House of Sequels is a project begun by two horror fans and a fan of poorly made schlock with a single purpose: to watch all the sequels in all of the major horror franchises. Why would anyone want to do that? For the same reason that people go streaking or try to do back flips off of park benches onto concrete even though they totally don’t have the leg strength or coordination and they know it: because sometimes you come up with an idea and you tell somebody and they challenge you to do it and you don’t want to look like a pussy, so you at least give it a shot in the hopes that it’s funny and it will get you a free pass to a horror convention.
The movie world around us is full of epic trilogies and remake mania. The recycling of good idea has become a sort of standard by which things are measured – why else would the people post re-enactments of SNL digital shorts all over YouTube? No genre of film is more autophagous and kleptomaniacal as horror. Yet the combination of it’s rabid fan-base and low budgets simultaneously demand that genius and innovation be brought to tried and tired ideas that have demonstrated their selling power. If Hollywood films are major investments then horror films are scratch-off tickets: cheaper, more fun, your initial investment is tiny and there is a slim chance of a huge return. Also, the desire to shock and disturb your audience can quickly and easily sidestep into hilarity, the bizarre or even the uncomfortably pornographic, and with a whole stable of up and coming directors any given film can be shit or shinola. What’s not to love? Oh, the gruesome violence and gore? Well we like that here.
Anyway, there are a lot of horror sequels out there so we have established a set of rules for determining which franchises we will watch. Then we will write and post reviews or reactions or whatever we want so that there will be a (hopefully entertaining) record of the event. We will rate each film on a basic 3-point scale and democratically decide the best-to-worst order of each franchise (something that may be hard to do with other sites as many critics hate horror and many horror fans will love any poop you serve them indiscriminately). Maybe you just saw Texas Chainsaw 3-D and you liked it and you find out that there are six other movies in the franchise and you want to find out what how it stacks up with the others; we’ll let you know. Maybe you’re drunk and you want to read reviews of all the Prom Night movies, because you’re drunk and that seems like a good idea; we’ll try to make that not a waste of your time. Maybe you just like us; we like you too.
