Best Horror Movie Franchises of All Time

[Deset Gled]

Boy, I love this franchise, probably over even Star Wars and Star Trek, but having rewatched all of the movies relatively recently, I'd say there's a lot more misses than hits.

Feel free to name one, and I'll defend it. Though, to be fair, some much stronger than others. And let's open with the fact that AvP and Requiem are spin offs in a separate continuity, not part of the standard timeline.

Scream, based on the criteria that its a decently numerous series with the fewest bad entries.

This is probably heretical, but I think the most consistent horror franchise (although not without its clunkers) is the Scream series.

I'll grant that Scream has consistency going for it. But I honestly never thought it had much else. IMNSHO slashers are on the bland side to begin with. There's an argument to be made that Scream may be a better mystery series than horror. Although it does have a lot of horror tropes and bloody action scenes for a murder mystery series.

The Predator series (Predator, Predator 2, Predators & The Predator + all the linked Alien slop).

I appreciate the franchise. But you got a limited number of big hits in there propping up the rest.

 

[VashVet]

I’m gonna nominate The Omen as one of the best horror franchises of all time. Some of the best over the top kill scenes combined with the creepy religious vibe - I think this one flys under a lot of folks radar. Even the last one The First Omen was a very underrated entry in the story. Bonus points for an amazing Sam Neill performance as Damien in the third movie!

 

[MGibster]

This is tough if we're eliminating franchies that have fewer than four movies.

Boy, I love this franchise, probably over even Star Wars and Star Trek, but having rewatched all of the movies relatively recently, I'd say there's a lot more misses than hits.

My esteemed colleague Dr. Dustyboots sums up my feelings about the Alien franchise in particular but the same priciple applies to other multi-movie franchies. Halloween might be in the running but it's entirely on the strength of one or two movies at best as most of them have been pablum. Yeah, I understand it's all opinion. If you think each and every Puppetmaster movie is a masterpiece, that's fine, I'm not here to pick on you.

 

[Theory of Games]

I’m gonna nominate The Omen as one of the best horror franchises of all time. Some of the best over the top kill scenes combined with the creepy religious vibe - I think this one flys under a lot of folks radar. Even the last one The First Omen was a very underrated entry in the story. Bonus points for an amazing Sam Neill performance as Damien in the third movie!

I was going to go with this one because the first two are 100% nightmare food, but the guidelines limited it to "4-film series" - and I don't count "Awakening" as part of that excellent original trilogy.

I'd throw in The Exorcist series (it's up to 7 films), but IMO, only the first & third films are any good.

I appreciate the franchise. But you got a limited number of big hits in there propping up the rest.

Sauce for the goose: most U.S. film 'franchises' have a very good first film - followed by a succession of poorly-directed films produced for one purpose

 

[VashVet]

I was going to go with this one because the first two are 100% nightmare food, but the guidelines limited it to "4-film series" - and I don't count "Awakening" as part of that excellent original trilogy.

That’s why I count The First Omen as my fourth - it’s a prequel to The Omen, and it’s actually quite good.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Feel free to name one, and I'll defend it.

Resurrection, in which Dan Heyada, the nominal villain, is basically a comedic character, with one bit of apparently intended comedy being "hey, look at all of his body hair when he's in his tank top."

Otherwise, it's mostly an extremely dumb entry with a dumb premise, dopey characters, flushing away the previous status quo and not replacing it with anything particularly interesting (Weyland-Yutani is gone and in its place is the space military ... so what?).

It's most interesting as a proto-Firefly, but the rest of it is pretty worthless. Romulus, which rehashes way more than is healthy, has more interesting new ideas than Resurrection does, despite Resurrection explicitly being intended as a new fresh start.

I think Prometheus and even Covenant have their good points, but Resurrection is just bad.

Alien3 at least has David Fincher doing his David Fincher thing, even if the end result isn't a rousing success, by his own admission. But no one involved with Resurrection seemed to give a damn about the movie and it really shows.

And I'm someone who watched Predator: Badlands hoping for (and getting!) some interesting Alien universe worldbuilding. (It was pretty bad otherwise, or a merely average Predator franchise flick.)

I'll grant that Scream has consistency going for it. But I honestly never thought it had much else. IMNSHO slashers are on the bland side to begin with. There's an argument to be made that Scream may be a better mystery series than horror. Although it does have a lot of horror tropes and bloody action scenes for a murder mystery series.

I think familiarity has robbed it of a lot of its power, but people were very much scared by the first two. And even now, having it explicitly comment, respond to and imitate classic and now contemporary horror tropes makes it a lot more interesting than 99% of slasher films, IMO.

 

[Theory of Games]

Let's not forget the Candyman series. So simple and so scary simultaneously. Because his writing was so bizarre and dark, I used to believe Clive Barker was insane IRL

 

[Deset Gled]

Resurrection, in which Dan Heyada, the nominal villain, is basically a comedic character, with one bit of apparently intended comedy being "hey, look at all of his body hair when he's in his tank top."

I actually really enjoyed Alien Resurrection, so I can say a number of things in it's defense.

Note: Minor spoilers ahead. Nothing major or specific.

For starters, there are parts that I believe are undeniably good. First and foremost: the alien water chase sequence. This is simply an amazing scene that stands out as probably the best xenomorph "hunting" scene in the entire franchise. Their motion is beautiful. It's tense. It's claustrophobic. The special effects are practical and hold up perfectly. It's undeniably great. I also think Ripley's character is done about as perfectly as possible. The commentary of having a heroine who would prefer not to even exist but is forced back to life by corporate greed is just * chef's kiss * Add on to that Ripley's basketball scene and the fascinatingly well done sequence with the other clones (another great special effects success), and it's one of the extremely few hero-comes-back-from-the-dead cases that I will ever defend.

Beyond that, there are a lot of things I love that admittedly a matter of taste. The biggest is the overall aesthetic. I appreciate that Jeunet brought his own life and feel rather than trying to recreate the dirty lived-in future that we saw in 1-3. For starters, it just wouldn't make sense to try and revisit the aesthetic of things like Mother's room from the original Alien; it worked in 1979, but the real world had moved on too much for it to feel futuristic anymore. And we did deep 90's grunge in 3 without much success. Resurrection was unapolagetic and unafraid to move to something that looked different, and I think it was a the right thing to do.

Along the same lines, a ton of the effects and action sequences were great, although I know not everyone liked them. The sibling sacrifice scene, the cocoon scenes, the hybrid birth and entire hybrid xeno all get my applause. And I know some people also don't like the casting and some of the acting. But I will say that IMNSHO Sigourney Weaver, Ron Pearlman, Dominique Pinon, and Brad Douriff all absolutely knocked it out of the park. And, as you mention, the proto-Firefly bit is at least interesting. I think the tonal shift to include more humor isn't completely out of left field; both 1 and 2 have a lot of lighter "get to know the crew" scenes before it gets serious.

Admitedly, there were some questionable choices. You didn't pick on my go-to WTF bit: the merc with the aimed ricochet guns. And no one is saying that it was Winona Ryder's best job ever (although I do think that story line has merit). But overall, Resurrection was a win for me. Certainly not the high point in the series. But also very, very far from the low point (AvP: Requiem).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I also enjoyed Resurrection.

 

[Sossij]

I love Alien and Aliens, and don't hate Resurrection (mostly because I thought 3 was terrible so I didn't mind going in a different direction with it), but now that I've had time to stew on it:

1) Nightmare on Elm Street. Not only was Wes Craven's New Nightmare just an amazing meta horror piece, but even the movies in that series that are "bad" have elements I enjoy. 2 is the weird one out but it is sort of an amazing piece about a person having a bad reaction to discovering their sexuality while cursed (although this was apparently terrible on the lead, who was actually gay and the movie basically outed him and that's not fair at all). 5 is, in many ways, very silly, but the dream deaths in it were really nutty and beautiful in a 90s MTV video kind of way. And 6 was straight up terrible except that it was Englund at his hammiest and if you just watch it for that it's great (not to mention the people of the town being kinda hilarious). Not to mention the fun of watching people try to explain some pretty zany deaths as suicide in 3 and 4.

I will say that as much as New Nightmare is amazing, it was rough watch for me as it hit a lot of parenting fears. I had a kid with night terrors and clashes with obstructive authority figures. I definitely had to pause it at least once and take some deep breaths, but even that is a sign it was really just a stunning movie.

2) Hellraiser, but only the first four movies. While they gradually lost the plot about the Cenobites looking for VOLUNTARY victims and just having an...extreme idea of what fun is, they at least had some coherent understanding of them having some rules and again, a lead who just chews up scenery. The 4th movie has elements of greatness, so while it's not a solid hit, you can see what they were trying to do and enjoy it.

3) Leprechaun, but barely. It's a fun series but very inconsistent. They did and IN SPACE but managed to not give any lines to Warwick Davis. You have no idea how much that infuriates me, because that dude is an a-list actor. Fortunately he talks in the rest of the films and tends to bring up even the weak entries, but Leprechaun in the Hood is the best. Not only do they make that silly premise work, but they pull out all the stops and easily make it the best. Even in the Hood 2 is a good time.

4) Friday the 13th. I feel like this should be higher, but it's mostly just a fun time. The first movie is kind of a weird developmental slasher/American "Giallo" film and it doesn't really hit its stride there. I feel like 5 has a few good scenes but is mostly a mess, but 6 is really where the series takes off. And I have mixed feelings about Jason takes Manhattan, because it's mostly just terrible but it has some memorable cheese, especially when they briefly actualy have scenes in Manhattan. And Jason X is wonderful. Exactly how a dumb IN SPACE movie should be.

Sadly I have not seen Freddy vs. Jason. I should correct that.

I mentioned Creepshow. It would probably be #1, but like I said, it's only 3 movies (if I exclude Creepshow 3 and include Tales from the Darkside) and even the last is kind of a cheat. V/H/S is really good for that sort of franchise horror, but I have a bunch of that I haven't watched yet.

It's kind of sad, I have only seen the first movies of Halloween, Chucky, Tremors, Scream, and a few others. I'm sure my list would be very different if I had. I love Halloween III but it's not really part of the franchise. The real error here on my part is that I love the insanity that is Phantasm but I've never watched the rest even though I have them.

The Puppet Master series is really good fun, but I don't see it making my best of list. I'm surprised to find I'm not a fan of Wishmaster. I feel like that always tries too hard and some of the "wishes" are so dumb I can't even enjoy them as cheese.