Believe it or not, it’s almost October, and if you’re a horror fan, that means you’re probably already thinking about all the scary movies you’re going to watch.  Today, I thought I’d take the opportunity to explore an underappreciated niche of the horror genre: the truly great sequel.  If horror movies have been unfairly maligned until quite recently, horror sequels have had it even worse.  I thought it would be fun to take a stand against the stereotype by showcasing some films that were later followed up by sequels that are, in my opinion, just as good or better than the originals.  Interestingly, both of these stellar sequels happen to work as standalones – it’s not necessary to watch the original in order to follow the plot or to appreciate the movie as a whole.  Maybe that says something about the importance of creating something that can stand on its own, even when making a sequel.  That being said, seeing the original of course always helps.  As such, I’ve presented both sequels alongside the originals that inspired them.  Enjoy!

Cloverfield

Definitely dating myself here, but I remember the mystery surrounding Cloverfield’s release.  Nobody knew what the movie was about, or even what the title meant – and of course, that only made everyone eager to find out.  I didn’t have the opportunity to see Cloverfield in theaters, but I got it on DVD not long after, and I think I was just as surprised as everyone else by the movie we got – a fusion of found footage horror and alien invasion disaster film, in which a group of friends’ scramble to survive an extraterrestrial attack on New York City is captured on a personal camera.  Those two genres might not sound like they go together on paper, but think again.  Alien invasions are an old trope, but Cloverfield makes that idea scary again by narrowing the focus.  By placing the audience alongside a single group of characters and limiting what we can see to what their camera can capture, Cloverfield makes us feel the terror of their helplessness in the face of the unknown.  Cloverfield took audiences by surprise and revitalized two genres everyone thought they knew backward and forward, and even now, there’s still not really any other film like it.

10 Cloverfield Lane

Of course, after you take audiences completely by surprise with your first outing, the inevitable question is how you’re going to do it a second time.  10 Cloverfield Lane presents a highly original answer: you make a follow-up so different from the original that it’s initially unclear whether they even take place in the same universe.  They do, of course, but continuity isn’t at the heart of what makes 10 Cloverfield Lane great.  10 Cloverfield Lane dispenses with the found footage device to follow Michelle, who wakes up in an unfamiliar basement to find herself at the mercy of Howard, a doomsday prepper convinced that the country is under attack and that the air outside his bunker is poison.  When Michelle and fellow prisoner Emmett discover that Howard is partially right about the danger outside, the true gravity of their situation becomes clear.  In his performance as Howard, John Goodman creates an absolutely chilling villain.  Howard perceives himself as a kindly, reasonable person hard done by the world.  He does his best to create something like a family unit in his doomsday bunker, and very nearly succeeds.  But he’s extremely quick to perceive insult, and believes the fair penalty for disloyalty is death.  Personally, I find the idea of a person like that having absolute control over the lives of others much more immediately unsettling than the alien invasion foregrounded by first film; possibly because, unfortunately, it’s something that can happen in real life.  I also want to give a nod to Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s performance as Michelle, one of the most resourceful horror heroines I’ve encountered in some time.  I knew this movie was considered something of a sleeper hit going in, but even so, 10 Cloverfield Lane pleasantly surprised me just as much as it chilled me.  I hope you’ll have just as much of a good bad time with it as I did.

Talk To Me

Talk To Me follows Mia, a teenager whose life swan-dives into a demonic downward spiral after she lets her younger brother Riley tag along with her to a party.  There, Mia’s friends pull her into a reckless viral game of contact with the other side, centered around a mysterious figure of a hand.  Riley ends up possessed, grievously injured, and still in danger at the hands of the entity they contacted.  But after the incident, Mia’s friends and even her family begin to turn on her, all of them finding reasons to hold her responsible Riley’s fate, avoid her as though her bad luck might be catching, or even suspect her of harming Riley on purpose.  The social aspect of the horror of this film was what I found myself thinking about the most after watching it.  The portrait of human behavior the filmmakers present is bleak, but unfortunately quite believable.  There are definitely some deeper themes present here about what it means to grow up in a time when we’re all theoretically more connected than ever, but so many people end up feeling alone just the same. But don’t think that the nods towards elevated horror mean this film is lacking in the scare department.  I’m a long-time horror fan with a pretty strong stomach, and this movie quite effectively got under my skin.  Talk to Me got lots of buzz when it first released, and in my opinion, it was and is well-deserving of the hype.

Bring Her Back

When I found out that Danny and Michael Philippou, the directors of Talk to Me, were making a sequel set in the same universe, I knew I had to see it as soon as I could.  Bring Her Back follows Andy and Piper, a brother and sister placed into the foster care system after the death of their father.  Laura, the woman fostering them, initially tries to win their trust, but unbeknownst to them, she plans to use them for an occult ritual gleaned from a mysterious videotape to resurrect her own daughter from the dead.  Just like in Talk to Me, there’s a definite argument to be made that the scariest thing in this film is the part that unfortunately reflects the real world: two kids being placed under the power of an adult who doesn’t have their best interests at heart.  To make matters worse, because Andy has been through so much trauma and has lashed out inappropriately in the past, his attempts to fight back are twisted around to make him look like the dangerous one by the very system that’s supposed to protect him, and the film makes it clear that Laura anticipates this and knows how to use it to her advantage.  However, as with the original, the presence of these real-world horrors doesn’t mean film is light on traditional scares.  Far from it: there’s one particular scene in this movie I think I actually couldn’t bear to watch without peeking through my fingers.  The rattled, stunned silence I found myself in as the credits rolled was something I don’t think I’ve felt since watching Hereditary.  Whatever these directors do next, I’m sure to be there.