The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)
The Original: One of the – if not THE – most terrifying films of all time, this low-budget horror film saw a group of hitchhikers fall foul of a family of cannibals and one leathery-faced individual in particular.
The Sequel: Tobe Hooper made the odd decision to completely change the aesthetic that made the original film so popular (and horrifying), swapping out the grainy quality and tension in favour of a glossier film with lots of gore and, bizarrely, wacky comedy.
Possible Fan-Edit: Get rid of the gags and just make a 90-minute film of Leatherface chasing someone with a chainsaw. Just that. That’s all it takes to make us need new underwear.
War Games: The Dead Code (2008)
The Original: A young boy nearly starts World War III when he accidentally hacks into a military computer and confuses computer games with real-life nuclear weapons.
The Sequel: Gone are the fun family elements of the original in favour of a more action-packed story, which sees computer whiz Will get accidentally identified as a terrorist and have to evade Homeland Security’s automatic electronic system R.I.P.L.E.Y.
Possible Fan-Edit: In an ingenius plot twist, Will dies at the end, only for the words ‘GAME OVER’ to flash up on screen. It turns out that we were watching a computer game all along!
The Neverending Story III: Escape From Fantasia (1994)
The Original: A fantasy epic about a young boy who has to defeat The Nothing, a darkness that consumes everything in its path and threatens to destroy Fantasia.
The Sequel: They’re really living up the title with this drawn-out addition to the franchise, which sees the bookworm Bastian return to Fantasia only to be attacked from the real world by high school bully… wait, it’s JACK BLACK! Hahahaha! Jack Black is in this!
Possible Fan-Edit: Black ends up learning the error of his ways and grows up to return to the school where he teaches music. You can see where we’re going with this, can’t you.
Halloween: Resurrection (2002)
The Original: The definitive slasher horror film, directed by John Carpenter, in which a crazed killer stalks babysitter Jamie Lee Curtis while dressed as William Shatner.
The Sequel: Having survived – on or off-screen – the events of seven previous Halloween films, Laurie Strode is unceremoniously killed off early on here, making it seem like the last few films she appeared in was all a waste of effort.
Possible Fan-Edit: Just like Michael Myers, Laurie comes back from the dead for more at the end of the film and proceeds to stalk her own stalker. Eventually this will just evolve into them following each other around a room for eternity.
Bambi II (2006)
The Original: One of Disney’s best loved animated features with one of the saddest moments in the history of cinema. (*sob*) Damn you, hunters!
The Sequel: Technically a ‘midquel’, taking place after the start of the original film and before the ending, but we’ll include it here for that reason alone.
Possible Fan-Edit: If we can just make up stuff that happened in the middle of the first film, can we have Bambi’s mum back again? Maybe she was just resting? Maybe it was a cruel prank? We don’t care how you explain it.
Trancers 5: Sudden Deth (1994)
The Original: A science fiction film in which people can take a drug and travel back in time to occupy the body of their ancestors. Jack Deth, a policeman from 2247 goes back in time to 1985 in the hunt for Martin Whistler, a criminal mastermind (and ‘trancer’) who uses psychic powers to control other people to do his bidding.
The Sequel: Somehow we have found ourselves in an ‘other-dimensional world’ filled with magic where trancers are rulers. Jack Deth’s mission to find the mysterious Tiamond in the Castle Of Unrelenting Terror forces him to face off against the king of the Trancers, Caliban. Wait, when did this time-travel series become about mystical kings and magical dimensions? Apparently there’s a limit to what we’ll buy in a sci-fi franchise.
Possible Fan-Edit: The other-dimensional world is actually the future beyond the year 2247, revealing that time is circular and all that has happened in the past will happen again in the future. Actually, scrap that – hoverboards!
Single White Female 2: The Psycho (2005)
The Original: Bridget Fonda throws her fiancé out of their apartment and advertises for a roommate. Along comes Jennifer Jason Leigh who seems perfect at first, until she gradually starts taking over her new best friend’s life, wearing her clothes, cutting her hair like hers and even hooking up with that fiancé…
The Sequel: Basically, it’s EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE FIRST FILM. Updated with different characters it may be, but the story remains exactly the same. The only difference seems to be that the studio added “The Psycho” to the title so that no one was in any doubt what kind of film this is.
Possible Fan-Edit: We’d like to see a super-meta fan-edit, which see this sequel meet the original film and gradually start copying everything that it does until they are indistinguishable from each other. It would be complicated to understand, but at least there’ll be a point to it.
Boogeyman 2 (2007)
The Original: Grown-up Tim is left traumatised after witnessing his father get taken by the Boogeyman, a monster that lives in everyone’s closet. Called back to his childhood home, Tim starts having terrifying encounters with the hooded figure all over again.
The Sequel: In a strange turn of events, this film sees Laura – another person left traumatised by memories of the Boogeyman – enter group therapy with patients who each have their own debilitating phobias. Before long they start to get picked off one-by-one in phobia-related deaths, and Laura comes face to face with the Boogeyman himself, only to realise that it’s… her brother?
Possible Fan-Edit: Leave the family plot twists alone. There’s nothing wrong with a good monster picking off innocent victims in the most gruesome way possible without there being a deeper meaning to him.
Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland (1989)
The Original: Classic 80s slasher film about a serial killer preying upon teenagers at a summer camp.
The Sequel: Even for trashy killer movies, this sequel is absent of all logic and sense. For starters, the film begins with the original serial killer Angela running over a teenager with a truck, right next to a piece of graffiti that says “Angela is back!”.
Possible Fan-Edit: Less of the tongue-in-cheek self-referential nonsense, please. We just want to see folk get killed.
The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999)
The Original: Infamous Stephen King story about a young, bullied girl who starts developing telekinetic powers that become uncontrollable when angry or upset.
The Sequel: Follows Rachel, the half-sister that Carrie never knew she had, who also has the same abilities. Before she discovers them though, there’s a tedious, preachy story to get through about girls losing their virginity to jocks who don’t appreciate them.
Possible Fan-Edit: Remember the dream sequence when Carrie’s hand shoots out of the ground at the end of the original film? We want to see the continuation of that story. Who doesn’t want to see a Zombie Carrie film?
