The 70s/80s Horror Franchise Poll: Freddy vs. Jason vs. Chucky vs. Pinhead vs. Leatherface vs. Michael Myers vs. Everybody Else

It's Alive 3: Island of the Alive is the best of the three.

ok that wasn't something I was expecting to hear

It's Alive is genuinely fantastic. One of the best opening 10-15 minutes of any horror flick ever, for sure. If Cohen hadn't started working with Michael Moriarty, I like to imagine we'd have seen John P. Ryan in Q and The Stuff.

It's Alive 3: Island of the Alive is the best of the three.

― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Tuesday, July 12, 2016 6:13 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thank you for expressing the most correct opinion itt. It's my favorite because it's the Cohen-est. The purest expression of id. Similar to Basket Case 3 being the most Henenlotter-ish and therefore my favorite.

Those two and Seed of Chucky would make for a pretty fantastic gonzo horror marathon.

ok that wasn't something I was expecting to hear
--Οὖτις

Lol it's true.

For Island of the Alive (1987), Cohen recruited Michael Moriarty, an actor who had previously starred in Cohen's Q (1982) and The Stuff (1985), and was also filming A Return to Salem's Lot with Cohen that same year. The mutated babies have been placed on a desert island by court order. The person responsible for them, Jarvis (Michael Moriarty), leads an expedition to free the children. The cast includes Laurene Landon of Maniac Cop, and James Dixon returns as Lt. Perkins.

Franchises I've seen, ranked: Romero's Dead (based on and actually having seen only the original four) > Nightmare on Elm Street (saw 'em all, only rate the first four) > Child's Play (saw 'em all, only really dig the final three) > Exorcist (saw 'em all, ranked entirely on the strength of 1 and 3) > Basket Case (all good, all batshit) > It's Alive (all good, all batshit) >>>> Hellraiser (really like the first two but 3 and 4 are terrible and have no interest in investigating further) >>>>>>>>> Halloween (saw 'em all but Resurrection, first two are decent but not much more really, third is batshit and pretty good, the rest are barely watchable)

(Honorable mention for Evil Dead, which I somehow only just saw the first two installments of last year and which were so awesome my mind is still processing how to rank them among my tried and true faves.)

Franchises for which I like the first movie and have seen at least one sequel and for which I would prefer to forget any sequels exist, ranked: Poltergeist, Texas Chainsaw Massacre (although I guess I should give 2 another shake someday), Return of the Living Dead, House

Franchises I'll probably bite the bullet and watch in their entirety this Halloween-time because I already have them in my possession and so why not: Friday the 13th (I don't actually like any of the ones I've seen except Jason Goes To Hell so I don't know why I would watch any more of them except maybe because of underexamined self-loathing), Amityville (first one is actually pretty good, will probably regret going further), Phantasm (first is great, second is ehhhhhh)

damn y'all forgot the leprechaun series

I've actually seen 14 of the first films in these series, more than I would have guessed, but probably not half that many of the sequels. So I won't vote. Isn't Evil Dead the only one to yield two acclaimed films?

reasons i excluded romero's zombie series from my consideration:

1) most of the poll options could be dismissed by nonbelievers as "crappy 80s horror franchises". the 70-90 kickoff and 2 sequel minimum all but guarantee that. and though a few others do skirt a full wallow in period cheese (notably the omen and exorcist films), they're not really on my radar. romero's zombie trilogy starts in the late sixties, six years prior to any other series listed here, and it includes only one "cheesy 80s" entry.

2) like the exorcist and alien films, night of the living dead and its first two sequels are too critically well-respected to provide interesting competition for the likes of the friday the 13th, halloween and nightmare on elm street franchises (to say nothing of it's alive and children of the corn). not coincidentally, they're also much more pointedly critical in theme than the other series listed.

I forgot that Dawn of the Dead is an acclaimed film (don't know about Day)...I didn't care for it when it came out, but I should look at it again. Night is brilliant.

Some other misses:

Jaws
Sleepaway Camp
Ghoulies (that's right in III they go to college thanks a fucking lot Bernie Sanders "free college for all" my ass)
Puppet Master

I guess you could include Fulci's Gates of Hell or Argento's Three Mothers trilogies but I'm sort of biased against them for similar reasons as Romero's Dead probably.

Yeah Dawn of the Dead is nearly as acclaimed (and as good) as Night of the Living Dead. Day is definitely considered a drop in quality.

i suggested fulci's gates of hell trilogy in the run-up thread, but it didn't make the cut.

Thing with Exorcist (and Jaws and Alien) is that it successive sequels really do start descend into full exploitation (and I love some of these sequels btw don't get me wrong). I think that qualifies the series as a whole even if in all three cases the original films are definitely a cut way way above most of the films on this list.

Shit. Fuckin' Critters got dissed, too.

There sure was a lot of this crap.

the Romero movies are the best of this lot for their consistency but several of the initial installments here are among my favorites of the genre -- TCM, Hellraiser, the Exorcist, the Omen. But really, I think there needs to be a distinction between a franchise that at some point justifies itself and the sort of "somebody will pay for this, somewhere" no-hope cynicism of stuff like the direct-to-video late Hellraiser movies

For those who were unaware and who are interested in an alternate universe continuation of Hellraiser where the no-hope cynicism was constrained to the narrative itself, Barker ultimately wrote a Hellraiser comic series for a happier world where nothing more than the first two movies existed (and which also continued the story from Lord of Illusions).

Voted Friday the 13th, not because it's the 'best' but because it prob comes closest to my platonic ideal of 'horror movie franchise' (post-Universal or Hammer, anyway) - distinctive lead villain/anti-hero, obvious debt to giallo (in this case, Bava's Bay of Blood), and adherence to a formulaic narrative structure that grows more pleasing - or more cosily familiar - w/ repeated repetition. Somewhere in America, horny teenagers will always be going to summer camp to fuck, smoke dope, get slaughtered.

oof Leprechaun series def an oversight (even if I doubt anyone would have voted for it). Had no idea there were more than a couple each of Ghoulies and Sleepaway Camp, or I would've included them too. Jaws doesn't really pass the horror-franchise test to me, seems more like old-school monster movie maybe...? Puppet Master didn't occur to me cuz I never actually saw any of those

Somewhere in America, horny teenagers will always be going to summer camp to fuck, smoke dope, get slaughtered.

new rolling horror thread title

Jaws doesn't really pass the horror-franchise test to me, seems more like old-school monster movie maybe...?

I mean this is splitting hairs, but I don't think there is a terribly significant different between the Jaws franchise and most of the stuff on here.

certainly not by the time you get to jaws 2, which isn't far from a slasher flick. to say nothing of jaws 3-D...

figure anything even remotely horrorish that got an 80s-era part "3D" is by definition in the ballpark: amityville 3-D, friday the 13th part 3: 3D

hah fair enough

but I'm not doing this poll over just so Morbz can vote for Jaws

LOL well the overall franchise is garbage. Even Exorcist is better than Jaws.

morbs iirc thinks jaws isn't even top 5 spielberg

voted for Evil Dead based on consistency

Gooey?

morbs iirc thinks jaws isn't even top 5 spielberg

he would surely rank it above everything else here tho

altho maybe not he likes the Exorcist right? catholic boys...

was there a single decent horror movie in the era that didn't have a bunch of straight-to-video sequels??

Killer Klowns From Outer Space was the first thing that popped into my mind. Not so much because it's good but because it's the type of thing you'd expect to have eight VHS-only sequels.

the shining for one, but successful american horror flicks with no sequels were definitely rare

But, yeah. Carpenter's other stuff, Cohen's other stuff, Brain Damage...uhhh...they managed to hold off on American Werewolf for a decade+. I know there's a ton. Wish my horror DVDs were accessible.

was there a single decent horror movie in the era that didn't have a bunch of straight-to-video sequels??

the greatest horror movie of the era: the Thing

'70s & '80s also the era of the A+ horror reboot: The Thing, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Fly.

a few more notable one-offs:

Carrie
Maniac
Near Dark
Night of the Creeps
Videodrome
Motel Hell
Dead & Buried
Humanoids from the Deep
The Hunger
From Beyond

"was there a single decent horror movie in the era that didn't have a bunch of straight-to-video sequels??"

Yeah tons.

Tourist Trap! The Funhouse!

Probably more good ones that didn't have sequels.

Voted Friday the 13th, not because it's the 'best' but because it prob comes closest to my platonic ideal of 'horror movie franchise' (post-Universal or Hammer, anyway) - distinctive lead villain/anti-hero, obvious debt to giallo (in this case, Bava's Bay of Blood), and adherence to a formulaic narrative structure that grows more pleasing - or more cosily familiar - w/ repeated repetition. Somewhere in America, horny teenagers will always be going to summer camp to fuck, smoke dope, get slaughtered.

― Foster Twelvetrees (Ward Fowler), Wednesday, 13 July 2016 14:14

Are you sure you didn't mean to say this is the opposite of ideal?

How about Piranha? One of the remakes was direct to tv, but there's the James Cameron sequel and the two newer remakes.
All the Tremors sequels are for video or tv.

it only had one sequel in the timeframe specified though

I thought only the original had to be in the specified timeframe...

idk man Piranha 3D was in 2010, that's a totally different era

Despite loving lots of individual films here I can't throw a vote to any of these franchises. I abstain, it's official.

certainly not by the time you get to jaws 2, which isn't far from a slasher flick.

Should be poll of Jaws rip-offs. Piranha, Alligator (both written by John Sayles!), Grizzly ...

distinct memories for seeing tons of ads for this in late 70s comics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orca_(film)

memories OF

The Swarm is awesome!

I might vote Amityville because I adored the first film when I first saw it. I was far too young and it really got to me. There are much better films in the list but are any other sequels as ridiculous as Amityville 4, which is about an evil, possessed floor lamp?