Rule 1. The franchise must be horror. Because we love
horror. Do you know how many Land Before
Time movies there are? A lot. I’m not watching all of those. Horror seems
to be the only genre that has embraced the sequel as a badge of honor and it is
in part our intention to celebrate that shamelessness cashing in on the
strength of a title here at the House of Sequels. Defining what franchises
qualify as horror is up to us – Silence
of the Lambs and it’s kin are in, but a fifth The Crow, still wouldn’t get it on our site - it’s just hard to
keep our interest in any other subject. There may be no good reason for the
thing to keep returning from the grave, but it beats watching a bunch of sad
dinosaurs.
Rule 2. There must
be 5 entries in the series. After a little debate we decided that a
five-entry minimum was the only way to keep the list at a reasonable length
(less than 200 movies; we have jobs to go to) without cutting out too many of
the classics (sorry you didn’t make it Jaws).
In keeping with the modern trend in horror, prequels, remakes, remake sequels/prequels
will all contribute to the total count, so you will notice lesser franchises
like Prom Night or Silent Night, Deadly Night have slipped
in, but we’re sticklers for rules and we will endure.
Rule 3. Official sequels only. Films like Alien 2 may be great… or a least… well
someone probably likes ‘em, but it’s really hard to track down many of them and
most are hugely unrelated to the films that they supposedly follow – frequently
in the ‘70s the sequel title was tacked on after a less successful release
under an original title, and I don’t want to watch After Death because some Italian dude slapped a Zombi 5 title card in front of it 18
months after it was released because it hadn’t made all of it’s money back yet.
Also, this rule eliminates franchises like Roger Corman’s “Poe Cycle” or any
other “spirit sequels”. And yes, we acknowledge that a lot of official sequels
aren’t strongly related to the originals either – I’m looking right at you Halloween III – but at least they paid
for the title. That makes sense, right?
Rule 4. Nothing in the public domain. We love the
public domain and we are glad that Sonny Bono is dead, but the public domain
makes the word “official” a little hazy, is Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula a part of the same
franchise as Universal’s Dracula films? What about Hammer movies? We don’t care
to watch 15 different films fail to explain why Dr. Frankenstein would send a
mentally handicapped medical assistant to get the most important component of
his life’s work; that would distress us.
Rule 5. No mash-ups. We just don’t want to watch
them. Whose franchise does AVP belong
to? Just one or both? Who gives a shit?
Rule 6. No television series. Friday the 13th:
The Series is about an antique shop that sells cursed merchandise or something.
It’s not about camping, underage sex or figuring out how to kill the killer.
Why is it called Friday the 13th: The Series? Ask Canada, That’s not
to say that all of the television offshoots are bad, but again, it just creates
work and problems. That said TV movies sequels/remakes do count, so
we’re like 1 TV movie sequel away from having to watch Critters. yay.
Rule 7. One “cut” per film. We will decide and
indicate which cut of a film we are going to review, but unless the difference
is drastic enough to warrant a major change in film credits like the Exorcist: The Beginning and Dominion: A Prequel to the Exorcist
and/or story like Little Shop of Horrors
(‘86).
Rule 8. No documentary-torture-gore films. We don’t
want to watch all the Guinea Pig or Faces of Death movies together. Or
apart. It would cause a fight about who would get to shower first.
