11 Major Horror Franchise Revivals, Ranked

As Hollywood continues its unflinching collective decision to mine intellectual property for all it's worth, that means every genre can expect to see revivals, remakes, and reboots simply to ensure that new generations can have new versions of iconic stories, regardless of whether new equals good. This week, for example, 20th Century Studios (now an arm of the Walt Disney Company) is bringing us back to space, where no one can hear you scream. Yes, it's time for another new "Alien" film, this one called "Alien: Romulus," from director Fede Alvarez, himself no stranger to remaking a beloved horror film. Does the new take on "Alien" stand tall among the other major horror franchise revivals? Is it as good or better than Alvarez's prior horror remake? Or should it be quickly forgotten? Let's count down the 11 major horror franchise revivals and see where this new take on the Xenomorph lands.

Sequels to horror movies are among the most commonplace sights you'll see in Hollywood, but the notion of fully remaking a classic was a little less frequent in the early 2000s. The iconic 1974 film "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" made Tobe Hooper a well-known director and introduced Leatherface into the lexicon of memorable movie villains. The 2003 remake offers a broadly similar take on the first story of a group of attractive young dumb-dumbs as they encounter the terrifying Leatherface and his equally disturbed family in the backwoods of Texas. The film boasted Hooper as a co-producer, featured Daniel Pearl as the returning cinematographer, and once again included narration from the stentorian tones of actor John Larroquette. (When the original was released, Larroquette didn't have multiple Emmys to his name courtesy of the NBC sitcom "Night Court.") 

What it also included was the kind of slick, deliberately gratuitous gore and violence that the original, partially due to its extremely low budget, eschewed. The cast is notable, including Jessica Biel, Mike Vogel, and R. Lee Ermey, and Michael Bay produced the film, the first of a few from his Platinum Dunes production company. Director Marcus Nispel (more on him soon) is plenty flashy in his style, but the resulting effort is a grim slog through hell that's vastly less viscerally exciting than its predecessor.

On its face, "The Exorcist: Believer" really should have worked. Director David Gordon Green was no longer a stranger to the world of horror remakes, thanks to a movie that is much higher on this list. And 2023 marked the 50th anniversary of "The Exorcist," which is among the most iconic and beloved horror films to ever be released. Certainly Green's past successes made the prospect of a revival of the exploits of the demon Pazuzu and the humans it terrorizes appealing to Universal Pictures, which snatched up the rights to a potential trilogy for $400 million back in 2021. Yet even despite the low budget of "Believer" and its solid box-office take around the globe, the movie was so poorly received that Universal seemingly scrapped its plan for follow-ups and is already working with director Mike Flanagan on an entirely new story. 

"Believer" itself is mostly just very flat and uninspired, no matter how hard Leslie Odom Jr. tries to sell the lead character's crisis of faith and how it affects his possessed daughter as well as a family friend. There's maybe no worse mistake this film makes than dragging Ellen Burstyn back as Chris McNeil to offer the new lead guidance about how to combat Pazuzu, only for her to be promptly taken out of commission by the demon except for an unnecessary and shameless bit of nostalgia that serves as the film's final shot. We should all be glad that "Believer" won't be getting any sequels.

If you have to remake "A Nightmare on Elm Street," and you're going to recast Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger, there's not many other actors aside from the Oscar-nominated Jackie Earle Haley who could effectively fill those gloved scissor-hands. Haley, in everything from the 2009 adaptation of "Watchmen" to his sterling supporting work in Todd Field's "Little Children," had gone a long way to prove his ability to create equally disturbing and fascinating, multi-layered men with a propensity for violence. But the problem with casting Haley is less about him and more about the head-scratching idea of remaking the iconic Wes Craven film and having someone aside from Englund play Freddy. 

Yes, Haley does as well as can be expected, and director Samuel Bayer infuses the film with a grimy visual palette that matches the nightmarish effect that the undead Krueger is able to create for his teenage victims. And with Rooney Mara (just a few months before her memorable if small role in "The Social Network") as the new Nancy, the film has the benefit of solid casting. But no matter how hard this remake tries (again from Bay's Platinum Dunes), it cannot escape the shadow of Englund and Craven — just as the characters in the film cannot escape Freddy.

Director Marcus Nispel strikes again, with a more surprising take on one of the most quintessential entries in horror. If all you're looking for from a remake of "Friday the 13th" is a hulking murderer in a beaten-up hockey mask gruesomely killing nubile young co-eds, this film undoubtedly has the goods. But the script by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift (who also co-wrote the 2003 film "Freddy vs. Jason") has a few welcome twists up its sleeve, including an extended opening sequence in which we meet one set of soon-to-be-killed twenty-somethings and a subversion of the Final Girl trope in the final minutes. 

Unquestionably, those choices allow for the film's bookends to feel moderately fresh and intriguing, and talented young actors like Danielle Panabaker and Jared Padalecki anchor the proceedings, with the latter trying to find his missing sister as much as he's trying to avoid getting attacked by the legendary Jason. The flip side is that when the script isn't offering tweaks on an expected set of cliches, it's ... well, engaging in that expected set of cliches. Unlike Nispel's other entry here, "Friday the 13th" is swifter, more compelling, and pleasantly unexpected at times. But it's still following in the footsteps of something bigger and better.

On one hand, the 2015 remake of "Poltergeist" is riddled with creative mistakes that suggest a film that was heavily re-edited in post-production to make for an overly brief, truncated attempt at utilizing intellectual property simply because it was lying dormant. The film's effects are a woeful shadow of the disturbing and tactile practical effects that director Tobe Hooper showcased in the 1982 original. However. The one thing this movie does right is entirely in its casting. With cast members like Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt, Jared Harris, and Jane Adams, this "Poltergeist" is, if nothing else, a lot more enjoyable and compelling to watch simply because they aren't phoning it in quite the same way that the script by David Lindsay-Abaire and the direction by Gil Kenan sometimes is. 

The behind-the-scenes approach is sometimes baffling, typically in how it acknowledges storytelling choices from the original, from the twist about how the house being built on a burial ground was the reason it became haunted, or in the attack from a clown doll. That the remake tips its hat to these elements is fine, but Lindsay-Abaire shoves all of these details into the early going, making the end result feel rushed. (The same is true of Harris' take on a modern medium, a TV star whose talents are only highlighted in the last 20 minutes.) The cast makes this "Poltergeist" tolerable, but the missed opportunities abound.

The ads for Alvarez's "Evil Dead" remake did not mince words, declaring it "the most terrifying film you will ever experience." Even with the imprimatur of the series' original director Sam Raimi as a producer, the bar was high for this new "Evil Dead." No doubt, some aspects of the 2013 film are easy to recognize from the original, including the backwoods setting, the demonic book from which no one should ever read, the possession of a group of twentysomethings who quickly read from that demonic book, and a lead character who has to keep their wits about them as various parts of their body and their friends' bodies get taken over. And, oh yes, there's plenty of viscera: vomit, guts, and blood galore. 

Jane Levy (at the time known as the lead of the charming ABC sitcom "Suburgatory") hits the right tone as Mia, a heroin addict whose brother is trying to help get clean before the whole "reading from a demonic book" thing kicks up. Alvarez's tone here is largely unlike that of Raimi, at least with his black-comic take in the "Evil Dead" follow-ups of the late 1980s and early 1990s (even in spite of a cameo from Bruce Campbell in the final moments). Is it the most terrifying film you will ever experience? Perhaps not, but the "Evil Dead" remake wasn't screwing around.

On paper, "The Predator" ought to have been a home run. Its ensemble cast is undeniably impressive, including Boyd Holbrook, Trevante Rhodes, Olivia Munn, Jacob Tremblay, Thomas Jane, Sterling K. Brown, and Keegan-Michael Key. Its premise, in which a group of soldiers have to fend off some of the eponymous alien attackers after they land on Earth, has a solid hook. And, oh yes, its director and co-writer is Shane Black, of "Iron Man 3," "The Nice Guys," and the "Lethal Weapon" series. (Black also co-starred in the original "Predator" in 1987.) 

It's not that "The Predator" is bad, per se; Black is regarded as an immensely talented filmmaker for a reason, so his deft direction and writing make this watchable, to say the least. But the third act feels awfully sloppy, to the point where it seems like the film was taken away from Black in the editing process. That's to say nothing of the final beats that seem to be building up to a new take on the "Alien vs. Predator" films before shying away entirely. The pieces for a new classic are all in place in "The Predator," which is a serviceable enough revival from people who know the original well. But there's a reason why this isn't the mid-2010s Shane Black film people go ape over.

This section contains minor plot spoilers for "Alien: Romulus."

Considering just how disturbing and gory his "Evil Dead" was, you wouldn't be wrong to assume that Fede Alvarez would all but drown the audience in blood and guts in "Alien: Romulus." While there is undoubtedly plenty of violence in this new story, taking place roughly two decades after the events of the first "Alien," it's ever so slightly less literally visceral than it could be. Parts of this film are extremely effective, particularly in the depiction of a kindly android (David Jonsson) who is the "brother" of our heroine (Cailee Spaeny) until he's waylaid by an unexpected character who is both new to us and not-at-all new. The parts that stumble are those that very directly tie into the other "Alien" films, from an inexplicable and unnecessary invocation of "Get away from her, you b***h!" to the unwelcome digitized appearance of Ian Holm circa 1979 as another android science officer who toes the company line just as Ash did. When "Alien: Romulus" is focused on delivering spooky atmosphere, icky creature effects, or offering up a group of desperate young people as fodder for a massive set of Xenomorphs, it works effectively enough. When Alvarez is more focused on nudging you in the ribs to make sure you spot all the references to the classics that kicked off this franchise, it stumbles.

It's honestly impressive how much good and bad there is in the 2012 film "Prometheus," from returning director Ridley Scott. Far more than even in the original "Alien," "Prometheus" is a beautiful film to look at, with truly striking visuals and an effectively epic scope. The film's cast is stacked, including Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron, and Michael Fassbender. And the ways in which the story tiptoes its way towards the events of the first film in the series without being heavily reliant on all of the beats superfans knew are mostly clever and intelligent. However, the characters themselves could not accurately be described as either clever or intelligent. As much as people criticized co-writer Damon Lindelof for his groundbreaking TV show "Lost," those plane-crash survivors were a lot smarter than the largely idiotic ciphers in this film. 

Fassbender is the obvious standout among the ensemble, in part because his android character David is multi-dimensional, not just because Ash or Bishop were deeply felt droids in their "Alien" films, but because David is the only marginally fascinating one to watch here. If the cast hadn't been so notable, or if Scott had not returned to the universe that gave him such an early success, maybe "Prometheus" would be less disappointing. Some of the film works tremendously, but the parts that stumble do so hard.

Something about the combination of David Gordon Green, Danny McBride, and Jamie Lee Curtis is just odd enough to make the 2018 sequel/revival of "Halloween" work. Green has had a constantly unexpected career, with everything from stoner comedies like "Pineapple Express" and "Your Highness" to low-key indies such as "Snow Angels" and "Manglehorn." So following in John Carpenter's footsteps, while also bringing Curtis back to the role that made her a film icon, is both completely baffling and entirely in line with Green's other decisions. Though the less said about the eye-rollingly dumb follow-up films the better, this first return to Haddonfield is surprisingly very effective. 

The recent spate of horror movies that are actually about trauma hit their apotheosis with "Halloween," which serves as a direct sequel to the 1978 film that started it all. That means that Laurie Strode here has been haunted for four decades by the events that fateful night in her youth when the masked killer Michael Myers came calling. Curtis' late-stage revival of her career began here, and the feisty energy she brings to the story goes a long way to making this film as compelling and well-done as it is. The nice thing, too, is that you can easily look at this film's ending as complete enough that the follow-ups don't even have to exist (because none of the combined cast or crew were able to make lightning strike twice).

Legacy sequels are now something of a dime a dozen. You can find legacy sequels in the worlds of sci-fi comedy, action, drama, and yes, horror. But few legacy sequels are as well-made, shrewd, and confident as the 2022 film "Scream." It's all the more impressive because "Scream" had neither the late Wes Craven nor original screenwriter Kevin Williamson tackling this entry. However, directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick slyly take the fifth film in the long-running series into an appropriately meta realm, with one of the characters realizing that this isn't just any "Scream" movie, but a "requel" both following up on previous entries and also kinda/sorta remaking the first "Scream" itself. 

So many of the other films on this very list established the trend that this film enjoys both mocking and reveling in, a snake eating itself that still manages to be fun, thrilling, and effectively twisty. Of course, it also helps that Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, and David Arquette all return here to bridge the gap between their versions of the Ghostface saga and the one overtaken by Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega. It makes sense that this "Scream" would carry the torch so well, indulging in horror-movie tropes while playfully riffing on them.