Horror movies rarely adhere to accepted cinema standards. They’re the kind of movies where being objectively bad can be a good thing and the unofficial rule of thumb is to add two points to the IMDb score in order to accurately assess a horror movie's quality. They’re also probably the only kind of movies where eight installations are not necessarily enough. With an endless slew of sequels, though, comes a lot of logistical issues for creators.
For instance, how can a series possibly continue when all of the main characters have been killed off, and the main antagonist has also died about seven times? Sometimes the struggle to answer those kinds of questions can turn out some truly bizarre results, and when that’s the case for a horror franchise of even minor repute, sometimes, that is exactly when to keep on watching.
8 Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday
The ninth installation of the Friday the 13th franchise needed to find a way to resurrect both Jason Voorhees and the franchise itself. The previous movie, Jason Takes Manhattan, was a commercial, critical, and overall cinematic failure, and it looked like it was going to be the thing that finally made Jason stay dead.
In its attempt to right these wrongs, Jason Goes to Hell retcons much of the series lore, has several characters do the killing, becomes comically self-aware, and adds in a number of hell-dwelling demon worms for good measure. It's not a great movie, but the bizarre total departure from the previous Friday the 13th movies (and the awesome final scene) helps to make it something horror fans might find oddly fun.
7 Halloween III: Season Of The Witch
There have been few odder choices in horror history than John Carpenter's decision to suddenly drop Michael Myers and Laurie Strode and turn the Halloween franchise into an anthology series for one single movie. As odd as the choice may have been though, Halloween III: Season of the Witch still wound up being a pretty good horror movie.
The movie offered an eerie story with some eye-searing imagery and a dash of social commentary. It’s also absolutely loaded with Halloween ambiance too, and there is definitely something special about a horror movie that is centered around the ultimate horror holiday.
6 Leprechaun 4: In Space
The horror movie version of jumping the shark is when the filmmakers send a previously earthbound cast of characters into outer space. It’s lazy, it’s ridiculous, it’s most likely not going to be scary, and yet sometimes, it still makes for a compelling watch.
Leprechaun 4: In Space is definitely compelling, at least in the sense that it’s about a killer leprechaun wreaking havoc in a Star Wars-like sci-fi setting. It knows how ridiculous this premise is and leans into it heavily which makes the utter weirdness of it all pretty fun to experience.
5 Amityville II: The Possession
Inspired by an alleged haunting that occurred in a Long Island, New York home in which a young man murdered his entire family, 1979’s The Amityville Horror has spawned a dizzying number of sequels, including full-on farces like Amityville in the Hood and Amityville in Space. Some, like Amityville II, deal with some unpleasant subject matter that some viewers might find a little too disturbing.
1982’s Amityville II: The Possession serves as a prequel of sorts to the original, only set in an alternate universe where all the original characters have been replaced and things are much more bizarre. It evolves from a familiar haunted house movie to a truly strange exorcism flick that is likely to make viewers' stomachs churn but has just enough outright wackiness to keep them watching in awe.
4 Army of Darkness
Weird, campy fun is the calling card of the Evil Dead series, but anyone who has only seen the first two movies might be shell-shocked by the left turn that the third entry, Army of Darkness, takes. Of course, it is a beloved cult classic, so it’s not like that left turn was at all to the detriment of the movie's quality, but jumping from cabin-in-the-woods supernatural horror to time-traveling medieval adventure with ghouls and skeletons is a truly bold and unusual move, even if Evil Dead II’s sense of humor opened the door to some odd possibilities.
In terms of quality and notoriety, this movie stands head and shoulders above most other weird horror movie sequels, but that won’t stop most first-time viewers from wondering exactly how Sam Raimi came up with this head-spinningly different approach to finishing off a trilogy. It's still well-worth watching though, particularly for those who enjoyed the first two Evil Dead movies.
3 Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation
The odds of a movie with a duo like Renee Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey being a bizarre horror sequel rather than a rom-com are extremely low, but that’s exactly what happened in 1994’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation. The results were really weird but still worth a watch.
The movie is basically a retread of the original story, but even more unusual, and with a twist that attempts to deepen the lore of the Sawyer family in a way that only weird horror movie sequels can. The average movie fan will almost definitely hate it, but horror fans who like their movies on the surreal side should still give it a look, if only to see McConaughey giving it his absolute all and even dropping an “alright, alright, alright.”
2 The Slumber Party Massacre 2
The original The Slumber Party Massacre is a cult 80s horror classic. It’s just a fun, campy, low-budget slasher that admirably represents the macabre charm of that era of the genre. The Slumber Party Massacre 2, on the other hand, is absolutely off its rocker.
It would actually be a mostly normal slasher movie if not for the leather-clad, cigarette-smoking, catchphrase-spewing killer that operates in the realm of dreams ala Freddy Krueger whose weapon of choice is an elaborately designed blood-red custom electric guitar with a gigantic drill where the headstock should be. In truth, this movie’s utter zaniness may make it even more memorable than the original.
1 The Howling III: The Marsupials
There hasn’t been an entry in the Howling franchise in over a decade and for that reason, it has begun to fade a bit from the horror conversation. However, with a Netflix remake directed by Andy Muschietti currently in the works, it’s the perfect time to dive back in and enter the absolutely bizarre world of The Howling III: The Marsupials.
As is the case with many wayward horror franchises, this movie is totally disconnected from the original, although it’s still got the same blend of the horrifying and the humorous and some pretty cool special effects. There are also a lot of meta elements, some werewolf nuns, a gigantic werewolf-pig hybrid, a scorched zombie werewolf, a marsupial werewolf baby, and plenty more to both confuse and amuse any horror fan who doesn’t take the genre too seriously and enjoys the unusual.