Horror franchises - thoughts CONTAINS SPOILERS!

[tomandtish]

As we enter the Halloween season (although most stores already have more Christmas stuff than Halloween stuff) it seems like a good time to discuss various horror franchises. I'll usually be putting things in spoilers for space reasons, but this threat will contain major spoilers for the series, as well as comments on expanded universe material when relevant.

I'm starting with the Aliens universe. I'm only going to start with the original 4. Note: After the movie release date is the year the movie takes place.

Spoiler: Alien (1979 – Director’s Cut) 2122AD

Show

The first, and arguably the best in the franchise. Suitably scary (Dallas in the airducts still creeps me out today), an excellent cast, and it does a good job of showing a crew in well over their heads (made worse since Ash is working against them).

Body Count 6 (5 humans and one robot).

This movie has an amazing cast. Veronica Cartwright is probably the least well known of the cast members, and she’s still had a long and fruitful career.

Interesting points: The original script had a note that any role could be filled by a person of any gender. The crew solely refers to themselves by last names. In fact, you don’t learn anyone’s first name until the sequel (they are shown on a screen during Ripley’s testimony).

The director’s cut (and novelization) makes the series even creepier. Near the end Ripley finds Dallas and Brett cocooned and implanted. This means that you don’t need a queen to create more aliens. The expanded universe explored this by noting that a drone can become a queen in the absence of one, but this was still clearly a drone doing direct implantation. We also see that Parker and Ripley arrived in time to SEE Brett being hauled away, thus the “it’s BIG”.

Most of the special effects still work well today. There are a few alien shots that don’t (the alien attacking Lambert after killing Parker for example), and switching from talking Ash head to non-talking Ash head is blatantly obvious. When the alien bursts out of Kane’s chest most of the cast was caught off guard. They simply were told “The alien emerges”. Veronica Cartwright’s “Oh my god!” is totally real as she caught a mouthful of the fake blood. Yaphet Kotto (Parker) was so upset he went to his room and didn’t talk to anyone for several hours.


Propulsion isn’t discussed much but given that they are 10 months from earth and nowhere near their own system there must be FTL in some form. Expanded universe indicates they use gravity drives.

I personally put this first in the ranking of the franchise, and certainly the scariest. It’s an excellent horror movie that still holds up well today.

Spoiler: Aliens (1986 – Director’s cut) – 2179AD

Show

The other contender for best in the franchise. Generally, where one ranks it depends on whether one prefers the horror of the first or the action of the second. While technically coded as horror this movie is in no way scary.

Body Count: On screen? 13 (11 marines, Burke, and the colonist whose chest bursts). Off screen: 156 additional colonists (there were 158, but one dies onscreen and Newt lives…for now).

Also a good cast in this one, although not as many breakouts/already well knowns.

We learn first names of the Nostromo crew during Ripley’s testimony with the company. They are: Ellen Ripley, Arthur Dallas, Joan Lambert, Samuel Brett, Gilbert Kane, Ash, Dennis Parker. Interestingly, Ash doesn’t have a first name (or doesn’t have a last name). Presumably Ash as a “malfunctioning robot” wasn’t considered part of the crew for purposes of the debrief.

Propulsion either gets an upgrade in 57 years or military ships have vastly better drives. The ship makes it to LV-426 in 3 weeks (noted in the script and DVD specials, and someone confirmed by Hicks saying it will be 17 days after they are declared overdue before help arrives). LV-426 is 39 light years from earth so they have to be averaging a couple hundred times the speed of light (actually 39 years is 2028 weeks, and 2028/13 is 676 so really fast).

Special effects are overall better than the original (not surprising given 8 years).

Director’s Cut adds a few things of significance. First, we learn that it was Newt’s family that actually found the alien ship, and her father was the first hit with a face hugger. Second, the automatic sentry rifles help explain why they weren’t attacked by as many aliens as there were colonists, as that deleted scene kills a lot of them.

The novelization also notes that Dallas and Ripley were lovers. May explain why he refers to her as “dear” when they are arguing in the first movie.

It’s never actually said, but Gorman being put in command actually makes sense. Burke wants a young, inexperienced officer in charge, so it is easier for him to bring specimens back. Presumably he thought he could work with Gorman.

It’s an excellent sci-fi action movie. I rank it second in the series (but wouldn’t try and argue with those who have it first).

Spoiler: Alien 3 (1992) 2179AD (so minimal time after Aliens)

Show

This is not a bad movie, but its an early example of a problem that has become more common as time goes on. I’ve seen this movie already. In fact, I’ve seen this movie already IN THIS FRANCHISE. This is basically “Alien on a penal colony”. A group of people, badly outclassed, trapped in a hostile environment, trying to deal with a predator that substantially outmatches them.

Body Count: 29 people and 1 dog – 26 prisoners, Newt, Hicks, Ripley.

Interestingly Dark Horse did a series of comics beginning in 1986 that starred Newt and Hicks, who presumably made it back to earth. Hicks was still a marine, but a burnout, and Newt was in a mental institution. However, when they went to do a novelization of the comics Alien 3 had come out, so they changed the names of the characters and made them survivors of a different colony (Hicks becomes Wilks, Newt becomes Billie, and Ripley becomes a synthetic Ripley). When Dark Horse released the omnibus edition they also changed the names to match

There’s an interesting question posed here. How did Ripley get implanted in the first place? Theories have varied, with the most common being that the Queen had a few eggs inside her in addition to having the egg sac. But this still means a face hugger got off the shuttle deck, found the sleep pods, and somehow got inside one (there’s no evidence they can dispense acid at will).

Overall, there’s not much to say about this one. Charles Dance and Lance Henriksen are probably the best known actors after Sigourney. The effects are decent and hold up well, although I wonder if it would take that long for the alien to explode at the end. It’s not a bad movie, just an overly familiar one. I rate this 4th in the Alien franchise.

Spoiler: Alien Resurrection (AKA Alien 4 – 1997) 2381AD

Show

One of Joss Whedon’s earlier writing credits, this movie falls into the “so bad it’s good” category. SOMEHOW the military has gotten a sample of Ripley to clone that includes the alien in her. So maybe alien DNA is intermingling with hers?

Body Count: 36. This includes most of The Betty’s crew, all of the Auriga’s crew, multiple defective clone Ripleys, and bodies brought by The Betty to the Auriga for implantation.

Whether they were or not it certainly feels like the cast was having fun with this one. Ron Perlman is always fun to watch, Winona Ryder does a good job as Call (incidentally, it was years before I realized it wasn’t Cole, as that is how everyone seems to say it), and The Betty’s crew in general does a good job of playing off one another.

So, the military has captive drones and now has a queen. They at least acknowledge that what they are doing is extremely illegal, which is why they are apparently in some small corner of space outside normal travel lanes.

Of course, they never specify what part of what they are doing is illegal. Maybe research into aliens is, or cloning is, but the only part that is obviously illegal (presumably) is kidnapping and implanting humans. And I am left with…why? Why implant humans? It’s established other creatures can be implanted, so bring some dogs, or cows. (In the novels I mentioned earlier it is theorized that implantation in sapient creatures is better, as the fear response provides increased adrenaline to the alien).

We’ll also ignore that suction in space is not so strong that a 300 pound plus monster is going to get sucked through a small hole.

Again, this is a fun movie as long as you make no attempt to take it seriously. The funniest of the franchise. I rank it 3rd.

Thoughts? Good movies? Disagree with the rankings?

[DaedalusMkV]

As far as the Alien movies go...

Everyone agrees that Alien is the best horror movie and Aliens is the best action movie. Asking which of the two is the better movie is kind of like asking whether Schnitzel or Filet Mignon is the better food... Entirely a matter of taste. Both are classics of their respective genres. Alien pioneered filmmaking techniques that are still being used today for horror, and is still probably on basically everyone's list of top 5 Sci-fi horror movies of all time. Aliens is perhaps the single most influential movie of the 1980s on the overall field of sci-fi action, and that's not exactly a low bar to clear with The Terminator in the running. It's one of the most quoted movies I can think of, referenced by almost every science fiction anything that came after it and basically defined the aesthetics of pseudo-military sci-fi forever after. I think you could make a strong claim that collectively they're quite possibly the most influential science fiction franchise of all time that is not Star Wars. They're both excellent movies.

For the rest of it... Alien 3 is only not the worst movie in the franchise by virtue of Alien: Covenant being released. It would be entirely forgotten to history if it wasn't a sequel to two extremely beloved movies. It's not awful, there's just no purpose to its existence. Watch Alien instead, or Event Horizon or The Thing if you've seen Alien recently. You'll get more mileage by far. Resurrection is a fun guilty pleasure B movie which doesn't make a lot of sense but makes up for it with great action scenes and some shockingly good acting. It's the second best action movie of the lot, and IMO by far the best of the 'bad' Alien movies.

Prometheus is a glorious mess, filled with untapped potential. Which is to say I can't call it bad because of how much it gets right, but I can't call it good because of how much it gets wrong. It's so close to greatness, but consistently trips at every opportunity. The fact that the plot only happens because the characters are consistently about as smart as a bag of rocks does not help it at all. It's kind of believable that the inhabitants of a forsaken prison might be a bunch of idiots. It's much harder to believe that a handpicked team of the best scientists Earth can muster would be this stupid. But the visuals are astounding, the monster design is unsettling and the atmosphere is oppressive.

Alien: Covenant is, at least to me, completely unwatchable. At its best it's just ripping off Alien somehow far less convincingly despite 30 years of technological development in its corner. At its worst it's ripping off Prometheus, to horrible effect. It's the only movie in the franchise I haven't finished, because I just couldn't stand to keep going after about 80 minutes, and I only stuck with it that long out of inertia. The characters are somehow even dumber than Prometheus, the plot as presented is somewhere between idiotic and incoherent and I genuinely can't believe it was directed by Ridley Scott. If Alien 3 is unnecessary, Covenant is the horrible cash-grab abomination of the family.

[tomandtish]

Can't really argue with anything you said.

To me, Prometheus almost feels like another movie that got reskinned as an Alien franchise movie. I know that's not the case, but it feels that way to me.

Covenant was just flat out awful. If these are supposed to be humanity's best and brightest, it's amazing earth is still around. Honestly an alien invasion would almost certainly improve the gene pool.

[tomandtish]

If you want to talk shark movies, it always begins with Jaws….

Spoiler: Jaws (1975)

Show

The first and (I suspect nearly everyone would agree) the best in the franchise by a long shot. It’s credited with starting the summer blockbuster. It’s also “credited” for starting a backlash against sharks that has (in part at least) led to increased numbers of sharks being killed off. Benchley has stated that he regrets writing it for this reason.

Body count: 5 people* and 1 dog.** Compared to some movies these days it’s pretty low.

*Ben Gardner counts as a kill although it’s unclear whether the shark killed him directly or if he drowned in his boat.

** Pipit the dog is assumed to be a victim as well, as he disappears offscreen just before Alex is killed.

The casting is phenomenal in this one, especially the three male leads. Roy, Robert and Richard all play beautifully off each other. The movie has provided one of the most well-known quotes in movie history.

Scheider does an excellent job as a police chief who is in over his head… and more importantly knows it. He’s trying to do the right thing despite not knowing much, and he is dealing with what is an excellent example of small-town politics. I love the fact that he’s not the typical “action male” that you get in these types of movies today.

Dreyfuss makes a good Matt Hooper. He’s intelligent and has a lot of knowledge, but you can tell he lacks a bit on the experience side.

Opposite him, Shaw is the “quintessential” Quint. Old, cranky, and has lived through a truly horrific event (a friend of my grandfather was on the Indianapolis and couldn’t finish that scene as it caused flashbacks). Unlike Hooper, Quint has tons of experience, but a refusal to acknowledge when he might be wrong or over his head.

Murray Hamilton does a good job as mayor Vaughn. You can tell that his focus is the financial well-being of the town. To a small extent he has a point: a small town like this survives on tourist summer dollars. But he seems determined to protect the dollars regardless of cost. The novel clarifies that he’s actually in bed with the Mob, which wants the beaches to stay open.

This movie is a prime example of “less is more”. In addition to a fairly low body count, the shark is onscreen less than 5 minutes total (in a 2 hour movie). You’re past the half-way point before you get your first decent look at it. The shark is 25 feet long in the movie (up from 20 in the book).

They also made two good decisions. First, cutting out the attempt at an affair between Ellen Brody and Hooper. In the book Hooper is the younger brother of someone Ellen used to date, and they are attracted to each other to the point of they meet for a clandestine lunch, and have a one afternoon affair. Brody is later suspicious.

Second, the way the shark dies. In the book it basically succumbs to injuries/strain from being harpooned 3 times. Needless to say, we know how the movie ends things.

One thing that makes things seem a little unclear is the timeline. In the movie the entire thing takes place over 9 days (6/28-7/6), with Alex dying the day after Chrissie does. In the novel this takes place over a few weeks (6/15 – 7/7), with Alex’s death taking place several days after Chrissie’s.

While the practical effects still hold up well, they did cause some major headaches. Bruce (as the mechanical shark came to be known) had a bad habit of sinking. This led to numerous delays in shooting.

Unfortunately, the scene where fishers have caught a tiger shark uses an actual shark caught off Florida and flown in for the scene.

Interesting trivia: Jeffrey Voorhees (who played Alex Kintner) runs a restaurant in Martha’s Vineyard (where most of the movie was shot). They have an Alex Kintner burger on the menu. Decades after the movie he spotted Lee Fierro (who played his mother) in the restaurant which led to this…

“So I approached her table and said, ‘Can I ask you a very personal question — if you think this is a little odd tell me to go away — but do you believe in reincarnation? Because I think I died years ago, and you look like my mother from a previous life. And Lee realized who I was and so she went along with the joke and said, ‘Oh, my God, I had a son that died years ago in the ocean!’ And everyone in the restaurant, including her friend, were just wondering what the hell was going on!”

Incidentally, RIP to Lee who died in 2020 from COVID.

Needless to say, this movie rates best in the franchise. Adjusted for inflation this is not only the most profitable horror movie ever, but is top 20 in movies period.

Spoiler: Jaws 2 (1978)

Show

OBVIOUSLY, a movie that did as well as Jaws is going to get a sequel. So, in 1978 we get Jaws 2. It’s a decent shark flick that suffers simply because the original was so good. Takes place 2 years after the original.

Body count: 7 (the helicopter pilot appears to drown in his wrecked copter, but still a kill by the shark). This is the highest body count in the franchise.

Although Hooper survived the first movie, Dreyfuss wasn’t cast in this one. Officially he was too busy with Close Encounters and The Goodbye Girl. Unofficially he was heard to say that he made very little money off the movie. Even then he might have come back but they didn’t want to wait 6 months for him to finish his current project. Hooper is therefore away at sea during this one.

There’s a lot of recognizable faces in this one, many who will later appear in other horror movies. Jeffrey Kramer (Hendricks) will later be in Halloween 2. Keith Gordon will later be Arnie in Christine.

Lorraine Gray is back for her second appearance as Ellen Brody. She will play her in all three appearances in the franchise. OTOH, Sean and Mike Brody are played by different people every time.

The kills tend to be a little more spectacular than the first, but at the cost of feasibility. General consensus is that a shark is not going to bother chasing a water skier doing 30 knots as the energy expenditure isn’t worth it.

The town treatment of Brody is interesting. They make it clear that they think he is overreacting because of the events in the original. He’s not helped by the fact that there’s no confirmed evidence of a shark until near the end of the movie. (Lot of suspicious deaths but nothing that can’t be explained away).

Trivia: In the novelization of Jaws 2 we learn that it is pregnant and was impregnated 2 years ago in the waters off Amity. That’s right, Jaws got busy with Jaws 2 and (as will be learned later) fathered Jaws 3 (who is apparently born from the mother’s mouth right as it is being electrocuted). It really is personal (and very illogical)!

Again, a decent shark flick that suffers when compared to the original.

Spoiler: Jaws 3D (1983)

Show

Ahh, the 3D craze of the early/mid 80s. Some films decided to try and capture 3D magic. Overall, it was a failure (special effects were worse in 3D than in 2D). You also get stuck with the blatantly obvious 3D shots created specifically for the format. This shark looks much worse than the previous ones.

Body Count: 5

This slight twist for this one is there are two sharks, Mom and baby. Baby is about 14 feet long while Mom is the biggest in the franchise at 35 feet. It’s a while before anyone realizes that there are two sharks. At 14 feet baby isn’t really a baby, and we have to skip over the fact that while even Great Whites sometime will form temporary groups, there’s no documented incidents of a Great White protecting or bonding with their young. So, mom wouldn’t care that baby got trapped in the lagoon.

As usual profit trumps everything else. Calvin (apparently the owner or manager of a series of parks) is willing to rush the captured baby into public view, which results in its death. This is something they actually get right. GW’s don’t do well in captivity and 186 days is the longest one ever survived in captivity. Calvin also doesn’t seem very worried about the missing staff. Likewise, FitzRoyce wants to film himself with the sharks (capturing the baby and later killing the Mom).

I do spend time wondering about the liability of this park. There are shots that show you have people in underwater tunnels at extended depths (based on scale 30 feet or more), and I have to wonder how much insurance costs, since any major incident (cough giant shark cough) could result in large number of deaths by drowning. I also find it interesting that there’s only a paramedic when they find Sheldon’s body in the lagoon. Did they not call police? That will cause them a lot of problems later on, esp. since they apparently leave all of the park open despite having a body. Finally, he seals the park which traps numerous guests in the park complex.

Overall, this is a fairly silly movie. It’s meh, and the 3D was probably the biggest selling point at the time. I rank it 3rd in the franchise.

Spoiler: Jaws the Revenge… or “What the hell was Michael Caine Thinking?” (1987)

Show

Body Count: 2. For a movie about a killer shark there is almost no killing.

It’s extremely hard to say anything positive about this movie. Maybe… the scenery is gorgeous in places? The acting is subpar and since almost everyone is bad this is probably a directing issue, not an acting issue. The plot is silly: Shark decides to follow Ellen Brody from Amity to the Bahamas. This shark roars (literally roars). Ellen is convinced the shark is stalking them. And it gets even sillier. The USA theatrical release had the shark bleed out after being impaled. In the international and original DVD releases it explodes (along with an overlap of Brody and the original exploding shark). And yes, the version currently on Netflix uses this version. I’ve watched this so you don’t have to!

Michael Caine was asked why he did this film. He responded that he and his wife were moving and having a new house built. He felt he’d been in a bit of acting dry spell, so accepted $1.5 million for a week’s work. To quote him: "I have never seen the film, but by all accounts it was terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific."

In the novelization there is a voodoo curse on the shark causing it to seek out the Brody family. This was dropped in the movie, although Ellen certainly always seems to know when it Is attacking.

I suspect Mitchell Anderson (Sean) was glad he was killed in the first 10 minutes of the movie. It says a lot that there’s a sizable amount of blood in the water BEFORE the shark bites him.

That’s really it. There are good movies. There are bad movies. There are movies that are so bad they are good. And then there are movies that are so bad they bypass so bad they are good and dive headlong into utter crap. It’s pretty obvious where this movie falls.

Thoughts? Agree? Disagree?

Edit: Realized I may not have been clear. Feel free to post your own comments about various franchises. The only criteria is that they be horror (officially at least).

[DaedalusMkV]

That’s really it. There are good movies. There are bad movies. There are movies that are so bad they are good. And then there are movies that are so bad they bypass so bad they are good and dive headlong into utter crap.

My opinion is that 'so bad it's good' should always have been called 'junk entertainment' in the same way we use the term 'junk food'. Almost every movie that falls into the category has the same general traits: it's some combination of noticeably cheaply made, kind of dumb, poorly written, poorly edited or just generally inept in terms of the fundamentals of crafting a film, but also usually silly, not totally serious, fast-paced and has actors who are clearly having a blast. Most films in the category are low-budget B movies which either have big name actors working relatively cheap for the money with the expectation that the job will be fast or just for a change of pace or B-list actors hamming it up the way only the B-listers can. They're obviously not the pinnacle of the craft, but they're still fun and usually either a director's passion project or just something the studio greenlit to fill space in their lineup between blockbusters. Movies like Starship Troopers, Alien Resurrection, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat (the 90s ones or the recent one, take your pick) and Rocky Horror Picture Show live here. Plus something like 50% of the horror genre, which tends to be in the B-movie category as a genre with a rare few exceptions.

There's also the very rare and very extreme level of 'so bad it's good' which is the MST3K-bait 'this movie is a train wreck' style, but unlike the standard 'junk entertainment' fare it usually requires some help to really be enjoyable. These movies usually need to be watched with friends and riffed on to be fun, they often can't stand on their own merits in the way the above do. This is stuff like Manos: The Hands of Fate and The Room. Their appeal isn't nearly as universal as the junk entertainment movies, and most people enjoy them best in small doses rarely. You need to be an epic failure of a film to make it into this category, just so utterly inept and poor that you can't go 10 minutes without seeing some atrocity against the cinematic profession.

In between junk entertainment and train wrecks are the multitudes of movies that aren't fun enough to be guilty pleasures and not awful enough to riff on, but still not... Actually good. These are the many, many bad movies which simply exist, providing benefit to nobody. Like Alien: Covenant and Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever. Almost every third movie in a franchise lives in this category, while they still have enough budget and clout to avoid B-movie status but have run out of good ideas and inspiration and just try to squeeze out a blockbuster on the dregs of passion. See: Batman Forever, Superman 3, Spider-man 3, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and the hundreds of other victims of Third Movie Syndrome.

[Morgaln]

My opinion is that 'so bad it's good' should always have been called 'junk entertainment' in the same way we use the term 'junk food'. Almost every movie that falls into the category has the same general traits: it's some combination of noticeably cheaply made, kind of dumb, poorly written, poorly edited or just generally inept in terms of the fundamentals of crafting a film, but also usually silly, not totally serious, fast-paced and has actors who are clearly having a blast. Most films in the category are low-budget B movies which either have big name actors working relatively cheap for the money with the expectation that the job will be fast or just for a change of pace or B-list actors hamming it up the way only the B-listers can. They're obviously not the pinnacle of the craft, but they're still fun and usually either a director's passion project or just something the studio greenlit to fill space in their lineup between blockbusters. Movies like Starship Troopers, Alien Resurrection, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat (the 90s ones or the recent one, take your pick) and Rocky Horror Picture Show live here. Plus something like 50% of the horror genre, which tends to be in the B-movie category as a genre with a rare few exceptions.

There's also the very rare and very extreme level of 'so bad it's good' which is the MST3K-bait 'this movie is a train wreck' style, but unlike the standard 'junk entertainment' fare it usually requires some help to really be enjoyable. These movies usually need to be watched with friends and riffed on to be fun, they often can't stand on their own merits in the way the above do. This is stuff like Manos: The Hands of Fate and The Room. Their appeal isn't nearly as universal as the junk entertainment movies, and most people enjoy them best in small doses rarely. You need to be an epic failure of a film to make it into this category, just so utterly inept and poor that you can't go 10 minutes without seeing some atrocity against the cinematic profession.

In between junk entertainment and train wrecks are the multitudes of movies that aren't fun enough to be guilty pleasures and not awful enough to riff on, but still not... Actually good. These are the many, many bad movies which simply exist, providing benefit to nobody. Like Alien: Covenant and Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever. Almost every third movie in a franchise lives in this category, while they still have enough budget and clout to avoid B-movie status but have run out of good ideas and inspiration and just try to squeeze out a blockbuster on the dregs of passion. See: Batman Forever, Superman 3, Spider-man 3, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and the hundreds of other victims of Third Movie Syndrome.

I just want to point out that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is the second one in the franchise. The third one is the (very popular) Last Crusade. If anything, Crystal Skull (which is the fourth one in the franchise) suffers from third movie syndrome.

[Ionathus]

I just want to point out that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is the second one in the franchise. The third one is the (very popular) Last Crusade. If anything, Crystal Skull (which is the fourth one in the franchise) suffers from third movie syndrome.

Yeah, Last Crusade definitely escapes the Third Movie curse. It's a really good movie. Crystal Skull, on the other hand...

[DaedalusMkV]

I just want to point out that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is the second one in the franchise. The third one is the (very popular) Last Crusade. If anything, Crystal Skull (which is the fourth one in the franchise) suffers from third movie syndrome.

Huh. How silly of me. For some reason I remembered The Good Indies coming out first and second. ToD feels too much like a third movie. Guess that's just how it goes sometimes. Consider me corrected.

With that said, Crystal Skull isn't really Third Movie Syndrome, it's more on the Nostalgia-bait Cash Grab Reboot scale than anything. 19 years between movies is more than long enough to divorce any creative continuity between The Last Crusade and Crystal Skull. It was made by the Indiana Jones team, unlike Dial of Destiny which is genuinely just one more Disney cash-grab, but Crystal Skull just doesn't have the same DNA as something like Spider-man 3 or Batman Forever where they're trying to keep the film series' momentum going while it's popular and fresh and just fail because they didn't have some key ingredient to make that happen.

[Ionathus]

Huh. How silly of me. For some reason I remembered The Good Indies coming out first and second. ToD feels too much like a third movie. Guess that's just how it goes sometimes. Consider me corrected.

With that said, Crystal Skull isn't really Third Movie Syndrome, it's more on the Nostalgia-bait Cash Grab Reboot scale than anything. 19 years between movies is more than long enough to divorce any creative continuity between The Last Crusade and Crystal Skull. It was made by the Indiana Jones team, unlike Dial of Destiny which is genuinely just one more Disney cash-grab, but Crystal Skull just doesn't have the same DNA as something like Spider-man 3 or Batman Forever where they're trying to keep the film series' momentum going while it's popular and fresh and just fail because they didn't have some key ingredient to make that happen.

All good points.

Wait a second: was Crystal Skull the original "100% unnecessary decades-later sequel" that served as a harbinger of things to come? (looking at YOU, Matrix: Resurrection or whatever the heck your name is)

Not like Hollywood has EVER been terribly original – blockbuster book/play adaptations are basically as old as film – but I'm struggling to think of another property that did a 3rd or 4th movie over a decade after its initial heyday. Superman IV is the only four-quel I can even think of, and that came out while Superman III was only a few years old.

[Morgaln]

All good points.

Wait a second: was Crystal Skull the original "100% unnecessary decades-later sequel" that served as a harbinger of things to come? (looking at YOU, Matrix: Resurrection or whatever the heck your name is)

Not like Hollywood has EVER been terribly original – blockbuster book/play adaptations are basically as old as film – but I'm struggling to think of another property that did a 3rd or 4th movie over a decade after its initial heyday. Superman IV is the only four-quel I can even think of, and that came out while Superman III was only a few years old.

I think the ultimate over a decade later sequel is probably the Star Wars prequel trilogy (prequel, sequel, still counts...). Your mileage may vary on whether they count as 100% unnecessary cash grab.

Terminator 3 was in 2003, 12 years after Terminator 2. That was quite a bit before Indiana Jones 4. It's certainly qualifies as a 100% unnecessary decades-later sequel, and it is one of the worst, as the ending of Terminator 2 is actually pretty good, and 3 undoes all of that.

Jurassic World was over ten years after Jurassic Park 3, but that was 2015, so long after Crystal Skull.


I'm sure there are a number of others I can't think of off the top of my head.

[Ionathus]

I think the ultimate over a decade later sequel is probably the Star Wars prequel trilogy (prequel, sequel, still counts...). Your mileage may vary on whether they count as 100% unnecessary cash grab.

Terminator 3 was in 2003, 12 years after Terminator 2. That was quite a bit before Indiana Jones 4. It's certainly qualifies as a 100% unnecessary decades-later sequel, and it is one of the worst, as the ending of Terminator 2 is actually pretty good, and 3 undoes all of that.

Jurassic World was over ten years after Jurassic Park 3, but that was 2015, so long after Crystal Skull.


I'm sure there are a number of others I can't think of off the top of my head.

Yeah, I was thinking about the SW prequels, though I didn't count them because Lucas had been saying they were coming since Empire (I think? I wasn't around ).

Terminator 3 fits perfectly, though. Holy hell, what a pointless cash grab of a movie, I'd blocked that one out.

[DaedalusMkV]

The late 90s and early 2000s were flush with reboots to old properties. Your opinion on how unnecessary they were may vary, but to just give a few examples off the top of my head...

Mission: Impossible (The 1996 film, which is in continuity with the 60s TV show). Overall pretty well-regarded, extremely successful, generated a series of movies which is... Well, still going on today, shockingly. With that said, the original M:I crew despised it, felt that it was a stain on the legacy of what they had done.

Charlie's Angels (2000). In-continuity with the 70s TV show. The new cast is considered to be a star-studded replacement to the original Angels team which retired at some point in the past. Mostly remembered as a mediocre action flick (which according to Guillermo del Toro helped kill wire-fu in western cinema), but it did phenomenal thing's for Lucy Liu's career if nothing else. Content petered out after a disaster of a second movie... And then got rebooted again just before the pandemic, to no acclaim.

Terminator 3 (2003): Yeah, you guys know this one. It's trash, it's not directed by Cameron, get it out of here.

The Italian Job (2003): Not in continuity with the original 1969 movie. More of an updated, modernized remake than anything. Quite well received, did good things for the career of both the director and Jason Statham, who got the 1-2 punch of this movie and the Transporter in 2002-2003, and went from a nobody to a big-name action hero almost overnight as a result.

The Star Wars Prequels (1999-2005): Yup. The exception with this one is that we know Lucas had planned to make them from the moment Episode IV saw widespread success. They're still 16 years after the Original Trilogy, though.

Freddy vs Jason (2003): Whooo boy. A stunningly unnecessary reboot sequel to two beloved 80s horror franchises. It was awful. Brought Freddy and Jason back into the limelight, though, and may have contributed to the attempted reboots to both series... Which did not do well. I suppose, notably, while Freddy hadn't had a film in quite a while, Jason had... Well, see below.

Jason X (2002): Hey, remember that time Jason did sci-fi horror? No? You had burned that memory out of your brain? Ah, I'm sorry. 8 years after the horrible conclusion to one of the greatest horror franchises of all time (Jason Goes to Hell, don't watch it if you hadn't already, trust me), we get a sci-fi reboot with Jason on a space station stalking his victims with a lightsaber machete. Good golly the late Jason movies are bad.

And I'm running out of patience, so a rapid-fire list to run out the topic... Flubber (1997), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Gone in 60 Seconds (2000, but in name only), War of the Worlds (2005), King Kong (2005), Planet of the Apes (2001, then again in the 2010s), The Manchurian Candidate (2004), and probably dozens more I can't remember. You feel like modern Hollywood is nothing but superhero movies and remakes/reboots? Blame the 90s. That was when both things first started to really achieve cultural relevance.

[BeerMug Paladin]

As far as the Alien movies go...

Everyone agrees that Alien is the best horror movie and Aliens is the best action movie.

They're both good, but I think both movies have been surpassed by now. Not that ranking movies on a best list makes all that much sense when talking about good movies. But as a medium I think stuff that old tends to show its age compared to newer things. It's not a fault of the movie itself, but because artists alive now can learn from its example and copy what works in something new, so we've seen a lot of what works really well in those movies learned from and used elsewhere since then. It is worth noting that it doesn't seem as old as it is. Which is (probably) a huge part of why it's regarded so well.

Terminator comes to mind as doing basically the same thing with its original and its sequel and I like those better. As far as Aliens being an action movie, it's still heavily on the horror-action side of things. Terminator 2 is much more purely in the action genre, even if the enemy is a slasher killer.

I tend not to watch franchise movie sequels, so I don't really have anything to say about others. I think out of most of the numbered horror franchises, I only ever see the first.

[DaedalusMkV]

They're both good, but I think both movies have been surpassed by now. Not that ranking movies on a best list makes all that much sense when talking about good movies. But as a medium I think stuff that old tends to show its age compared to newer things. It's not a fault of the movie itself, but because artists alive now can learn from its example and copy what works in something new, so we've seen a lot of what works really well in those movies learned from and used elsewhere since then. It is worth noting that it doesn't seem as old as it is. Which is (probably) a huge part of why it's regarded so well.

To clarify, I don't mean that Alien is the best horror movie ever made or that Aliens is the best action movie ever made. I don't know that I could begin to choose a best in either category. Especially for action movies. I mean the best within the Alien franchise specifically. Though I'd almost certainly put Alien in the top 10 horror movies of all time, and I'd have to strongly consider doing the same for Aliens on the action side.

One of the big benefits of late-generation practical effects (See: Alien, the Thing, Terminator) is that they hold up very well compared to earlier CGI efforts. While these movies are visibly not in the style of modern science fiction fare you'll never look at them and go 'that looks old and fake' because of how good the prop masters of the day were at making those practical effects look real. While modern CGI is roughly at the point now that you can make anything look realistic if you throw enough money at the animation team, for a very long time the only reason to use CG over practical effects was budget (or big battle scenes). The early Alien movies were masterclasses in practical effects, and will continue to look good probably forever as a result.

[tomandtish]

Huh. How silly of me. For some reason I remembered The Good Indies coming out first and second. ToD feels too much like a third movie. Guess that's just how it goes sometimes. Consider me corrected.

I actually don't think Temple of Doom is horrible. It's decent. not great but decent. But it suffers from being between two excellent movies.

In between junk entertainment and train wrecks are the multitudes of movies that aren't fun enough to be guilty pleasures and not awful enough to riff on, but still not... Actually good. These are the many, many bad movies which simply exist, providing benefit to nobody. Like Alien: Covenant and Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever. Almost every third movie in a franchise lives in this category, while they still have enough budget and clout to avoid B-movie status but have run out of good ideas and inspiration and just try to squeeze out a blockbuster on the dregs of passion. See: Batman Forever, Superman 3, Spider-man 3, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and the hundreds of other victims of Third Movie Syndrome.

To me Spider-Man 3 suffers from almost the opposite problem. There were so many storylines still available and they decided to cram SIX of them into one movie, doing justice to none of them as a result. It's not a lack of good (and available) ideas, it's just horrid in execution.

[Bohandas]

I think Temple of Doom was actually the best Indiana Jones film

EDIT:
Regarding the cash-grab-sequels-a-decade-after-a-series-stopped-being-relevant conversation, has anyone mentioned Avatar: The Way of Water yet? It was an incredibly successful cashgrab, but nonetheless still a sequel to a fad movie that nobody had talked or cared about for twelve years.

EDIT:
Or at least it seems to have been extraordinarily successful. However I know that it's an open secter that most hollywood movies use creative accounting to underreport their earnings for tax reason, so it's possible that Way of Water simply reported its actual earnings rather than lying like everyone else.

EDIT:

Almost every third movie in a franchise lives in this category, while they still have enough budget and clout to avoid B-movie status but have run out of good ideas and inspiration and just try to squeeze out a blockbuster on the dregs of passion.

Or occasionally the third movie will be of comparable quality but in an entirely different genre than the first two (such as Evil Dead 3, which was a dark-fantasy action comedy whereas the other four movies were all either horror or horror comedy)

[tomandtish]

In honor of this coming Friday, let’s talk Friday the 13th. One of the most prolific series out there, with 12 current films.

Spoiler: Friday the 13th (1980)

Show

The original, and the one that got Drew Barrymore killed in Scream. While Jason is the face of the franchise, he’s not responsible for any kills in this one and is barely on screen at all. Instead, we get Pamela Vorhees AKA mom. Her son Jason drowned because everyone was fornicating around, and she’s determined that EVERYONE must suffer. Queue the mayhem.

Body Count: 10 and one snake. This includes 2 counselors in 1958, 7 current counselors, and Pamela herself. The snake was a live snake.

This film was bloodier than the original Halloween and had more kills as well. Pamela’s kills are inventive 9arrow up through the bed and into the throat). However, because of this some of the special effects don’t hold up too well (if Kevin Bacon’s throat was that gray color in real life I’d assume he’s a zombie). While we don’t see Pamela until the very end, they do foreshadow that she looks very harmless (no one seems nervous or scared of her until she shows a weapon).

This film gives us Crazy Ralph, who became the subject of many memes (once memes became a thing. “It’s got a death curse”!

This isn’t the best of the movies in the franchise, but it’s a solid contender. The movie ending with Jason (still a child) coming out of the water causes some problems once it became a series of movies. I rank it 3rd in the series.

Spoiler: Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

Show

Ladies and Gentlemen, Ogres and Orcs. May I present to you…. Jason! Yes, we’ll finally see the face of the franchise this movie, beginning a career that will span 11 films. While the film came out a year later, it takes place in 1984 (so 5 years after the original).

Body Count: 9 or 10, plus one dog and possibly one cat. Clouding the kill count is Paul, who is seen wrestling with Jason at the end of the movie. It’s unclear whether he survives or not, although he is not mentioned in later series. This count also includes Alice (survivor of the first movie) who is killed by Jason at the beginning, and Crazy Ralph (may he rest in peace). Note that if you don’t count Paul this movie has a lower body count than the original.

This movie creates the problem I noted previously. At the end of the first movie, child Jason jumps out of the water and pulls Alice in. Was this a dream? It must be, since otherwise Jason grew a TON in 5 years. However, note that Alice dies in her house in A town, but we are unclear on what town she is in. So, we know that Jason will travel away from the woods at Crystal Lake, but it is unclear how far he travels.

Like the first movie, this continues the trend of the camp not yet being open for campers. It’s apparently also the first attempt in reopening since the original movie. The kills are more brutal, but they still do a good job of hiding the killer for most of the movie.

Trivia fact 1: You must really be paying attention, but parts 2, 3, and 4 take place over about 8 days.

Trivia fact 2: The sex scene between Jeff and Sandra is extremely PG (and not stronger) because Marta Kober (Sandra) was 17 at the time.

There’s an argument to be made that this is one of the best in the series. I tend to agree with that argument and rate this one first.

Spoiler: Friday the 13th part 3 3D (1982)

Show

And here we are back in the 3D craze of the early 80s. The effects for this movie hold up much worse, in part because a lot of the kills were set for 3D (spear gun anyone?). However, it does give Jason his iconic mask that will be his trademark from now on. It takes place the day after the end of part 2.


Body Count: 12, unless you choose to count Debbie’s unborn baby.

This is our first group of victims who aren’t counselors. We have two groups. Our main group is a group of friends coming to the lake to hang out and get high. The second group is made of 3 bikers who get pissed when Shelly knocks over their bikes and follows the group to their place to get revenge. Speaking of moving, Jason apparently enters town to get fresh clothes, killing the store owners.

While the effects don’t hold up very well, the kills are even more brutal (par for the course). This includes someone split in half lengthwise with a machete, a spear gun to the eye, someone impaled with a red-hot poker, and someone shoved into a fuse box. (Question: Were old fuse boxes really that dangerous? In horror movies they seem to fry anyone who even looks at them).

We also have our first movie where Jason is arguably dead. He’s hung and hit in the head with an axe. We’ll talk more about that in the next film.

This isn’t a bad movie in the franchise, but it does lack a little compared to the first two. I rate it 5th in the series.

Spoiler: Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

Show

Well, here we are. The final chapter in the franchise. After all, no one would ever lie and say this was the end when it wasn’t, right? We start on the day after the events on part 3.

Body Count: 14. That includes Jason, so this is the first movie with 13 victim kills.

This film introduces us to Tommy Jarvis (played by Corey Feldman in this film), the first character who will appear in three films other than Jason. He’s a horror fanatic, making his own scary masks which are quite good. He clearly has a potential job future… assuming he doesn’t get locked up in a mental institution. Tommy and family have traveled here to spend some time at the lake and will conveniently be in a cabin next to the group of partying college kids. And yes, were I Tommy’s age in that situation I would have peeked also.

Meanwhile Jason is apparently still alive. This certainly gives him the basis for a lawsuit since paramedics on the scene and his initial admission at the hospital clearly missed that he was still alive. It’s not like zombies are a thing in this franchise. Still, he’s killed the coroner and girlfriend and is headed back to HIS lake.

Practical effects are much better in this film (except for Jason’s actual death). Overall, they aren’t as wild as those in part 3 but are extremely well rendered (esp. given the year). There’s some good casting here, as Corey really sells the role of young Tommy.
A slight problem. Tuesday morning Jason escapes from the mortuary. However, we make it to Wednesday night with no police presence at all. Given the bloodbath of the last few days (23 counting the coroner and girlfriend) and the fact that your killer’s body has vanished, you think someone might go around the lake warning people, if not actually evacuating the area (and 23 deaths in a handful of days sounds like a good reason to get people the hell out of there).

I rank this one 2nd in the franchise. Still, Tommy and his sister live, Jason is dead, and this is the last movie in the franchise….

Spoiler: Friday the 13th part 5: A New Beginning

Show

I spoke too soon. Oh well, I’m sure we’ll get to see Jason make some spectacular kills in this one.

Body Count: 19 (plus 3 killed in hallucinations or dream sequences). For a movie without Jason it has the highest body count of any of the Friday the 13th movies (we’ll get to the Jason movies in a bit).

This movie has some of the most unlikable characters we’ve seen in the franchise. Whether it is Junior on his dirt bike and his mother, Vic and Joey, or the facility staff, there’s very few characters worth rooting for.

For a psychiatric halfway house with some violent offenders, they certainly don’t believe in supervision. The whole thing is a mess. This is supposed to be a half-way house for juveniles, but they are apparently allowed to run all over the place with no real restrictions (they get restricted to the home AFTER complaints about residents having sex on neighbors’ property.

We are on our second Tommy Jarvis, although Corey makes a return playing young Tommy in a flashback dream. It doesn’t help the film that 17yo Tommy (yes, he’s supposed to be 17) is played by a 25yo who looks at least 25.

We have to wonder what sort of mental break Roy had that made him decide to don the Jason persona. I get that seeing his kid (Joey) dead flipped him over the edge, but why copy Jason? For that matter who thought it was a good idea to send Tommy to a half-way house right next door to Crystal Lake? Tommy may have mental health issues, but they are related to a very real traumatic event. I’m not sure how Tommy benefits from being there.

Interesting tidbit: We all know about reskinned films. These are films that someone will alter to make them fit with an existing property. Case in point: Starship Troopers was originally going to be called “Bug Hunt at Outpost 7” until someone realized they had the rights to Starship Troopers. This film feels like that. Someone had an idea for a film where an EMS person kills people after his son is killed, then realized they had F13 rights.

Except the opposite is true in this case. The plan was always for this to be a Friday the 13th film, but they wanted to keep it hidden. In fact, they kept it so hidden that the cast didn’t learn what they had been hired for. They thought they were making a film called Repetition and didn’t learn the truth until filming started (which angered a lot of the cast). It also pushed the R rating for nudity at the time and cast members have said that an uncut version of the film would be a porn movie.

There’s not much good to say abut this one, other than that a lot of annoying people die horrible deaths. This film never feels like a Friday the 13th film despite what the producers wanted. I personally put it 12th (last) in the series.

Spoiler: Friday the 13th part 6: Jason lives! (1986)

Show

Now with zombies (one at least). Crystal Lake is now called Forest Green. Tommy Jarvis (on his third actor) decides to cremate Jason’s body and stop his hallucinations once and for all. This seems reasonable. Nothing bad ever happens from messing with a dead body….

Body Count: 18. This includes such spectacular kills as Sheriff Garris being folded in half and someone literally having their heart punched out.

As noted, the kills are more graphic. The special effects hold up well.

It’s hard to blame Sheriff Garris in this one. Jason is dead, the grounds keeper covered up the excavation of Jason’s grave, and Tommy has a history of some serious mental health issues. In fact, the sheriff gives him a break at first, noting that he knows Tommy suffered a traumatic event. But Tommy keeps crossing boundaries.

One boundary that doesn’t get crossed is with the sheriff’s daughter, Megan. You must wonder about her common sense, since she apparently decides early that she wants to get busy with Tommy even though any reasonable person would assume he’s a nutjob. But despite her intentions she and Tommy never close the deal. In fact, this is the only Friday the 13th movie w/o nudity (and only one Pg-13 sex scene). The R rating is strictly for violence and language. It’s also the only Friday the 13th where summer camp is in session so lots of actual children are present (the film chooses to not kill any of them).

The defeat of Jason is a little disappointing. It’s a chain looped around his neck to hold him underwater. He doesn’t need to breath, so why does he not simply unloop the chain? Presumably because the movie was already running long.

This is a solid entry in the franchise. Good kills, and we are present for the birth of something unstoppable. I rank this one 4th in the franchise.

Spoiler: Friday the 13th part 7: The New Blood (1988) or “Jason vs. Carrie”

Show

The truly supernatural was introduced to the series last movie with zombie Jason. So, let’s up the ante by having his opponent be telekinetic. This should be fun…

Body Count: 16. This includes Tina’s father who was killed by Tina herself. There’s also a general rule in horror movies: The bigger a jerk someone is, the worse their death. This is true for Dr. Crews who gets a weedwhacker to the stomach (well deserved).

The movie starts with Tina killing her father. This takes place 3 months after part 6. We will then jump 7 years, where Dr. Crews and Tina’s mom have taken Tina back to evaluate her powers (although it turns out to be exploit in Dr. Crew’s case).

Dr. Crews is completely unethical, and we are almost force-fed reasons to hate him. He gaslights Tina when evidence that she might be telling the truth appears. He threatens her with a return to a mental institution if she doesn’t use her powers on demand. And given the way she reacts when he gets close to her there is a strong feeling among the fanbase that he took other liberties as well.

The obligatory group of partying youth really serves little purpose other than to give us a body count. Even the possible love interest Nick has little development. And that’s ok. We don’t watch these movies for deep intricate plots. We watch them to see people die.

I like that Tina’s telekinesis isn’t overwhelming. While she obviously has great power (she basically reawakened Jason) she has no real skill. Her attempts at stopping Jason are exactly what you’d expect from someone in over her head. Trying to crush Jason’s mask, using nails in a ranged attack, strangling him with a cord, it’s all what you’d expect from someone who isn’t skilled with their powers.

However, at the end she can bring her dad back. This allows Dad redemption for his past behavior, and she can stop Jason by dragging him down. Unfortunately, his raises some questions. Why is Dad not rotted/been eaten to bones by fish? It’s been 7 years, so you think the body would be bone only. For that matter, why is the body still there? The lake isn’t that deep by the pier and dragging for bodies was a thing well before the 80s. it should have been easy to find, especially since it hasn’t moved/drifted away.

It’s a fun Friday the 13th movie if you don’t think about it too much. Unfortunately, that seems to be a general trend from this point on. I rank it 9th in the series.

Spoiler: Friday the 13th part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

Show

“Hello my baby, hello my darling, hello my ragtime gal”. Jason doing that dance is the first thing that comes to mind whenever I read this title. They really missed an opportunity here.

Body Count: 20+. It’s unclear how many other students/crew members/chaperones died on the boat since we never get a good count. But it’s a safe bet there were more than just the ones we saw die. The deaths hold true to the standard. The two biggest jerks get bad deaths. Tamara gets a face full of mirror shards. Biology teacher McCulloch gets drowned in a barrel of toxic waste. A young aspiring boxer also gets his head punched off (very cool). This count also includes Jason, who is dissolved in toxic waste.

There are two big problems with the movie (ignoring how silly it is). Once Jason reaches Manhattan he doesn’t really do anything besides chase our protagonists. Not sure why he’s so focused on them, but there are plenty of times he walks past others without bothering them at all. He even chooses to intimidate a small group of street kids by raising his mask to show his face. Nothing we’ve seen in his undead behavior shows he is smart enough to understand why that might work.

The other huge problem is at the end of the movie. The city floods the sewers with toxic waste every night? Really? I can buy that there might be release of water from other places that floods the sewers. I can buy that sometimes storm water drains get flooded with sewage overflow when actual sewage lines back up. I can even buy that some company might ILEGALLY be dumping toxic waste in the sewer. I can’t buy that this is a scheduled release that the city knows about and allows. This is just crazy.

This is a silly movie that must be watched as such to provide any enjoyment. And despite that it is 10th in the series (as opposed to last).

Jason films: OK, buckle up. Because as weird as you thought anything was before, you ain’t seen nothing yet. (I think I now owe Bachman-Turner Overdrive a nickel). It’s also important to note that the Jason films generally ignore continuity other than Jason becoming unkillable in part 6. They also don’t officially share continuity with themselves.

Spoiler: Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

Show

We’ve had zombie. We’ve had telekinesis. So, body-hopping seems the next logical choice. And in case anyone doubts that we’re diving full blown into the supernatural we’ll include the Necronomicon at no additional cost!

Body Count: 24. This also includes Jason (twice). We get a lot of head bashing, but we also get deep fried head, heads torn off, and the bear hug from hell.

This movie is sillier than the last one. Let us see what to make of it…

OK, they send an attractive FBI agent to lure Jason so they can kill him. Apparently, Jason won’t attack until she strips down for the shower? Why did she strip down? Did they KNOW she would have to strip down? Don’t get me wrong. I totally understand why they had her strip down. It just doesn’t make much sense as a plot point. I also like the fact that all her backup is a couple hundred yards away, since there were a few chances for her to get killed without ever making it out of the house. I expect a HUGE lawsuit.

It’s an impressive force sent to kill him. I especially love the men rappelling from the copters while shooting. I’m not sure what the purpose was for that either. I also like the fact they brought mortars. At least they are acknowledging that normal gunfire might not work.

So, the coroner eats Jason’s heart and is possessed with his spirit. And the spirit can then apparently move from body to body. OK, I’ll accept that. In the context of the film, it is rational. But how does Dukes know all this? He seems to have an awful lot of specific knowledge for someone who has never been face to face with Jason before. He’s generally an ass but does get a decent death at the end.

Back to body hopping, the body continues looking like the original person except for reflections. Not sure why, but OK. But when he hops into Diana’s body (his half-sister) he can automatically assume his own form? This is Odo level changing, since he adds about a foot of height and 100+ ponds of mass.

We end with Freddy Kruger’s knife glove grabbing Jason’s mask and dragging it underground. Obviously, he is making sure Jason never bothers anyone again. Needless to say, this movie ranks low, coming in at 11th on my list.

Spoiler: Jason X (2001) or “Jason in Space Space Ace Ace…”

Show

This is the movie all the other horror villains mock Jason about. Whenever Jason says “Busta Rhymes” Michael simply responds “Space”. It’s completely over the top.

Body Count: 25 (although word of god says it is 19752 if you count the space station). We get such spectacular deaths as frozen face smash, sucked through a hole, and becoming a shooting star.

The government is going to cryofreeze Jason, since electrocution, hanging, lethal injection, and firing squad all failed. But given that Jason is 1) probably the biggest mass killer in universe and 2) already “dead”, why stop there. Toss his ass into a volcano or a vat of molten steel. I seriously doubt he has any recognized rights (and if he did, I doubt he’d be prisoner of the military). Interestingly, while it’s not obviously clear, Jason’s get free because the IV that was sedating him gets knocked loose when the guard throws the jacket over him. I’m not clear why sedation works since…again, dead.

Since Rowan took no preparatory steps, it appears that cryofreeze is remarkably effective. She’s able to be revived with no complications. Jason also took no preparations and is able to come back to “life” when he thaws.

“Guys, it's okay! He just wanted his machete back!” has to be one of the best lines in the movie. There’s a lot of great (read funny) dialog.

VR teen girl #1 : Hey, do you want a beer?
VR teen girl #2 : Or do you wanna smoke some pot?
VR teen girl #1 : Or we can have premarital sex?
[both remove their tops]
VR teen girl #1 , VR teen girl #2 : We love premarital sex!

Yeah, that pretty much pushes all the kill buttons other than being a jerk.

It is interesting that the spaceship is almost as big as the space station. That ship is either huge (much bigger than we’re led to believe) or the station is very small. And since there was 19000+ people on it I’ll have to go with the former.

This also gives us Jason of Borg. If the nanites can repair and enhanced his rotted corpse to that level, imagine what they could do to normal human? Still, he makes do with ordinary weaponry, NOT a laser machete as someone commented above.

It should be noted that Jason X was the only movie to lose money at the box office 9ever other movie made a profit). However, it tripled its production budget in DVD and home rental sales, making it a classic example of a cult film. It’s not a good movie but manages to fall into the “so bad it’s fun” category. Watch this one with a friend and a 12 pack and drink every time something silly happens. I rank it 8th.

Spoiler: Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

Show

The ultimate physical killing machine vs. the Nightmare. One should dominate in the outside world while the other should dominate in the dream world. Place your bets.

Body Count: 21/22. Depends on whether you count Freddy as a kill or not. I tend to say no since even his head winks at the end.

I give the townsfolk of Springwood credit for an interesting idea. “Let’s drug our kids so they don’t dream and won’t dream of Freddy”. And apparently it works. Admittedly this is the first time that we hear that he only gets his power from the dreams of children. You’d think the adults who know the truth might still dream about him occasionally. I’ll also credit Freddy with a good idea. Find another killer to create a body count and get people talking about you again. And it works (to some extent anyway).

Of course, since most killers can’t share Jason starts hogging all the kills, stealing them from Freddy. Freddy response is to take over one of the teens trying to stop Jason and drug him to sleep. Again, it’s unclear if Jason is supposed to be alive or dead here, but drugging works and Jason visits Freddy’s world.

Except Jason seems unstoppable even there. He counters everything Freddy throws at him until he is stopped by a curtain of falling water. Suddenly Jason is hydrophobic. Despite us seeing him walk under water multiple times to kill people on the lake, killing people in heavy rain, and even taking a boat to Manhattan, Jason is apparently deathly afraid of water. I guess they needed something to give Freddy an advantage.

They also needed to give Freddy another advantage. Once both of them are in the real world we see that Freddy is a good fighter. Against any normal opponent he could easily hold his own. Of course, Jason isn’t a normal opponent. These two end up cutting each other to pieces, with a LOT of blood being spilled. Jason’s blood is mostly black which again lends weight to the “he’s dead argument”, but it sprays, which implies pulse, which implies alive. Best not to think about it.

This film was done because people wanted to see what happened when the two most popular New Line villains went to war. It’s basically a draw with advantage to Jason. I rank it 7th.

Spoiler: Friday the 13th (2009)

Show

Since the franchise has been a financial success to this point (even Jason X thanks to home sales), and Halloween (2007) was a successful reboot, it was inevitable that someone would reboot this series. We start with what was the end of the original movie with the death of Pamela Vorhees, so the original movie is technically canon for this one.

Body Count: 14. This includes Pamela at the beginning of the film. It does NOT include the Miller siblings as the movie ends with a sudden attack on them.

This movie duplicates the Halloween reboot by having Jason as a truly brutal killer. Unlike the plodding zombie he had become, this Jason FEELS angry. He also moves much faster and is willing to run. He definitely still cares for mom and takes Whitney captive (because she looks like his mother when she was young) instead of killing her. But he is extremely vicious with others. Hanging someone in a sleeping bag over a campfire, setting bear traps, spears through eyes.

The group of kids Clay meets is typical for these films. As usual, the jerk gets their just rewards. Clay’s love interest dies almost at the end of the film, however. Jason is also smart enough to wound someone to use as bait.

It is a surprisingly decent reboot and made enough money at the box office that a sequel should have been a done deal. But there was apparently an extended legal battle over the rights that was only settled recently (which allows the planned Crystal Lake series to be made) I rank it 6th.

Thoughts?

[Talakeal]

I think Freddy vs. Jason makes more sense if you don’t think of it as a fear of water, but instead of being forced to relive the trauma of his death by drowning.

[tomandtish]

I think Freddy vs. Jason makes more sense if you don’t think of it as a fear of water, but instead of being forced to relive the trauma of his death by drowning.

That would make more sense.

Unfortunately, what they show us is him afraid of the water well before Freddy tries to drown him, a fear we haven't seen in 8 previous movies.

[Aedilred]

All good points.

Wait a second: was Crystal Skull the original "100% unnecessary decades-later sequel" that served as a harbinger of things to come? (looking at YOU, Matrix: Resurrection or whatever the heck your name is)

Not like Hollywood has EVER been terribly original – blockbuster book/play adaptations are basically as old as film – but I'm struggling to think of another property that did a 3rd or 4th movie over a decade after its initial heyday. Superman IV is the only four-quel I can even think of, and that came out while Superman III was only a few years old.

Unless you count The Phantom Menace, then the first of these, at least that I can remember, was arguably Rocky Balboa in 2006. Now, Rocky Balboa is a far, far better film than Rocky V; indeed, as a film, it is arguably better than any of the Rocky series since II, and some would argue that it gave the series the satisfactory conclusion that V so dramatically failed to do. So whether it's an "unnecessary" sequel is debatable.

I guess you could also look at Superman Returns in 2005, which was what we might now in our less elegant age call a rebootquel of sorts: it was clearly positioned as a could-have-been-sequel at least to the earlier Superman films, particularly the first two, but didn't require any familiarity with them to watch.

But Rocky Balboa was I think the one that attracted attention at the time for being a revival of a series thought dead and buried. It was followed two years later by Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Rambo.

Terminator 3 was in 2003, 12 years after Terminator 2. That was quite a bit before Indiana Jones 4. It's certainly qualifies as a 100% unnecessary decades-later sequel, and it is one of the worst, as the ending of Terminator 2 is actually pretty good, and 3 undoes all of that.

This was my take when I first saw Terminator 3, but I came to revise that opinion when I watched it again several years later. It has a number of problems, especially around the character of John, but taken on its own merits (rather than compared against the second film in particular, an incredibly high bar) I don't think it's that bad. And as for the ending, I found that once I had overcome the disappointment of T2's "happy" ending's being undone, the fatalism of the T3 ending had a lot to recommend it.

I think a case can be made for the first three movies reflecting their respective eras. T1 was made at something approximating the height of the Cold War, where a bleak hypermilitarised future (in itself brought about by Cold War technology gone rogue) seemed distressingly plausible. T2 was made at the outset of a much more optimistic period, when we had reached the "end of history" and it was possible for perhaps the first time to dream of a future with minimal conflict. Then by 2003 we'd all been brought back down to earth again and the message that the cycle of violence was inescapable and we're all doomed whatever we do had much more relevance. It wasn't a very attractive message, but I think it was a more fitting one for the era than the relatively upbeat ending of T2.

[tomandtish]

Yeah, I always liked T3 as a concept. Judgement Day is inevitable.

It not being a good movie is another issue entirely.