Are You Kidding?

Trolling around on the Internet today I came across an article that listed 10 respectable horror movie sequels. The writer, Jeff Giles, gives his take on why he feels the sequels to Blade, Scream, Frankenstein and Alien were deemed acceptable. So be it.
Not only is Aliens one of the few sequels to rival its predecessor, but it also has the greatest sequel name of all time. Do you add a numeral on to the end of one of the greatest sci-fi horror films of all time to name the sequel? No that is too easy. So what makes sense? There is more than one alien this time, so why not add an “S” to show that the threat has been multiplied. Genius.
As for Scream 2, The Bride of Frankenstein and Blade II, I have always thought the second movie in the Scream trilogy was underrated, Frankenstein is on of my favorite movies and I love the sequel and the more I view Blade II the more I like it.
Yet, the rest of the sequels on this list are far from respectable. Giles starts right off the bat with Psycho II. Not able to say it better myself, “critics were generally less than thrilled to be revisiting a story that seemed to be wrapped up pretty neatly in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 original.” Hitchcock didn’t seem to wrap things up. He had wrapped things up. Psycho was wonderfully executed and Norman Bates was a character that had been perfectly formed by both Anthony Perkins and Hitchcock to never need further examining. He should have been left alone to rot in his padded cell at the insane asylum.
The next head scratcher is Gremlins 2: The New Batch. I get that it was supposed to be a farce on the genre of horror movies in general, but when the director who created the character of Gizmo and his wicked counterpart Gremlins returns for the sequel, you expect a sliver of similarity. The difference between Gremlins and its sequel is like the differences between Christopher Nolan and Joel Schumacher’s direction of the Batman series. It was just too much of a divergence for the audience to have a chance at enjoying it. I’m not going to say there aren’t parts to love about the Gremlins sequel, but to say it is respectable is just poppycock.
The problem with 28 Weeks Later is it starts out pretty good but quickly dumbs itself down to just another zombie thriller with good guys shooting their way through legions of the undead.
I’m not going to waste much time describing why Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn is not a respectable sequel. That is because it is a remake of the original. Director Sam Raimi may have intended for it to be a sequel, but having the exact same action and characters go through the same events with better effects doesn’t make it a sequel. That would be like having Peter Parker fight the Green Goblin a couple of years after Spider-man came out simply to cash in on better special effects (which now that I think about it, maybe that is what he was trying to do with Spider-man 3). Plus, the Evil Dead series is just too campy for me.
I haven’t seen The Devil’s Rejects or the original Dawn of the Dead, so I can’t comment on whether these stand a chance to be on Giles list.