Horror movie franchises have always had a slightly flawed relationship with logic. Everyone’s favorite movie monsters often have to change, adapt and become more powerful as their sequels hit the screen, to enable bigger and better kill counts and to raise the stakes constantly.
From minor shifts to their capabilities to the most swerving twists featuring major power-ups to their characters, horror villains frequently change for the better (and often for the worse) throughout their tenures. The supernatural, even in series that didn’t begin with that as a feature, often worms its way into these franchises.
7 Jason Voorhees
Jason Voorhees is a prime example of a horror movie villain that never quite made sense. His original origin was that he had drowned at Camp Crystal Lake and that his mother wanted revenge on those who stayed at the camp for letting him die. Jason was barely featured in the original film, but in the sequels, he became the leading killer for the franchise.
At this point, Jason started to develop a bizarre list of abilities that strayed from inhuman strength and seeming invincibility all the way to possibly being able to teleport after his victims in order to keep up and constantly get ahead of them. He was also brought back to life by a lightning bolt, so some supernatural regeneration power is likely a part of his repertoire.
6 Candyman
This may be confusing since Candyman has been a supernaturally powered villain since his debut in 1992. However, he has certainly gained more of these powers in the sequels and particularly in the 2021 remake since then. The 2021 film saw Candyman take on more of an anti-heroic role in taking down police officers that had just murdered an unarmed black man in cold blood.
But it wasn’t just this shift that the remake saw for the character. Besides his superhuman speed, regeneration from death, strength, and control of bees, the character has gained the ability to teleport and some sort of flight or levitation as well.
5 Final Destination
It is difficult to know exactly what to call the villainous force in Final Destination. Unlike other horror franchises, there is no killer or monster that follows the victims of its wrath. Rather, there is some force, perhaps death or fate, which kills off a series of people after they escape the grasp of death in some fashion.
However, whatever force this has and however it works, it seems to gain new powers and abilities with each new sequel as it finds more and more unique ways to kill characters off. The force was once completely restricted to small things that led indirectly to death, but in the sequels, it started to become more directly involved in the demise of the characters.
4 The Mummy
In 1932, The Mummy was released and introduced the now legendary villain to the screen. However, in that original film, Imhotep was only shown to have his immortality and some smaller powers, such as hypnosis.
This has greatly changed over time. In the Brendan Fraser trilogy of films, The Mummy was able to control the weather and transform into many creatures; he even threw plagues down upon Egypt. In The Tom Cruise remake, there were even more substantial, and grand powers shown throughout the film as the character’s power set constantly continues to shift.
3 Chucky
Chucky was another villain that began with some form of supernatural powers, as a serial killer he used voodoo magic to transfer his soul into the body of a doll. After taking possession of it, he managed to continue murdering people and gained many powers throughout the sequels and TV shows surrounding the character.
Chucky has never been as serious as other horror movie franchises, but the height of strange powers was perhaps in Cult Of Chucky, where he learned how to possess multiple bodies, an inherently strange idea from the get-go.
2 Freddy Krueger
Freddy Krueger is another villain who has had many sequels in which to advance his original supernatural power set. Despite a variety of dream-related abilities in the opening film, other powers such as fire control and reality manipulation have changed and varied throughout sequels as the A Nightmare On Elm Street films has continued.
Other powers Freddy has used in the past have come and gone. There is consistency in his dream and nightmare control and his invulnerability in the dream realm, and his ability to shape-shift seems to come and go as well throughout the many films he has appeared in.
1 Michael Myers
The Halloween franchise is one of the most inconsistent horror franchises of all. Michael Myers was a six-year-old murderer who gave himself up, went into custody, and broke out fifteen years later to murder many more people. However, while his Doctor constantly insists that Michael is “the personification of evil” or “the bogeyman” there is no consistent power set or supernatural nature to his role.
That is, except for the fact that he seems indestructible, can possibly teleport at will, and has incredible superhuman strength. Almost none of these abilities were present, or at least didn’t appear to be, in the original film in 1978. Some films in the different timelines have since tried to explain via cults or assertions that Hell won’t accept Michael why these abilities persist, but there is no consistent lore around his powers and strength.