5 Best Horror Franchises of All Time!

1. Hellraiser - Pinhead and the Cenobites never cease to scare the bejesus out of me.  You can add anyone to the plot and they are still scary!  Even if the characters in the movie suck, Pinhead and the Cenobites never cease to disappoint!

Hellraiser (1987)   

Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)   

Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992)   

Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996)      

Hellraiser: Inferno (2000)   

Hellraiser: Hellseeker (2002)   

Hellraiser: Deader (2005)   

Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005)   

Hellraiser: Revelations (2011)

The franchise & The Prophecy are available on one DVD for $5 & under!

 

The Prophecy & Hellraiser (Complete Collection)

2.  Hammer Films Dracula - Hammer Films produced nine Dracula films between 1960 and 1974. (Courtesy of Wikipedia)...

• The Brides of Dracula (1960)
• Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966)
• Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968)
• Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969)
• Scars of Dracula (1970)
• Dracula AD 1972 (1972)
• The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)
• The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974)

The first five were direct sequels to the original film. Brides of Dracula did not include Dracula, but Peter Cushing repeated his role as Van Helsing to battle vampire Baron Meinster (David Peel). The Kiss of the Vampire did not include Van Helsing or Dracula, but continued the theme of Brides of Dracula, showing vampirism as a plague infecting other pockets of unfortunates.

Christopher Lee as Dracula returned in the following six films, which employed ingenuity in finding ways to resurrect the Count. Hammer upped the graphic violence and gore with Scars of Dracula in an attempt to re-imagine the character to appeal to a younger audience.

 

Dracula A.D. 1972

Dracula Has Risen from the Grave

Horror of Dracula

Taste the Blood of Dracula

 

The commercial failure of this film led to a change of style with the following films, which were not period pieces like their predecessors, but had a then-contemporary 1970s London setting. Peter Cushing appeared in both films playing a descendant of Van Helsing.

Christopher Lee grew increasingly disillusioned with the direction the character was being taken, and with the poor quality of later scripts – although he did improve these slightly himself by adding lines of dialogue from the original novel.

Lee speaks at least one line taken from Bram Stoker in every Dracula film he appeared in, except for Prince of Darkness – in which the Count does not speak (Lee claimed he was appalled by his dialogue in that film and refused to speak it, but Jimmy Sangster rebutted that no dialogue was written for the character in that film). He was also concerned about typecasting. After Satanic Rites, he quit the series.

I used to watch these flicks with my dad while gorging down on pizza and snacks and it was definitely one of the most entertaining memories I have of my childhood. Christopher Lee is one of my favorite actors, and of course, my favorite Count Dracula.

3.  Re-Animator - followed by Bride of Re-Animator in 1990 and Beyond Re-Animator in 2003 were preceded by another film based upon an H. P. Lovecraft story, From Beyond; though this film featured a story unrelated to Re-Animator, it was also directed by Stuart Gordon and starred both Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton.

 

Re-Animator

In the book Lurker in the Lobby: The Guide to the Cinema of H. P. Lovecraft, producer/director Brian Yuzna mentions an idea that he had for a fourth Re-Animator. This version would have been titled Isle of Re-Animator, and would have been strongly influenced by the H. G. Wells novel The Island of Doctor Moreau.

You can watch From Beyond for free here.  

Herbert West–Reanimator was a short story by H. P. Lovecraft that was written 1921-1922.  In 2011, a musical adaptation opened on Broadway, which director Gordon participated in.

 You can listen to the H.P. Lovecraft original short story on Audible.com here.

 

Audible Audiobooks

 

4.   The Omen - Who doesn't love movies about the Antichrist coming home to roost?  You can't really include Rosemary's Baby, but I have hear the theory that the baby who has his father's eyes is supposed to be Damien.  

Anyway, The Omen includes:

 The Omen (1976)

Damien: Omen II (1978) 
Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981) 
Omen IV: The Awakening

The Omen, of course was remade in 2006 and starred Liev Schriber and Julia Styles.  I am a fan of the remake as they pretty much stuck to form and added a cool little twist, Mia Farrow as Mrs. Blaylock.  Seeing Mia evil was great!  Julia Syles kinda aggravates me so watching her get kicked around by Damien was an added bonus!

 

The Omen (2006)

 

The Complete Omen Collection 

The Omen - 1976

The Omen - 2006

Damien: The Omen II

The Omen III: The Final Conflict

The Omen IV: The Awakening

5.  The Evil Dead -  The Evil Dead, of course, consists of "Ash", Ashley J. Williams (Bruce Campbell), kicking possessed demon asses and taking names!  Ash finds the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, an ancient Sumerian text in a cabin, which is located in a remotely wooded area in Tennessee.  Everyone gets possessed pretty much except for a couple of survivors, Ash and Linda. 

Ash is the only character to appear in every installment of the original trilogy Linda, Ash's girlfriend makes an appearance in all 3 films, but her only appearance in Army of Darkness is during the prologue. The original trilogy includes:

The Evil Dead (1981)

Evil Dead II (1987) 

Army of Darkness (1992)

The Evil Dead was remade in 2013, sacrilege, let's not discuss that!

I also noticed that that abortion of a film is called Evil Dead and not "The Evil Dead".

 I've already blogged and asked, Where was Ash?  Where was Ash?  Where was Ash, my question has been answered and I won't discuss it again!

 

The Evil Dead 

 

 Evil Dead 2

 

Army of Darkness 

I watched Army of Darkness with my dad, too!  He would not remember or admit to it, but he loved it.  He was making commentary throughout the entire thing, which he never does!  He tells you to just shut up and watch!!!

Watch The Evil Dead & Evil Dead II Online Free!

The Evil Dead (1981)

Evil Dead II (1987)

My Five B Horror Favorite Picks

WARNING SPOILERS - 

IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN ANY OF THESE AND WANT TO, DON'T READ THIS!

In no necessary order....

Dead Alive is my number one pick. Lionel meets Paquita at the local package store. Its love at first sight. She digs this dork. He digs her. His overbearing mother follows them on their first date, because she's a psycho. She gets bitten by the Sumerian Zombie Monkey at the zoo and her wound begins to puss. Lionel realizes something is not right when Mum's skin falls off and Lionel has to glue it on when guests come to dinner.

Mum's ear falls off in her soup as she slurs her speech like she has palsy. She proceeds to consume it and her puss ends up in the soup. Her dinner guest eats it as we all take in the glory that is this "B" horror masterpiece. Mum eats everyone that comes into her path save Paquita and her greedy brother, who wishes to own her property and riches.

Uncle D*ckface Pervert discovers Mum is dead after Lionel locks her up in the basement and injects her with animal sedatives to control her "killer" appetite. She gets a nurse who comes to bring her to the hospital to cure her of her ails and a couple of others.

 A zombie romance begins between the nurse and another. An adorable baby Zombie is spawned. He's cute, see!!!

Anyway, it all ends in a blood spattered finale when Lionel gets out his rotary mower and chops all the zombies to bits and he takes care of that pesky over-sized Mum, too! Paquita and Lionel are free to love and free of Mum and Uncle Pervert.  
 

Don't Look in the Basement (1973), sometimes referred to as "The Forgotten" is set in St. Stephens Sanitarium, a remote residential mental hospital headed up by Dr. Stephens. He lets the patients carry on with their illnesses, hoping that one day they will just become miraculously become sane on their own. The head nurse, who is old and can't take it anymore tries to retire. She tells Dr. Stephens know she is not going to be returning. Judge, who used to actually be a judge is chopping wood and it ends up in the back of Dr. Stephens. He's presumed dead, of course.

Harriet, who owns a plastic doll and believes it is real kills the old nurse before she can leave, because she thinks she stole her baby. She squishes her head in her suitcase while she is finishing up her packing for her departure. Dr. Geraldine Masters is the only doctor remaining.

The new nurse Dr. Stephens hired before his demise arrives. Charlotte Beale, a young woman, who will be accepting the new nursing position is acquainted with the patients, who include the lobotomized Sam, who has the mental capacity of a child. There is also a nympho who saves the telephone repair man's dead body so she can have her way with his carcass postmortem, although she didn't kill him. Mrs. Callingham is just a creepy rambler who makes zero sense.

Dr. Masters becomes disturbed when a telephone man comes to investigate the faulty phone system at the institution. Mrs. Callingham's tongue is ripped out of her mouth during her sleep, although Masters tells Charlotte that the injury was self-inflicted. Dr. Masters does some creepy things to punish residents and we all realize, she's a patient. Charlotte also realizes Dr. Masters isn't really a doctor. Mrs. Callingham finds a way to communicate that Masters cut out her tongue so she can't tell about Dr. Masters.

Charlotte finds the telephone man (postmortem) hanging out in the kitchen closet. Nurse Charlotte figures out what is going on and that Masters is a patient, thanks to Judge. The residents think Charlotte is a patient, too. Charlotte finds Dr. Stephens hiding in the basement and kills him by mistake, not realizing his identity. The inmates corner Dr. Masters and Judge Cameron axes her to death.

Watch it here if you haven't already since I just spoiled it for you. 

The Evil Dead, which of course, stars Ash (Bruce Campbell), who takes a trip into the woods with some friends in an isolated cabin. The cabin contains the Sumerian Book of the Dead. The book's accompanying tape is played the contains incantations from the book which releases demons.

Ash's gal, Cheryl, who goes outside to check out the noise gets rap'd by the forest's trees. Damn, the splinters!!!  Get out the tweezers!  They get their grove on with the ol' gal and when Ash tries to drive her to safety, he finds that the lone bridge that takes them out of the woods is no longer, uh oh! Cheryl and then pretty much everyone else becomes possessed one by one. There is a part two and this is foreshadowed when all doesn't really end well, well...at the end.  

2001 Maniacs (Lionsgate) has the best soundtrack ever! I wish the ZZ Top looking guys would come and sing songs whenever I do things. I wouldn't ever silence them! Its like when Peter from Family Guy decided to wish for theme music that time and his wish was granted, but way cooler!

I love to poke fun at the south and this movie does just that with the overly-friendly-to-the-point- that-its-creepy help of Mayor George W. Buckman, who is portrayed with none other than Robert Englund, who of course nailed the role of Freddy Kreuger in Nightmare on Elm Street and welcomes the detouring college students who took the wrong wrote to Daytona Beach for Spring Break to the annual Guts and Glory Jubilee (a mouth watering barbeque in honor of the Civil War) in their quaint and historically untouched town of the very eerily welcoming Pleasantville, Georgia.

Rest assured, there will be lots of guts. I don't know about glory, though. It was pretty glorious watching a girl be "quartered" by the town's heartthrob. The town houses residents, Hucklebilly, a young man who behaves like a child and "loves" the farm animals as often as necessary, if ya catch my drift as well as the lovely, Peaches, the town's sexpot turns into a sharp toothed succubus thing and eats Cory. Two of the towns residents are sexy blonde cousins who are, let's say overly affectionate with one another.

The armadillo that splats on their windshield on the way and the creepy stares and snickers of the hillbillies on the way when the party of students discusses taking a shortcut makes for killer foreshadowing of the cannibalism that will shortly ensue. This future classic "B" film is a remake of the 1964 film Two Thousand Maniacs, a Herschell Gordon Lewis film.   

Check out the trailer here if you haven't seen it and since I already ruined it for you, you mine as well, lol!

Trilogy of Terror (1975) is a true made for ABC TV classic, featuring the recently late Karen Black, who takes on four, if you count the twins as two, distinct roles in this short story film diverse film characters in the horror trilogy.

The Zuni Fetish Doll in "Amelia" is the best thing I have ever seen EVER! It has a miniature knife and relentlessly pursues Amelia, who is of course, portrayed by the ever great and recently late Karen Black until she meets her demise and turns into the Zuni Fetish Doll itself with its sharp, awesome, little angry teeth. It kind of reminds me of Monkey Shines if it were the spirit of a Zuni Warrior instead. Its got all the persistence of the Monkey Shines monkey, that's for sure!

"Julie", appears shy and innocent. She is drugged and date rap'd by a pervy college student with whom she is forced to carrying on a secret affair, thereafter in a blackmail ploy. He wondered what she looked like "under all of those clothes". She wins! It was all a ploy to poison and kill this scumbag loser. One point for Professor Julie. Karen Black didn't even want to do it until Richard Burton, who was her husband signed on as the pervy student.
 
Millecent and Therese, the twins who were really the multiple personalities of one women were classic. The saucy blonde, Therese, used witchcraft against Millicent, the dowdy Debbie Downer and of course ends up screwing herself over, because, NEWS FLASH, she's both of them. Its very clever if you haven't seen it. I suggest it!!! I'll post the link.

HERE IT IS! 

WATCH IT FREE.