Thursday, November 12, 2009

The 10 Worst Sequels Ever According To Me

Sorry it has been so long since I posted anything. Time to get back at this one!



Lord knows I have seen my share of crapfests (and celebrate that fact), but there are some sequels that I just need to call out on the carpet. While I may enjoy making fun of these films, they are seriously what I feel to be the 10 worst sequels ever committed to celluloid. Here they are, in order:

10) Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier
The words "Directed By William Shatner" still brings chills to Star Trek fans. Spock's half brother (seriously?) goes searching for God (seriously?!?) only to find God is not God but an evil entity (SERIOUSLY?!?!). Throw in an awkward love affair between Uhura and Scotty (not to mention the senior citizen fan dance) and the worst green screen effects this side of a made for TV movie from the early 80s and you have an ultimate crapfest.

9) King Kong Lives
Universal Pictures felt in the 80s that the awful King King remake with Jessica Lange needed a sequel. Why they thought this I am blaming on brain fever. Anywho, Kong survives his fall, is in a coma, and needs a blood transfusion in order for him to get an artificial heart transplant. Scientists find a female version of Kong on Skull Island and bring her in to get the blood needed. When Kong comes back to life, he sees the female gorilla, and gets horny, thus going on another rampage through Atlanta. Hasn't the south been through enough?

8) Halloween 3: Season of The Witch
The premise of this film was actually good: a modern day Druid decides to celebrate Samhain the old fashion way with human sacrifice, He does this by becoming the nations #1 seller of novelty toys and Halloween masks, then creates a best selling mask that kills the wearer. Unfortunately, added to the film is robots who bleed Orange Juice concentrate, stealing a stone from Stonehedge (totally implausible), a mask that turns it's wearers into snakes and insects (I would had just had the heads melt or explode period), an ANNOYING TV Commercial jingle and an ending that makes absolutely no sense. Plus: no Michael Myers except for a cameo on a TV commercial for the first Halloween film.

7) Gremlins 2: The New Batch
What made the first Gremlins work was it's blend of fantasy, horror, and comedy. In the sequel, the film decides to go for pure Tex Avery with horrible results. While the idea of mutant gremlins and a leader who could speak English (brilliantly voiced by Tony Randall) are clever, the rest is not. A gender bending gremlin, an unnecessary intro featuring Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, and a moment where the film breaks only to have the gremlins suddenly put on a film about a summer camp causing an angry Hulk Hogan to threaten the gremlins to put the film back on or else. Crap.

6) Batman and Robin
Infamously bad. AH-NOLD was the worst choice for Mr Freeze, Alicia Silverstone's 'A Bee Stung My Lips" routine was getting old, the change of Batgirl being related to Alfred the Butler instead of Commissioner Gordan was not sitting well with the fans, George Clooney's acting was limited to head bobs and smiles, Uma Thurman was boring, and the over the top on purpose campiness (complete with Hanna Barberra sound effects) killed the franchise for many years. This film is a perfect example of how NOT to make a comic book film.

5) Shrek the 3rd
BOY WHAT A LET DOWN! After the success and enjoyment of the first two films, Shrek 3 officially showed that the franchise ran it's course. We do have a part 4 coming out in 2011, but honestly I think they should have stopped. Featuring failed jokes, an awkward casting of Justin Timberlake as King Arthur, a weak plot of the classic fairy tale princesses vs fairy tale villains, and an under usage of both Donkey and Puss In Boots resulted in a bloated corpse.

4) Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
This film is to Indy fans what Episode 1 The Phantom Menace is to Star Wars fans: a slap in the face followed by a kick in the balls. The film that inspired the catch phrase "Nuke The Fridge", this unnecessary chapter in the Indiana Jones saga not only ignored the canon of the series (in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, an Older in his 90s Indy said he never married. In this film, he does), but the film takes too much advantage of the "Check your brain in and embrace the outrageous" with giant dog sized killer ants, Shia LaBouf swinging in the trees with monkeys, the worst Russian accent this side of Boris and Natassia, and ALIENS! South Park got it right: this was the raping of a childhood hero for many people.

3) Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge
Who knew Freddy Krueger liked it kinky? This film, which was one of the worst allegories for a teen dealing with homosexuality ever committed to film, features a totally uncomfortable sequence where our "hero" goes to a leather bar (seriously now?) and watches his gay chicken hawk of a ghost get som BDSM treatment in the gym shower from Freddy Krueger before he gets "penetrated". Fortunately, wes Cravin was brought in for The Dream warriors to get this series back on some sort of a track after this disaster.

2) Superman 3
The opening credit sequence sets the whole film up: Richard Pryor stars as Richard Pryor, and a big tittied blond starts a serious of wacky slapstick accidents as the opening credits roll. The idea of making part 3 a wacky comedy was a disaster to begin with, and a comedy genius like Richard Pryor as an expert computer hacker did not help. The only good elements of the film? It introduced us to red Kryptonite (although it was still green), which makes Superman a polar opposite asshole version of himself, and the introduction of Lana Lang. Other than that, this Superman vs evil Supercomputer film is hands down, in my book, the worst comic book movie ever made....and that is saying a lot.

and my choice for worst sequel ever is...

1) Shock Treatment
The success of The Rocky Horror Picture Show as a Midnight Cult Classic inspired 20th Century Fox to greenlight this sequel. Unfortunately, the film tried too hard to be a cult film. First, let's look at what was actually good about this film: It had some fun songs by Richard O'Brian, Jessica Harper (the poor man's Karen Allen), oit tackled America's obsession with Reality TV before Reality TV became the most watched TV, and Barry Humpries in a non Dame Edna role. Unfortunately, the film forgot what made RHPS fun: it didn't try hard to be campy. And it also was not afraid to go there (translation: the sequel was rated PG where RHPS was rated R). Plus the idea of Denton TX (yep, The Home of Happiness turns out to be in DFW according to the making of Shock Treatment) being one big television studio was just too WTF. So bad you can't even give riff it.


Ta Dah!