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10 Horror Games That Deserve Sequels!

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I wish every horror game I enjoyed got a sequel. Even games like BioShock, which don’t really need sequels. If I like it, I usually want more of it, even if it’s only to see where a developer can take their series. Unfortunately, while the slate of releases might suggest otherwise (Black Ops II, Halo 4, Assassin’s Creed III, Resident Evil 6, etc.) it’s difficult for a game to get a sequel, especially in the midst of a new generation of consoles. The problem is studios need to make money, and unless the game has a substantial following or is accessible to a wide audience, potential for a sequel isn’t great.

If you’re reading this, then you’re probably a fan of the horror genre, so you’re undoubtedly aware that when it comes to accessibility, the horror genre (in video games, at least) isn’t exactly known for being welcoming to newcomers. Here are ten games that I think could actually sell well, if they’re given the second chance they deserve.

All Zombies Must Die!

All Zombies Must Die! is a top-down zombie arcade shoot ’em up that isn’t actually related to All Orcs Must Die! It’s a fun little arcade game that succeeded where Konami’s Zombie Apocalypse series failed in that it’s actually fun to play. It even has four-player co-op — the only problem is that co-op is limited to local play only. In case you haven’t noticed, zombies are huge right now and as a cheap digital release with a fun, quirky style it’s immediately more welcoming to newcomers than similar (and gorier) games like Dead Nation. If this does get a sequel, it needs online co-op.

Dead Nation

I’m a little bit surprised we haven’t heard anything about a Dead Nation 2. The first was well-received, and to my knowledge, performed well, or at least, well enough to warrant an expansion. Whereas games like All Zombies Must Die!, Burn Zombie Burn!, and Zombie Apocalypse have a more colorful take on the common zombie apocalypse formula, Dead Nation went full on gritty. It’s dark, gory, and (somewhat) realistic. There are even Resident Evil style monsters that bring with them special abilities like summoning swarms of infected to surround you. It’s a very fun game, and one the desperately deserves a follow-up.

Heavy Rain

If you have a PS3 and haven’t played Heavy Rain, I highly recommend it. It’s a gorgeous, interactive movie that plays like a spiritual successor to developer Quantic Dream’s previous project, Indigo Prophecy. It follows the lives of several people whose stories revolve around a mysterious murderer called the Origami Killer. It’s creepy, disturbing, and plays well, despite how unforgivably awkward the character movement is. They’re currently busy with Beyond: Two Souls, and they’ve said they aren’t interested in a sequel, but that won’t diminish my hope.

Lollipop Chainsaw

Okay, so this game isn’t really horror, but it does have zombies and gore, so it makes the list. For the most part, I’ve loved Suda 51’s previous work, but his latest game, the over-the-top Lollipop Chainsaw didn’t win me over when it released this past summer. It’s a fun and often funny game — my main complaints revolved around its controls and the numerous ways you could die instantly. It can be a damn frustrating game, but that doesn’t mean they can’t make a Lollipop Chainsaw 2 that fixes all that jazz.

Deadlight

This is another game that ended up being fairly underwhelming., and for many of the same reasons that kept me from warming up to Lollipop Chainsaw. It’s a gorgeous game, but it’s also intensely frustrating. That middle part that had you aimlessly wandering a sewer system, solving some crazy dude’s puzzles stood out as one of the most annoying parts of the game. So for the sequel, I suggest focusing on what that made the first third of the game so great: the thrill of exploring a zombie-infested city.

Deadly Premonition

This was a moderately polarizing game, and for good reason. On one hand, the writing is clever and humorous, there’s a lot to do in its massive world, and there were actually a few good scares. It’s many comparisons to Twin Peaks have been rightly earned. Unfortunately, it’s also a moderately ugly, clunky game that can be more than a difficult to get into. With the sequel, unless the budget matches the scope, I say we scale things down a bit. I also suggest a total overhaul of the controls, because they were bad.

Cold Fear

I am a huge supporter of Cold Fear. Sure, it was an obvious cash-in on Resident Evil 4’s popularity with one of the worst endings in recent memory, but it was still a visually impressive and often terrifying game. Not enough games take place on ghost ships, and fewer still on ghost ships lost in rough seas during particularly powerful storms. The way they used the rocking of the boat as a gameplay mechanic (where you could lose your balance, or worse, slide off the edge to an icy death). A sequel to this game could be a hit, especially if they take a page out of Dead Space’s book and set it on an even bigger sea-faring vessel (with an obligatory return to one of the ships from the original game, of course).

Clive Barker’s Jericho

After Clive Barker’s Undying, Jericho had a pretty high bar to live up to. Did it? Not really, no. I had fun when I first played it, back in 2007. I’m sure if I played the game today I wouldn’t be as fond of it’s unusual difficulty spikes and shoddy level design. Unsurprisingly, the one thing Jericho did really well was introduce to us a bunch of terrifyingly awesome monsters. Those Corpse Behemoths look as cool as their name sounds, spewing acidic blood from their gnarly, metal mouth cages. Or at least that’s how I remember them. There’s really no chance this game will ever see a sequel, but if it somehow does, I’d like it to be developed by Monolith, the team behind the F.E.A.R. and Condemned franchises.

Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem

Every year we go without an Eternal Darkness sequel is a year I desperately want to forget. Silicon Knights needs to get their shit in gear and bring us this game. There’s really nothing else that needs to be said.

Shadows of the Damned

This might actually happen, and if it does, I’ll be one happy camper. Developer Grasshopper Manufacture has already expressed interest in making this a series, even though it didn’t sell well. The ingredients are there: it’s hilarious, plays well enough (though the controls could benefit from some fine-tuning), and visually, it’s one of the coolest looking games I’ve played this generation. I need more Garcia Hotspur, and preferably sooner rather than later.

Feel free to angrily tell me what games I missed in the comments below!

Have a question? Feel free to ever-so-gently toss Adam an email, or follow him on Twitter and Bloody Disgusting.

Gamer, writer, terrible dancer, longtime toast enthusiast. Legend has it Adam was born with a controller in one hand and the Kraken's left eye in the other. Legends are often wrong.

Editorials

‘Leprechaun Returns’ – The Charm of the Franchise’s Legacy Sequel

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leprechaun returns

The erratic Leprechaun franchise is not known for sticking with a single concept for too long. The namesake (originally played by Warwick Davis) has gone to L.A., Las Vegas, space, and the ‘hood (not once but twice). And after an eleven-year holiday since the Davis era ended, the character received a drastic makeover in a now-unmentionable reboot. The critical failure of said film would have implied it was time to pack away the green top hat and shillelagh, and say goodbye to the nefarious imp. Instead, the Leprechaun series tried its luck again.

The general consensus for the Leprechaun films was never positive, and the darker yet blander Leprechaun: Origins certainly did not sway opinions. Just because the 2014 installment took itself seriously did not mean viewers would. After all, creator Mark Jones conceived a gruesome horror-comedy back in the early nineties, and that format is what was expected of any future ventures. So as horror legacy sequels (“legacyquels”) became more common in the 2010s, Leprechaun Returns followed suit while also going back to what made the ‘93 film work. This eighth entry echoed Halloween (2018) by ignoring all the previous sequels as well as being a direct continuation of the original. Even ardent fans can surely understand the decision to wipe the slate clean, so to speak.

Leprechaun Returns “continued the [franchise’s] trend of not being consistent by deciding to be consistent.” The retconning of Steven Kostanski and Suzanne Keilly’s film was met with little to no pushback from the fandom, who had already become accustomed to seeing something new and different with every chapter. Only now the “new and different” was familiar. With the severe route of Origins a mere speck in the rearview mirror, director Kotanski implemented a “back to basics” approach that garnered better reception than Zach Lipovsky’s own undertaking. The one-two punch of preposterous humor and grisly horror was in full force again.

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Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

With Warwick Davis sitting this film out — his own choice — there was the foremost challenge of finding his replacement. Returns found Davis’ successor in Linden Porco, who admirably filled those blood-stained, buckled shoes. And what would a legacy sequel be without a returning character? Jennifer Aniston obviously did not reprise her final girl role of Tory Redding. So, the film did the next best thing and fetched another of Lubdan’s past victims: Ozzie, the likable oaf played by Mark Holton. Returns also created an extension of Tory’s character by giving her a teenage daughter, Lila (Taylor Spreitler).

It has been twenty-five years since the events of the ‘93 film. The incident is unknown to all but its survivors. Interested in her late mother’s history there in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, Lila transferred to the local university and pledged a sorority — really the only one on campus — whose few members now reside in Tory Redding’s old home. The farmhouse-turned-sorority-house is still a work in progress; Lila’s fellow Alpha Epsilon sisters were in the midst of renovating the place when a ghost of the past found its way into the present.

The Psycho Goreman and The Void director’s penchant for visceral special effects is noted early on as the Leprechaun tears not only into the modern age, but also through poor Ozzie’s abdomen. The portal from 1993 to 2018 is soaked with blood and guts as the Leprechaun forces his way into the story. Davis’ iconic depiction of the wee antagonist is missed, however, Linden Porco is not simply keeping the seat warm in case his predecessor ever resumes the part. His enthusiastic performance is accentuated by a rotten-looking mug that adds to his innate menace.

LEPRECHAUN RETURNS sequel

Pictured: Taylor Spreitler, Pepi Sonuga, and Sai Bennett as Lila, Katie and Rose in Leprechaun Returns.

The obligatory fodder is mostly young this time around. Apart from one luckless postman and Ozzie — the premature passing of the latter character removed the chance of caring about anyone in the film — the Leprechaun’s potential prey are all college aged. Lila is this story’s token trauma kid with caregiver baggage; her mother thought “monsters were always trying to get her.” Lila’s habit of mentioning Tory’s mental health problem does not make a good first impression with the resident mean girl and apparent alcoholic of the sorority, Meredith (Emily Reid). Then there are the nicer but no less cursorily written of the Alpha Epsilon gals: eco-conscious and ex-obsessive Katie (Pepi Sonuga), and uptight overachiever Rose (Sai Bennett). Rounding out the main cast are a pair of destined-to-die bros (Oliver Llewellyn Jenkins, Ben McGregor). Lila and her peers range from disposable to plain irritating, so rooting for any one of them is next to impossible. Even so, their overstated personalities make their inevitable fates more satisfying.

Where Returns excels is its death sequences. Unlike Jones’ film, this one is not afraid of killing off members of the main cast. Lila, admittedly, wears too much plot armor, yet with her mother’s spirit looming over her and the whole story — comedian Heather McDonald put her bang-on Aniston impersonation to good use as well as provided a surprisingly emotional moment in the film — her immunity can be overlooked. Still, the other characters’ brutal demises make up for Lila’s imperviousness. The Leprechaun’s killer set-pieces also happen to demonstrate the time period, seeing as he uses solar panels and a drone in several supporting characters’ executions. A premortem selfie and the antagonist’s snarky mention of global warming additionally add to this film’s particular timestamp.

Critics were quick to say Leprechaun Returns did not break new ground. Sure, there is no one jetting off to space, or the wacky notion of Lubdan becoming a record producer. This reset, however, is still quite charming and entertaining despite its lack of risk-taking. And with yet another reboot in the works, who knows where the most wicked Leprechaun ever to exist will end up next.


Horror contemplates in great detail how young people handle inordinate situations and all of life’s unexpected challenges. While the genre forces characters of every age to face their fears, it is especially interested in how youths might fare in life-or-death scenarios.

The column Young Blood is dedicated to horror stories for and about teenagers, as well as other young folks on the brink of terror.

Leprechaun Returns movie

Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

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