THE FEARFUL FIVE! #14

Continuing our monthlong celebration of Halloween with various scary movie and TV-related lists. Check out our online movie database at channelguidemag.com to see if any of these or other scary titles are on this month. (Note: Videos may contain graphic violence, disturbing images and language.)

THE THRILL IS GONE:

TOP 5 WAYS A HORROR FRANCHISE “JUMPS THE SHARK”

If familiarity breeds contempt, than filmmakers obviously must make us too familiar with certain film franchises, particularly horror ones, since plenty of them have degenerated to the point of tarnishing the often scary original concepts and PO-ing fans. Whether turned over into the hands of new — and inferior — creative teams, trying conceptual and technological gimmicks, or just overstaying their welcomes, these horror film series lost their power to thrill long ago:

5. Crosses over with another franchise

Exhibit A: King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

More often than not, this particular “jump” has the unfortunate effect of blemishing two movie series at once. In this film, what should have been the ultimate clash of the two greatest movie monsters turns into a disappointingly short fight between two guys in ratted costumes, sandwiched between the usual lame human subplots. Godzilla survived with his aura somewhat intact in his next film, Mothra vs. Godzilla, before getting silly again for a while, but Kong didn’t really regain his regal status until 2005’s King Kong remake. See also “AVP: Alien vs. Predator”; “AVPR: Aliens vs. Predator — Requiem”; “Freddy vs. Jason”

4. Its villain stops being scary

Exhibit A: Freddy Krueger

After the third Nightmare on Elm Street film, the previously terrifying dream child-killer Freddy Krueger suddenly became a lovable pop icon — even to children. He went as far as starring on TV and in music videos while hobknobbing with a who’s-who of late ’80s and early ’90s celebs, like Zsa Zsa Gabor, Tom Arnold, Roseanne Barr, Dokken and The Fat Boys, even as the body count in his films dwindled, and his joke count increased. Turns out Freddy’s scariest line ever is not something like, “This … is God!” but rather, the following:

“Fred Krueger’s the name
You know my game.
Elm Street’s the place if you got the time
Listen to this, you’ll bust a rhyme.”

It’s sad to see the edge taken off of a good villain. See also “Hannibal”

3. It goes 3-D

Exhibit A: Jaws 3-D (1983)

Can a movie jump over itself? Ironically, a movie about a real shark managed to catapult its series well over the metaphorical “shark.” Mind-boggling, isn’t it? Well, so is Jaws 3-D. Relying on gimmicky technology to cover up its lame plot that finds yet another member of the Brody family (played here by Dennis Quaid) persecuted by a great white shark, this time while working at Sea World, the movie fails to even thrill in the technical arena. Like many 3-D horror flicks, it rips off the viewer by not giving the payoffs it should; instead of seeing the shark come out of the screen at us, we see a frog leap out, or a harpoon, or the floating arm in the following scene. See also “Friday the 13th Part III: 3-D”

2. Moves its setting to outer space

Exhibit A: Jason X (2001)

We were willing to suspend quite a lot of disbelief as the Friday the 13th series wore on … and on. It could be argued that the franchise jumped the shark, and stopped being really scary, many sequels ago, but Jason X — which sends our machete-wielding protagonist into the future, and into space — rockets to new heights of ridiculousness. See also “Leprechaun 4: In Space”

1. Moves its setting to “the ’hood”

Exhibit A: Leprechaun in the Hood (2000)

From the start, the kinda lame Leprechaun series had very little room to maneuver without making the infamous jump. But it executed a perfect-10 Olympic “shark” leap here, with our tiny horrific hero, like Freddy before him, becoming a rap star, while making the lives of several lame gangsta wannabes miserable. See also “Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood”; “Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan”