons, and ghouls is one thing

but when the enemy chasing you down is death itself, that's a whole different ballgame

That's the dilemma faced by the characters of the Final Destination franchise, which somehow managed to get five films out of the exact same premise

Person has a premonition. Person plus others survive an accident. Death picks them off in various gruesome ways until they get even

Lather, rinse, repeat. At the end of the first movie, audiences think that Alex, Claire and Carter are safe

until Death claims Carter by dropping a sign on him. Alex is killed off screen by a falling brick

leaving Claire to take some pretty drastic action to avoid the same fate

As shown in Final Destination 2, Claire commits herself to a psychiatric ward

which might be the one place on Earth where Death can't get her. A padded cell, round-the-clock supervision

little contact with the outside world, Claire made a very good choice here. Unfortunately, she decides to try and help a new group of

survivors which ends up getting her killed. Well, that's what you get for being nice

3 Putting on the sweater Friday the 13th Part 2 He might be the most famous character in the whole franchise but Jason Voorhees doesn become the main villain in the Friday the 13th series until its second film

Out to avenge the death of his beloved mother, Jason puts on his best burlap sack and goes on his first of what would become many killing sprees

Towards the climax of Friday the 13th Part 2, Jason has a girl named Ginny cornered in the shack where he keeps an altar to his mother

Staring death straight in the face, or lack thereof, Ginny makes a big brain play

She puts on a sweater that used to belong to Pam, which tricks Jason into thinking Ginny is his mother

Though he eventually catches on, this buys Ginny enough time to escape and eventually survive the ordeal

Jason was so attached to his dear old mum that the thought of her somehow returning was enough to quell his murderous rage

It's quite cute in a way, once you look past all the killing, that is. 2. The Penn Tracheotomy, Saw 5

The whole point of the traps that inhabit the Saw universe is to test the victim's will to live

to see how far they're able to go in order to keep themselves alive. For one poor soul, this meant stabbing himself in the neck

Saw 5 carries on the story of Agent Stram, who was left to die at the end of the previous film

Stram may have escaped that predicament, but he quickly finds himself in another

His head is encased in a box that is rapidly filling up with water

Realising he wasn't going to evolve a set of gills in time, Strom knows he needs to find another way to breathe

Using nothing but a pen, he performs an amateur tracheotomy on himself

which allows him to survive. Sure, he's now got a massive hole in his throat

but Strom didn't die, which is a pretty good trade-off. Oh wait, never mind, he ends up getting smushed to death

in a trick room at the end of the film. Better luck next time, buddy

Number one, leaving town, Scream 2. What's the one thing that horror victims have in common

They would have survived had they just kept their noses out and walked away

This is precisely what Joel Jones does in Scream 2. Joel is the replacement cameraman for reporter Gail Weathers after the death of Kenny in the first film

Gail is on the case when a new ghost face emerges with Joel in tow to capture all the big moments on film

But it soon becomes clear that the new murderer is following the same pattern as the original ghost face

killing people with the same names as the first Woodsboro victims. and whilst there were no Joels in the first film

this one realises that he'll probably be the stand-in for Kenny fearing the worst, he gets out of town

and you know what? He lives It's not a particularly heroic thing to do

nor does it make for compelling cinema but Joel's decision to leave while he still could saved his life

and that's what counts