April Cathleen Cornelius:The Saw series revolves around John Kramer who the papers call the "Jigsaw Killer" for the puzzle pieces cut out of the victims. Jigsaw doesnt kill people himself, he subjects people to "tests" that can be survived if you are willing to do unthinkable things. The people subjected to these tests are ungrateful people who squander their lives. Sequels explore his character and the characters of his proteges (he had several) These films were released every October. Considered "torture porn" the evolution of slasher films but really its not torture. People who survive the tests are stronger because its only when you face your own death that you can truly appreciate life. I love these movies particularly Saw 3D.
Isabelle Martin:you will be afraid of saws after viewing this
April Cathleen Cornelius:Consisting of ten films the Halloween series revolves around Michael Myers. In 1963 six year old Michael murdered his seventeen year old sister Judith on Halloween night. Committed to a sanitarium he escaped to kill his other sister Laurie Strode who is saved by Dr. Sam Loomis. He escapes again after being shot six times and continues to stalk Laurie who has been taken to the hospital. Dr. Loomis burns the place down at the end. Halloween 3 the Season of the Witch has no relation to any of the other films in the series. Halloween 4 centers around Michael stalking Laurie's daughter Jamie (Danielle Harris) Halloween 5 also is about Jamie who has been placed in a psychiatric hospital after she attacked her foster mother at the end. Halloween the Curse of Michael Myers brings back the character of Tommy Doyle one of the children Laurie was babysitting in the first film trying to tie up the loose ends left by the ending of Halloween 5. Halloween H2O brings back Jamie Lee Curtis who has changed her name to Kary Pope and now runs a private school in California where she has fled with her son to escape Michael Myers. Halloween Resurrection takes place three years after H2O Laurie has been in an institution after the events in California. This time he finally kills her. One year later a reality show film crew filming in the Myers house are his victims as he is living in the tunnels underneath. Rob Zombie did two remakes though frankly I found them to be very dark and depressing A very successful series and its a tradition in my house on Halloween to watch them on AMC's Monsterfest
Isabelle Martin:you will be afraid of fridays after this sequel
April Cathleen Cornelius:One of the best horror film series of all times. Jason Voorhees thought to have drowned in Crystal Lake rises again and again to kill the ones responsible for decapitating his mother who was avenging his death. Jason went everywhere-Manhattan even outer space. Awesome series
Starring : Devon Sawa, Ali Larter, Kerr Smith, A.J. Cook, Michael Landes, Jonathan Cherry, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ryan Merriman, Kris Lemche, Bobby Campo, Shantel VanSanten, Nick Zano, Nicholas D'Agosto, Emma Bell, Arlen Escarpeta
Director : James Wong, , David R. Ellis, , Steven Quale
April Cathleen Cornelius:The Final Destination series centers around the theme that death is a physical force that cannot be cheated. In the first film, a young man on a trip to Paris has a premonition that the plane is going to explode causing several to leave the plane. Two minutes later it explodes. Soon the survivors being dying in the order that they would have died on the plane. Interesting concept death as a physical force. The second film is set one year to the day after the crash of Flight 180. A girl this time receives the premonition about a pile up on I-80. A series of gruesome deaths follow. FD3 high school seniors receive the premonition about a rollercoaster crash. The Final Destination premonition is about a massive raceway crash. Not the final destination at all part 5 dealt with a bridge collapse (and since Im located near a river with a bridge not unlike that one its pretty scary for me) The rest of the movie follows the storyline with really interesting ending. What Ive learned from this series is that most of these people would have been better off dying their original deaths in the premonition. Relatively original concept though a 1982 film Sole Survivor dealt with a similar concept though no where near as successfully.
Starring : Brad Dourif, Jennifer Tilly, Alex Vincent, Catherine Hicks, Chris Sarandon, Jenny Agutter, Gerrit Graham, Christine Elise, Justin Whalin, Perry Reeves, Jeremy Sylvers, Tommy Smerdlow, Travis Fine, Dean Jacobson, Katherine Heigl, John Ritter, Nick Stabile, Redman, Billy Boyd
Director : Tom Holland, John Lafia, Jack Bender, Ronny Yu, Don Mancini
April Cathleen Cornelius:In the fall of 2005, a young couple begin documenting paranormal activity in their new house. The activity isnt new to Katie who has been haunted since childhood. The couple is warned by an investigator that the activity is demonic, after Katie and not to antagonize it. Idiot boyfriend Micah goes out and buys a Ouija board and tries to contact it. Bad move. The entity eventual possesses Katie who kills Micah. Paranormal Activity 2 runs concurrently with PA. Katie's little sister Kristi and her husband Daniel have a new baby boy Hunter the first male born in their family for generations.After their home is ransacked for apparently no reason(only a box of video tapes are missing) the family installs video security cameras in the house. The cameras pick up evidence of activity. Teenaged stepdaughter Ali researches online and finds legends of people making deals with demons for the first born male child.One night, while Dan and Ali are out, the entity possesses Kristi. Dan calls Martine, who conducts a ceremony and gives him a cross, telling him that it can take away the demon, but the cross -- and the demon -- must then be given to a blood relative. Dan decides to give it to Katie, which triggers the events in the first film. The night after she kills Micah, Katie breaks into her sister's house and kills Dan and Kristi and kidnaps Hunter. Katie and Hunter's whereabouts are unknown. Home video from 1988 shows the activity from the sisters childhood (the tapes were the only thing stolen from the house when it was ransacked) Paranormal Activity 4 takes place in 2011 5 years after Katie killed Micah, Kristi and Daniel Reye and kidnapped Hunter. The story focuses on siblings Alex and Wyatt Alex's boyfriend Ben and creepy little boy named Robbie. When paranormal activity seemingly centered around Robbie begin occuring Alex and Ben use laptops to document the activity. Really really scary series
April Cathleen Cornelius:August 18th 1973 reports of grave desecration inspire 5 young people to come check on the state of their grandparents graves. Low on gas, they stop at a gas station/barbeque where they are warned away from the Hardesty family home by the Cook. Once there, the kids fall victim to Leatherface and his cannibalistic family. "Based on a true story" the character of "Leatherface" is actually based on Ed Gein the butcher of Plainfield who was a graverobber and necrophile though he did not have a family. Very stylishly done. You never actually see the chainsaw cut flesh. You only think you do. The 1986 sequel "Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2) has Lefty Enright the uncle of Sally and Franklin Hardesty from the first film tracking the Sawyer clan.Two high school students on their way to the big game are killed by Leatherface while on the phone with local dj Stretch. Dennis Hopper starred in this one. Very good. Leatherface the Texas Chainsaw Massacre has Leatherface with other family members who follow the roads and attack cars. After running Michelle and Ryan off the road causing them to crash into a weekend warrior's truck (Ken Foree from Dawn of the Dead) it becomes a battle for survival. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre The Next Generation followed next very little can be said about it. It ignored the other two sequels and wasnt very good. In 2003 remake by Michael Bay starred Jessica Biel and R. Lee Ermy who I just love in everything he's in came out. Excellent. Followed by Texas Chainsaw Massacre the Beginning a prequel to the 2003 version. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D is just in theaters now and makes no reference to the other films. Not much more I can say as I have not yet had the pleasure of viewing but I have heard mixed reviews on it
April Cathleen Cornelius:Trish and Darry are on their way home for spring break on a back road in Florida. They are almost run off the road by a beat up old truck; later the driver of the truck is seen dumping what appears to be a body down a sewer. The siblings invesigate. Bad move. because this creature is a demon that gets to feed every 23rd spring for 21 days. Some extremely scary moments. Jeepers Creepers 2 starts out by telling us about the "creeper" and "welcome to day 22 and a young boy is taken out of his yard. The boy's father and older brother hunt the creature who has attacked a school bus full of annnoying basketball players and cheerleaders. They capture the creeper with a homemade harpoon (the post puncher 500) This was good but didnt capture the terror of the original and the kids were rather annoying. Enjoyable though.
April Cathleen Cornelius:Inbred mutant cannibal hillbillies stalk travelers through the Greenbriar Back Country of West Virginia in this series. The first film centered around Chris Flynn (Desmond Harrington) on his way to a job interview. Extreme traffic causes him to take the back way seriously bad idea for him. He crashes into a car full of kids on a camping trip. They figure out that its a trap set by a group of mutant inbred cannibal hillbillies. Only two survive. Wrong Turn 2 has a reality show in the vein of "Survivor" being played in the same county and a whole family of inbreds mutated by toxic waste and interbreeding hunt them down. Wrong Turn 3 follows the transport of prisoners who escape after Three Fingers cause their bus to crash. Wrong Turn 4 explores the origins of the inbreds and a group of twentysomethings on a ski trip forced by a storm to spend the night in the abandoned sanitarium where the inbreds are living. Wrong Turn 5 focuses on a small town and a local Mountain Man festival on Halloween we're introduced to Maynard (Doug Bradley Hellraiser) a cousin of the inbreds who's just as sick but not deformed. All the films were pretty good with the first of course being the best. American horror films featuring travelers being waylaid by cannibals goes back to Alexander "Sawney" Bean who lived with his canniballistic inbred family in caves and waylaid travelers in 16th century Scotland til they were all rounded up and executed (the men were pulled apart the women and children were burned alive). Wes Craven based "The Hills Have Eyes" on this case and all films of this nature draw on it. Must watch
April Cathleen Cornelius:Hostel (2005) directed by Eli Roth centered around two American college students and an Icelander who are backpacking through Europe. Looking for sex and drugs, they return to their Hostel past curfew and end up spending the night at a neighbor's place. The neighbor tells them that in Bratislava is a hostel where the women are hot for Americans. On the train they meet a very bizarre Dutch tourist. After a night of heavy partying, they find Oli their Icelandic companion gone.Then Josh disappears and we find out that a group of twisted millionaires (Elite Hunting) pays big money to torture people who are kidnapped from the Hostel. Very graphic. Eli Roth based this on a story he once heard about a place in Thailand where you can pay 10,000 dollars to walk into a room and shoot someone no questions asked. Hostel 2 delved more into the minds of the people paying to torture. Watch for a montage scene featuring Ruggerio Deodato (Cannbal Holocaust) and a particulary satisfying scene in which Heather Mattarazzo is hung up and bled for a woman's Countess Bathory-style bloodbath. Hostel 3 was not great. Instead of Europe its set in Las Vegas. The first two are awesome though.
Starring : Manuela Velasco, Ferrán Terraza, Jorge-Yamam Serrano, Pablo Rosso, David Vert, Vicente Gil, Martha Carbonell, Carlos Vicente, María Teresa Ortega, Manuel Bronchud, Akemi Goto, Chen Min Kao, Maria Lanau, Claudia Silva, Javier Botet, Ben Temple, Carlos Lasarte
April Cathleen Cornelius:{REC} is a Spanish horror film. A late night tv show crew follows a Barcelona fire station. When an call comes in from an apartment complex about a sick old lady trapped in her apartment, they are caught in a nightmare-demonic possession jumping from person to person(the American version "Quarantine" changed it to an airborne rabies virus and bioterrorism which is a much scarier concept) Pretty good {REC} 2 picks up where the first film ended. Equally scary
"Sequels suck." At least there are many that didn't make this list. We thought we'd take the time to remind audiences that sequels can be classics too. Check out the best horror sequels and rank your favorites!
