The best and worst horror franchise reboots

“Alien” is an excellent nasty horror film, and “Aliens” was a fun action flick. Then, there were a couple more sequels that were thoroughly mediocre. We don’t necessarily consider “Prometheus” or “Covenant” to be reboots, because they were made by Ridley Scott, director of “Alien,” and was just him doing his thing with prequels. “Romulus” came out seven years after “Covenant” as is, and it’s a proper reboot in terms of storytelling. It’s also quite good, and quite nasty, a real throwback to the first movie.

The original “A Nightmare on Elm Street” spawned a franchise and created one of the iconic slasher villains in Freddy Krueger. When they rebooted the franchise, they basically decided to go with the plan of “What if we basically remade the first movie, but made it worse?” They made Freddy devoid of personality and turned it into an entirely generic movie. Plus, Jackie Earle Haley was no Robert Englund. This reboot plan ended up being one and done.

While we’re annoyed they decided to call this movie “Scream” and not “Scream 5,” it was a successful legacy sequel. They brought back a few of the old faces, introduced some new characters, and showed they had some clever ideas left (not all of them technological). “Scream VI” went to New York, which was fun in concept and…okay in execution. Maybe “Scream VII,” which has Neve Campbell back, will right the ship.

“Predator” is one of the best action movies ever made, but the franchise has been largely unsuccessful. “Predator 2” is basically “What if a Predator was in Los Angeles” but then the franchise laid fallow. Everything since has been a reboot. First came “Predators,” which was a shrug. “The Predator,” though, has the cache of being a Shane Black movie. Then it turned out to be worse than “Predators.”

We will note that the modern “Halloween” trilogy falls off after the first movie. Also, the first movie is pretty good but not even close to being as good as the original “Halloween.” What it gets credit for is having ambition and not simply being a legacy sequel. David Gordon Green wiped away everything in the franchise’s history post-“Halloween” and gave us a new version of Laurie Strode and her family. They probably should have just done the one, but oh well.

We just gave Green some love, but now we’re flipping the script. His attempt to do a “Halloween” with “The Exorcist” franchise did not work half as well. It’s silly and it barely has Ellen Burstyn in it. They planned to make “Believer” a franchise like “Halloween,” but the first film was so unsuccessful that those plans were scrapped.

Does two films a franchise make? Well, there was a cartoon TV show, but mostly we wanted to shout out “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” and also unsuccessful horror franchise reboots outpace successful ones. “Beetlejuice” is a classic horror-comedy, but this film was to be a legacy sequel from a director in Tim Burton with a spotty recent track record. Fortunately, nobody sleepwalked through “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” and while it was overstuffed, it was enjoyable.

In terms of quality, “Afterlife” isn’t the worst reboot. Also, we know that “Ghostbusters” as a franchise was light on the horror, but it’s close enough. In terms of annoying us, though, “Afterlife” is high on the list. Jason Reitman, stepping into his father Ivan’s shoes, took everything fun out of the franchise. Why is “Afterlife” so serious? Why is it so “Ghostbusters Jr.” in its execution? Who, exactly, wanted this from “Ghostbusters” as a franchise?

The critical and commercial success of “Bloodlines” makes you wonder why the franchise went almost 15 years between movies. “Bloodlines” doesn’t reinvent the wheel. It just takes the “Oops! All Berries” approach to the franchise. “Final Destination” is about gory, over-the-top deaths. “Bloodlines” delivered that with 15 years’ worth of technological advancements to help deliver the goods.

“Friday the 13th” is the most-overrated horror franchise. Jason does have an iconic look, but these slasher flicks are just empty calories and rarely all that much fun. The 2009 reboot was no different. Also, even though it looked a lot less cheap than the early movies, it didn’t look any better. “Friday the 13th” is kind of a chore, and this is another case where a planned sequel got axed.

Talk about a total zag. Not since “Gremlins 2” has a horror sequel changed the vibe to this degree. After three movies about Chucky the killer doll, “Bride of Chucky” turned the franchise into a gonzo horror-comedy spectacle. “Seed of Chucky” took things to another level, but after that the franchise went back to the horror-first style (to its detriment).

Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead trilogy” started off as true-blue horror and then pivoted to being seminal horror-comedy. This is a case where the reboot is also a remake of the original. Fede Alvarez took “The Evil Dead” but made it even nastier and grosser. This was not a good idea. “Evil Dead” works best when it is fun. Alvarez’s sensibilities worked better with another movie: “Alien: Romulus.”

When you’ve run out of runway, but a franchise is still viable, what do you do? A prequel, obviously. “Day One” makes it clear what is happening here. This film is about the beginning of the invasion of the alien monsters with a taste for humans and an incredible sense of hearing. Instead of the family from the first two films, the point-of-view character becomes a woman with terminal cancer played by Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o. Fortunately, it turned out just fine both critically and commercially.

Based on a video game series, “Resident Evil” is nonsense, but at its best the franchise is fun nonsense. There are some good, mindless offerings to be found. After “The Final Chapter,” though, things were done. At least, they were done with Milla Jovovich as Alice. “Welcome to Raccoon City” is a reboot that went back to the beginning and adapted the first couple video games. They tried to be serious and removed the goofy fun from the franchise, and it simply did not work.

“Oh great, another prequel,” you may have said. Maybe you rolled your eyes as well. It’s understandable. “The Omen” is a really good horror movie, a ‘70s genre classic, but did it really require a prequel? “Require” is of course too strong, but “The First Omen” justified itself in its quality. It’s a compelling horror movie and it would work as a story in and of itself and doesn’t need to tailgate in the wake of “The Omen.”

The first “Paranormal Activity” was a game changer. It was so cheap to make, and so successful, that a franchise was inevitable. It helped revitalize found-footage horror. Eventually, though, things ran dry. The first six movies were made over six years, and then there was a six-year break before “Next of Kin.” The movie ended up buried on Paramount+ and killed the franchise. To which you may say “But COVID,” to which we’d note the movie was released in late October of 2021 and totally could have been a theatrical release if Paramount thought it was anything but trash to be burnt off. Which it was.

We’re ending with back-to-back bad ones. For starters, the failure of “The Mummy” was quite significant. Secondarily, as noted, unsuccessful reboots outnumber successful ones. And finally, we can mention the Brendan Fraser version of “The Mummy” and something metaphysical will draw Millennials to read this article. That movie, like this movie, was rebooting the original Universal Monsters franchise. This movie, starring Tom Cruise, was to start the “Dark Universe” and bring back all the classic Universal boogens. Instead, “The Mummy” landed with such a shrug all that got nixed. Based on the quality of this one, that was no great loss.