Editorials
The 5 Most Embarrassing Horror Sequels!!!
As horror fans, we often feel that our beloved genre is under attack from the mainstream. People who just don’t get it, people who wonder why we waste our time on such “crap.” We want to scream from the mountain tops, “hey! A lot of this stuff is great! You just don’t get it!”
It’s fine. Horror’s not for everyone. That doesn’t bother me. What does bother me are sequels so bad they disgrace the genre. Why? Because there’s a good chance that when you say, “I love ‘Scream'” someone else thinks back to the time they saw Scream 3 because a friend dragged them to it and they think *that* is your favorite movie. It kills me. With that in mind, I’ve actually stricken some horrible films from this list because they don’t quite qualify. Sure, Jaws 4 is horrible, but there’s no way on earth anyone’s going to confuse it with Jaws. The entire planet knows Jaws 4 is bad and no one is assuming you like it (unless they really hate you).
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This movie has a high pedigree in terms of its cast and production value, but it’s flat out terrible. Still, I’ve kept it low on the list because it kind of falls into Jaws vs. Jaws 4 territory in the sense that everyone and their mother knows the original Poltergeist is great.
This is a dangerous movie for you Halloween fans out there. Since the second, third and fourth movies are all varying degrees of decent, people associate you with the franchise because you rightfully defend most of its installments. Hell, you’ve probably even defended H20 – which I can totally understand. Unfortunately, a side effect of this might be that people actually think you like Halloween: Resurrection. Just imagine that there’s a family member out there watching one of the Busta Rhymes scenes right now thinking it’s your favorite movie.
While the Wrong Turn series is fairly low profile, a lot of us have gone to bat for the first two films. Joe Lynch’s Wrong Turn 2 in particular has inspired many conversations that involve the exchange, “you should give it a chance! It’s good!” While the chances are low anyone will confuse this soon to be forgotten installment with the first two, it’s so mean spirited and repugnant that it stains the entire franchise.
Remember how they basically tried to bring the illuminati into the mythology of the series as a way of explaining the cannibalistic family as some sort of borderline alien “experiment in terror?” That was the most interesting part of the movie! Yet, two of its actors (Renee Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey) went on to become major stars. Which means that a lot of uninitiated folks have seen this film over the past 19 years and none of the others. Makes you feel uneasy, right?
The film that inspired this entire list. An American Werewolf In London is one of my favorite movies. Ever. Hands down, regardless of genre. I openly share with many people that it’s one of my favorite films and an alarming percentage of them come back to me with a variation on, “oh the one with Julie Delpy and the guy from ‘That Thing You Do’?” And I’m sitting there wondering why the person thinks so lowly of me as to assume that it’s my favorite f*cking movie.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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