How to Kill a Horror Franchise (and Still Keep Fans Happy)
David Bronstein
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One recent trend that we have seen lately in the world of horror has been television embracing the genre with open arms – from “American Horror Story” to “The Walking Dead” and more recently “Bates Motel” and “Ash vs. Evil Dead.” This year “Damien” will make its debut, an offshoot from of course The Omen. A horror fan could seriously ask, “Have we ever had it so good?”
“Ash vs. Evil Dead,” “Bates Motel,” and “Damien” have and no doubt will be welcomed with open arms, but this opens up another suggestion: Has television killed the horror franchise as we know it?
Studios have a long history of killing off their franchises. One could go back to the classic Universal Horrors as evidence. Let’s start with The Invisible Man… whilst the first movie and its follow-up clearly had horror elements, its sequels could not live up to James Whales’ 1933 classic starring Claude Rains.
What happened next took everyone by surprise when the third movie, The Invisible Woman, released in 1940 (the sequel was also released that year), took more of a comedic tone. One journalist described it as “laugh-packed, brightly dialogued and a lot of fun,” which could not have been said about its predecessors. Two more films followed but were quickly forgotten.
Even though The Invisible Woman did make a profit, with its comedic tone it felt like Universal wanted to end the franchise.
The monster movies were next, and Universal followed the same trick. When there’s no more horror left, or your audience simply isn’t scared of the monsters anymore, well, just make fun of them. In stepped Abbott and Costello, and starting with 1948’s Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, the monster franchise’s fate was sealed.
Whilst fans would agree the films were still highly enjoyable, it was evidently a slow separation when the 50s would give way to horror and embrace the science-fiction genre.
Fast forward to Freddy, Jason, and Michael Myers; and each franchise was stopped not by comedy but by the remake/reboot. It was, it seems, the only way to kill the seemingly numbing prefixes after each sequel.
Halloween actually tried it early in the series when Part III went for a completely different story with no Michael, no Laurie, and no Dr. Loomis. It took fans so much by surprise that the film’s risqué approach still causes ripples today.
Friday the 13th promised with Jason that Part IV really would be the end. But less than a year later, Part V appeared in theaters, and the sequels kept following. Wes Craven, the creator of A Nightmare on Elm Street, returned for New Nightmare (1994), the seventh movie, and suggested that the previous six films were just that – in a meta movie that only got praise and appreciation years after its release.
But all of these franchises survived their “attempted assassinations.” That is, until the 2000s. First up was Halloween, which never had a Part 9; instead, Rob Zombie remade the first movie and then drove the stake in the heart of the franchise by making a Halloween II, meaning we now had two Halloween II’s just to confuse things.
In 2009 endless sequels of Friday the 13th were finally put to bed with Marcus Nispel’s remake, though in truth once Jason had found his mask, it felt like another sequel.
A year later Nightmare on Elm Street was next, and other horrors have followed–namely, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Carrie, The Evil Dead, and Poltergeist to name a few.
Comedy, remakes, and now television have been the way to kill a horror franchise and keeping that bad guy dead. It’s certainly been an interesting evolution. Because of restrictions in the past of what we can and cannot show on television, that medium was never a consideration. It is now. And whilst it is fun to see our favorite horror icons on the small screen, nothing quite beats seeing them on the big one, in a theater filled with horror fans. Let’s hope that the theater can somehow resurrect them before it’s too late.
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