The horror genre is rife with sequels and long-running franchises. The strangely beloved slashers and lore of horror engender the kind of enthusiasm that means the characters never seem to die. It also means that studios constantly need a way to perpetuate franchises and that often results in prequels, some of which are ill-advised.
Some of the genre’s most famous and popular series and standalone films have some of the worst prequel stories. Prequels have a high chance of being unnecessary entries into franchises, whether too convoluted, completely illogical, or just plain unwarranted. Let’s take a look at five of the worst horror movie prequels.
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Exorcist: The Beginning
This 2004 prequel to the 1973 William FriedkinclassicThe Exorcist,is a far cry fromthe legacy of the original. In the original, young Regan MacNeill is possessed and two priests, Father Karras, and Father Merrin engage in a spiritual battle to save the girl’s soul. Father Merrin had previously participated in an archaeological dig in Iraq that revealed a statue of the demon Pazuzu and the two events are revealed to be linked.
InExorcist: The Beginning,the story focuses on Father Merrin and his experiencedealing with his loss of faith and expands on the events of the archaeological dig that discovered the statue of Pazuzu. It’s also a messy and overstuffed attempt at rationalizing events that don’t need rationalizing. The project had six writers contribute to the script and the budget more than doubled during production.Writer of the original 1973 filmWilliam Peter Blatty said ofExorcist: The Beginningthat watching it was his “most humiliating professional experience”.
Leprechaun: Origins
Whilst the Leprechaun franchise seems an unlikely candidate for worst prequel due to entries such asLeprechaun: In SpaceandLeprechaun: In Da Hood,Leprechaun: Originsis particularly egregious.
The franchise was, and remains, popular for its descent into silliness and the blend of horror and comedy.Warwick Davis played the titular Leprechaunin every entry. Apart fromOrigins, where instead the role was taken over by Dylan Postl, a wrestler with the WWE. The wrestling company also served as the production company for the prequel. The film itself lacks all the charm of the original series and offers only tired clichés. The attempt to make the film darker only served to make it dourer and more lifeless.
The Nun
This prequel toThe Conjuringseriesexplains the beginnings of Valak, the demon nun that featured prominently inThe Conjuring 2.A menacing and genuinely terrifying sinister presence, Valak tormentsLorraine Warren as she and her husband Ed attempt to help the family at the center of the famous Enfield poltergeist haunting.
The prequel charts the origins of The Nun/Valak at Saint Cartha’s monastery in Romania. The story takes place in 1952 when the Vatican sends Father Burke and novitiate nun Irene are sent to investigate a bloody massacre that could have supernatural origins at the monastery. The film was the highest-grossing ofThe Conjuringfranchise but was also widely panned for being nonsensical and thinly scripted. Although Taissa Farmiga and Bonnie Aarons put in great performances asSister Irene and The Nunrespectively, the actual content of the film was sparse and added nothing to the overall mythos of the universe.
Hannibal Rising
A prequel toSilence of The LambsandRed Dragon,Hannibal Risingtells the life story of Hannibal Lecter and his rise to cannibal killer extraordinaire. The film shows his childhood facing Nazi occupation, the death of his parents, and his inevitable first murder as a teen and leads to Lecter hunting down the remaining soldiers that killed his sister.
What aims to be a dark tale ofcreating a psychopathic cannibal killeris ultimately a collection of tired tropes bundled together to create a boring and lackluster attempt at explaining the motivation behind one of cinema’s most famous killers.Hannibal Risingmakes a mistake that so many prequels make – attempting to make a serial killer sympathetic.
The Thing (2011)
The original 1982 movieThe Thingbydirector John Carpenteris widely considered to be one of the best horror movies of all time. The film follows the events at an Antarctic research center after an extraterrestrial lifeform that can assimilate and imitate other creatures begins picking off members of the research team leaving them doubting each other. The 2011 prequel takes place directly before the events of the original and explains the origins of the alien threat.
The catalyst for the events of the first film occurs when a dog races onto the American research base followed by a helicopter from the neighboring Norwegian station. The prequel goes back further and shows everything leading up to this chase. An alien spacecraft and corpse have been discovered by Norwegian researchers and American paleontologist Kate Lloyd is recruited by the team to help with their research. Of course, once the body thaws The Thing is unleashed upon the station. The events of the film are like a hollow retelling of the original, featuring a dull script and poor CGI effects that undermine an already sub-par effort.
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