Horror movie sequels: Entertaining movies or cinematic failures?

Wyatt Titus, The Delphi Staff

Horror movies are notorious for awful sequels and reboots. We all have a favorite ridiculous movie sequel, and two such sequels are Jason X and Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood. From terrible storylines to boring dialogue, these movies are the bottom of the cinematic barrel.

Jason X was the straw that broke the back of the already ailing original Jason Voorhees franchise. The movie was based of the ridiculous theme of everyone’s favorite backwoods serial killer traveling to outer space. While the movie does feature the classic blend of gore and cheesy dialogue, the movie falls short in most other aspects. The plot of the movie is somehow even more insane than all its predecessors; almost all of the characters are unlikeable, and the entire film is so ridiculous that it fails to be scary in any way. At one point, Jason, who is retconned into a being with incredibly fast regenerative properties, is “killed” by a leather clad android and the heroes briefly celebrate only to face the nanobot-aided ÜberJason.

Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood is, astoundingly, not the worst movie in this franchise; in fact, it’s one of the best! If not for the obviously stereotypical urban undertones, this film could be considered an okay B-movie. Unfortunately, every character is either selling or partaking in drugs, incredibly irresponsible with money, or depicted as a gangster. These characters, within the confines of their stereotypes, flourish however, undoubtedly supported by a lesser known but talented cast. These disenfranchised youth are all in financial trouble. All this changes after they find a magical chest filled with gold. As you may expect, none of these characters hold on to their share for long. The Leprechaun shows up, kills a bunch of people, makes tasteless jokes, and is trapped in cement after being shot with a few four leaf clover-tipped bullets.

Good actors look and sound terrible because of the dialogue they are required to act out. These movies are not strongly written films by any means, but they are a piece of film history. The movies were both commercial failures and killed their respective franchises, but they are still worth a watch as they are parts of the horror movie canon.