Editorials
TwosDay of Terror: 7 of the Best Horror Game Sequels
Today is one of those pleasing times where numbers line up on the calendar perfectly. Today is the 22nd day of the 2 month of the year 2022, and also a Tuesday. So yes, it’s TwosDay, and how else could I mark this occasion than with a listicle of some of the best horror game sequels ever made. Now we’re not talking third, fourth, or eighth entries into a series here, just the first direct sequels to classic horror games. The ones that pushed the original aside by being generally better.
There’s obviously debatable ones out there that I’ve chosen not to include. Is The Last of Us Part II superior to the first? Did Dead Space 2 outstrip its predecessor? Is Bioshock 2 actually the only good one? Am I totally wrong about Devil May Cry 2 being a urine-stained rag of a sequel? There were still plenty of other sequels with strong cases, so here’s seven of the best horror game sequels in my eyes.
Clock Tower 2 (1996, PlayStation)
While it was known as plain old Clock Tower outside Japan, the 1996 entry in the franchise is actually the second game, and quite the visual leap from its predecessor as one of PlayStation’s early 3D horror titles.
This point n’ click adventure takes the scares to Scandanavia, but brings back iconic villain Scissorman to torment original protagonist Jennifer Simpson all over again.
How it Improves on the Original
The original game was on the Super Famicom, and the sequel utilized the extra oomph of the original PlayStation to powerful effect. The three-dimensional perspective and camera angles accentuate the unnerving dread of the first game, and the deliberately off-kilter soundtrack only adds to it.
Also of note is the choice. Players can be either Jennifer or the new character Helen, and depending on which is chosen and what decisions they make in the first half of the game, it will impact the second half where it switches to the other.
Resident Evil 2 (1998, Multi)
After the incredible success of Resident Evil in 1996, there was unsurprisingly much anticipation for more. In came Resident Evil 2, an expansive continuation of the original story with bigger stakes and bigger threats to match.
Rookie cop Leon Kennedy and Chris Redfield’s sister Claire end up in Raccoon City on the day of a citywide zombie outbreak. Along the way are tragedy, terror, conspiracy, and lots of shuffling undead.
How it Improves on the Original
Simply put, it just feels so much bigger. There’s undoubtedly a charm to the Spencer Mansion and its secrets, but getting to traverse a city on the brink of collapse was something else. If the original was lifting the lid on Umbrella’s dark secrets, Resident Evil 2 kicks the lid clean off.
The dual campaigns hold their own significant story beats. Leon tangles with seductive spy Ada Wong, while Claire finds herself protecting a child in distress in Sherry Burton. The best part though? The sheer variety of monsters. From that classic Licker introduction on, Resident Evil 2 drip-feeds gnarly nasties including a giant alligator, big hairy spiders, a constantly mutating monster, and of course, the hulking trenchcoat fan Mr.X. Truly deserving to be mentioned as one of the best horror game sequels.
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (2014, Multi)
Five Nights at Freddy’s relative simplicity and release that coincided with the YouTubers getting scared on camera boom saw it become an instant hit. Players are trapped in a small room with power to doors and vents slowly draining. All the while, animatronic creatures close in on you with murderous intent. Fail and you get a jumpscare, succeed, and you live to fight another night. This simple premise became something far deeper as sequels arrived though.
How it Improves on the Original
With FNAF already being quite barebones to begin with, a sequel didn’t have to do a lot to be ‘improved’ and some would question FNAF2’s much steeper difficulty curve as an improvement. It did make most encounters more intense though, and minigames offered up backstory behind the dark past of Freddy Fazbear and his robotic chums.
There’s also different strategies for the animatronics to keep you on your toes including a mask that fools certain foes, and a flashlight to prevent some unpleasant close encounters. While other games here go further to stake a claim as one of the best horror game sequels, FNAF2 arguably propelled the series into the stratosphere even with relatively minor tweaks.
The Evil Within 2 (2017, Multi)
There was genuine excitement for The Evil Within. Resident Evil and Devil May Cry creator Shinji Mikami was back in the horror realm with what looked like the antidote to the increasingly ridiculous Resi series and the decaying quality of Silent Hill. It didn’t quite work, and that impacted the sequel’s impact somewhat. Despite this, The Evil Within 2 is a truly superior sequel.
Taking place in a digital mind space that is being plagued by a killer and a host of disturbing monstrous threats, Sebastian Castellanos returns to enter this virtual hell in search of his daughter.
How it Improves on the Original
The original was obsessed with being a grimy, gore porn-laden lesson in brutality, which was a bit too blunt for my tastes. The Evil Within 2 goes for eccentricity and violent style. There’s notes of Argento, De Palma, Lynch to the mind-bending madness, and more than a little of Satoshi Kon’s Paprika flavoring the concept as well.
This more open play space being the fragments of a mind in revolt means the rules of logic and science can be, and are, flipped on their head. Not only does it end up being a far more enthralling game than its predecessor, it feels much more like a spiritual successor to the weird and wonderful beginnings of the survival horror genre.
Left 4 Dead 2 (2009, Xbox 360, PC)
When Valve made video games on a fairly consistent basis, it was relatively untouchable. Half-Life, Portal, and Left 4 Dead all emerged as important markers in video gaming’s history. Left 4 Dead took the flagging zombie apocalypse formula and didn’t just breath new life into it, it put the defibrillators to it.
A cooperative zombie-slaying experience like no other, Left 4 Dead built systems upon the classic conundrums of the zombie apocalypse and proved there was much more to be mined from them. Just like Half-Life and Portal, it got a sequel that arguably topped it. Valve makes great sequels so Left 4 Dead 2 was an obvious choice for one of the best horror game sequels ever made.
How it Improves on the Original
The A.I. Director was the core of what made Left 4 Dead special. It pushed and pulled at players to better suit their style and ability. In Left 4 Dead 2, it gets a juicy upgrade that not only encourages teamwork more, but throws devilish changes into each map to shake each playthrough up. No point in memorizing a stage when it can throw up fresh surprises at a moment’s notice every time you play.
The new location also peps things up. The journey through North America’s South throws up twisted encounters (an unusual wedding ceremony comes to mind) and the intriguing threat of treacherous weather alongside the usual host of weird and wonderful monsters.
Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly (2003, PS2, Xbox)
Snapping away at terrifying images is something I’m keen to avoid, hence why I don’t do Instagram, but if anything captures the true perils of photography it’s the Fatal Frame series. In the original title, a supernatural device known as the Camera Obscura can repel and vanquish spirits if lined up correctly in its viewfinder. Of course, that leaves the player in a vulnerable, static state.
The sequel, Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly, took confident strides from its predecessor, both narratively and in terms of its atmosphere of melancholic dread. I’d say it’s another easy contender for the best horror game sequels in most people’s eyes.
How it Improves on the Original
A more compelling story was definitely the key reason Crimson Butterfly is held in higher regard. Twin sisters return to a place from their childhood, and end up stumbling into a village full of tormented spirits. What’s their connection to this place? What does the crimson butterfly of the title signify? Fatal Frame II gives plenty of reasons to endure its scares. It’s a damn sight scarier this time too. The game allows for greater damage to spirits if you let them get closer, and that ramps up the intensity and anxiety of encounters greatly.
Silent Hill 2 (2001, PS2, Xbox, PC)
The original Silent Hill offered up an interesting alternative to Capcom’s Resident Evil series. A more psychological, atmospheric take on horror, with an intimidating (and necessary) fog shrouding the titular town as protagonist Harry Mason descends into his own personal hell. So began a rivalry that would sadly end quite prematurely for Konami’s franchise. Still, has Resident Evil ever managed to produce something as remarkable as Silent Hill 2?
How it Improves on the Original
It’s easy to understate just how much of a leap Silent Hill 2 is from its predecessor. Silent Hill is good, even if time hasn’t been kind to it, but Silent Hill 2 is frankly a masterpiece. It remains one of gaming’s best stories, channeling David Lynch in a strong way, but very much its own beast. James Sunderland’s search for his wife in Silent Hill goes from surreal to absurd, to terrifying, and all the way back around with masterful grace. Then there’s Pyramid Head. Easily one of the most iconic monsters in all of gaming.
Not only could you argue Silent Hill 2 is the best of the best horror game sequels, it’s one of the finest games ever made.
The problem with filming sequels back-to-back is that, unless you can afford expensive reshoots, there’s no easy way to adjust course in between movies if fans react badly to where the story is headed. That’s why it’s important to have a complete narrative thought out well in advance lest you accidentally kill a budding franchise.
However, this isn’t always the case. Every once in a while, it seems like the cinema gods smile upon certain chaotic productions and gift moviegoers with complete franchises that feel like more than the sum of their hastily produced parts. Ted Nicolaou’s Bloodlust: Subspecies III is precisely one of these miraculous pictures, with the raw talents of the artists involved (as well as the continued support from Romania) turning the feature into an effective conclusion for a series that kind of made things up as the filmmakers went along.
That’s why I’d like to invite my fellow readers to join me on this third part of our journey through the Subspecies franchise as we look into Bloodlust and talk about how it remains a surprisingly satisfying finale to the original trilogy.
A Trilogy Planned on the Fly
Released only a year after Bloodstone found plenty of success in rental stores and mail-in VHS catalogues worldwide, 1994’s Bloodlust was produced at the same time as its predecessor in (mostly) the same locations and with the same team. This means that the movie benefited from all the same upgrades as Bloodstone, with the crew now being more experienced with the ins and outs of surviving a low-budget Romanian production and the cast really settling into their characters.
At this point, everything from location scouting to the makeup process had been streamlined, with Wayne Toth and Norman Cabrera, the main duo behind special effects, even switching out time-consuming prosthetics for latex gloves in order to speed up Anders Hove’s monstrous transformation. The titular “subspecies” demons were also once again relegated to a mere cameo appearance due to the laborious puppetry required to bring them to life.
The only real hiccup came from the fact that actress Denice Duff had replaced the first film’s Michelle (Laura Mae Tate) and was immediately expected to portray the character as both an innocent victim in part II and as a secondary villain in part III. According to behind-the-scenes interviews, the hectic production schedule that blended two different movies meant that Duff would often find herself having to alternate between two incredibly different versions of Michelle during the same shooting day – though it’s obvious that she’s having more fun with Bloodlust’s more traditionally vampiric version of her character.
In the finished film, we pick things up immediately where the previous entry left off as Rebecca (Melanie Shatner) is forced to leave her vampire sister Michelle (Duff) behind in the dungeons of Castle Vladislav due to the rising sun. This allows Mummy (Pamela Gordon) to use Michelle’s blood to revive the vicious Radu (Hove) so that he may continue his quest for the coveted Bloodstone – a magical artifact that perpetually drips the Blood of Saints.
Meanwhile, the dreamy US embassy agent Mel (Kevin Blair) agrees to help Rebecca plan a rescue mission, though they’re unaware that Radu has become infatuated with Michelle during his attempts to guide her growing bloodlust. This all culminates in a climactic confrontation meant to tie up all of the series’ loose ends in one of Full Moon Pictures’ most ambitious productions.
The Evolution of Radu
Like its predecessor, Bloodlust: Subspecies III was also warmly received by fans who argued that the series was an even bigger success than Full Moon’s other major horror franchise, Puppet Master. This praise wasn’t unanimous, however, as 1994 had seen the rise of a more modern breed of sexy vampire popularized by Anne Rice, with old-school Nosferatu like Radu being viewed as obsolete when compared to the likes of Lestat and Gary Oldman’s take on Dracula.
In a way, one might argue that Nicolaou’s film is something of a swan song for the classic vampire story, as Bloodlust combines all of the traditional elements we tend to associate with these tales into a single tragic yarn that ties a neat little bow on Radu’s story as well as the old-fashioned monster movies that he represents. The finale remains shocking despite the fact that this is the third time we see Radu get brutally killed onscreen, with the brief tease that he may one day return feeling more like a nod towards the nature of evil rather than sequel bait.
The film dabbles a bit in gothic romance and even explores the inherent power fantasy behind transforming into an immortal creature of the night, but the filmmakers never lose sight of Radu as a demonic force even when he’s willing to betray his beloved Mummy for Michelle’s sake. In fact, his twisted “love” for his fledgling makes him even creepier as we get the feeling that his passion comes from a dark and disturbing place.
Anders Hove is at his absolute best in this film, with the effects department boosting his moments of what the younger generation would call “aura farming” whenever Radu emerges from shadows like a 90s version of Count Orlok. There are even a couple of surprisingly effective jump-scares here, which is why I’d argue that Bloodlust cements Radu as one of the most memorable cinematic vampires of all time despite his humble origins.
Subspecies Saves Its Best For Last
Nicolaou and Vlad Panescu also saved the best for “last” (more on that in a bit) regarding the film’s visuals, with the cinematography and overall atmosphere of Bloodlust absolutely surpassing what we saw in the previous films. Everything feels appropriately climactic this time around (including the wonderful soundtrack that was co-composed alongside an authentic Romanian orchestra), and I appreciate how this is the fastest-paced entry in the trilogy since the film doesn’t need to waste time setting anything up.
Bloodlust still suffers from some of the same low-budget blemishes as its predecessors, but there’s so much creative passion here that no amount of wonky effects work or stilted dialogue can get in the way of appreciating the flick’s gothic grandeur. That’s why it’s not surprising that the movie’s definitive(-ish) ending would later be retconned as fans begged for more Radu.
Of course, the next entry in this series would be a different kind of vampiric endeavor altogether, with the filmmakers attempting to engage with the same trends that ultimately killed Radu and his antiquated kin. That, however, is a story for another time. For now, I’ll merely insist that Bloodlust: Subspecies III remains a highlight of Full Moon’s expansive catalogue and is definitely worth seeking out today.
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