- Everyone knows that sequels suck.
[cat roars]
- By definition alone, they're inferior films.
- Or do they?
- What I love about sequels is
the characters are all established,
we know who they are.
So let's just get into it.
- As great as Anthony Perkins is in "Psycho,"
I think he's even better in "Psycho 2."
- I'm Norman. Norman Bates.
- "Nightmare on Elm Street 3" is my favorite one.
- Man, it's so good. - It wasn't just scary
it was funny. - This is it, Jennifer,
your big break in TV. - [screams]
- I think people know when they see the Chucky movie,
you know what you're going to get.
- I love "The Purge" franchise.
You want to understand how this even all started.
- "Gremlins 2," I think
might possibly be the best sequel of all time.
- [laughs] - It takes everything
that you love about the first film,
and it cranks it up to a whole other level.
- Horror movie sequels do not suck.
Horror movie sequels are actually fantastic.
And sometimes they're even better than the originals.
[eerie music]
♪
[chainsaw roars]
♪
- Damien.
- Horror sequels.
They can be fun.
But usually, they're a long way from being great.
It's really hard to pull off a good horror sequel.
There's so many of them that suck.
- [screaming]
- But then there are a few that actually really don't suck.
And it's all the more impressive when you can go
from "Alien," which is one of the most iconic
movies in cinema, and come out with "Aliens."
- Come on, come on!
- Sometimes sequels fall far short of the original.
And sometimes they amp up the body count
and are even better.
The tradition of the great horror sequel
goes all the way back
to James Wales' "Bride of Frankenstein."
- I always loved "Bride of Frankenstein," you know,
just the fact that it picks up right where the original movie
left off, I think really has a lot of power.
Like wait a minute, so okay, so the windmill burns down
and then what happens?
So you feel like you're getting a continuing saga.
- Well, you can use a sequel to enhance and--
and build on something
that you did in the first one.
- Groovy. - Or you can take it
in a different direction. There's a million things you
can do if you got some good piece of material
that warrants being revisited. - I've got to remain logical.
- I like making sequels because
I don't have to explain anything.
I can just start from the get-go
and do some new adventure.
- For a sequel that delivers on all levels,
there's no better example than the greatest slasher sequel
of all time.
[eerie music]
- "Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors"
is like the peak
of the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series.
- It's just jam-packed with cool stuff.
- There's certain films that it's almost like
the second movie wasn't so great or wasn't as good
as the first one, and then the third one reinvents
the franchise and becomes a masterpiece.
- Well, you're right.
Now "Dream Warriors" managed to click
into the mythology of the first one--
- Freddy's home. - In a way that was exciting
for audiences, but it also seemed on a slightly bigger
canvas and you were surprised by the bigness
and the sense of fun.
- For "Dream Warriors,"
series creator Wes Craven returned
as producer and co-writer.
He brought back his beloved heroine, Nancy Thompson.
- [screams]
- You. - Oh, my God.
- I think Wes really believed
that Nancy was kind of the best aspect
that we all have inside of us.
That she is the kind of person who faces fear head on
and doesn't avoid the thing that's endangering their lives.
But just goes straight at it. - Krueger's back.
- Fred Krueger is dead.
- I loved that they brought her back.
I loved how they brought her back and that she was there
to sort of help the children.
And in a sense, she's there to save them.
- Now a grad student studying dream psychology...
- I have had some experience with pattern nightmares.
- Nancy comes home to help a new generation of teens
targeted by the dream killer, Freddy Krueger.
♪
The Elm Street parents, clueless as ever,
have put the tormented teens in a mental institution.
- You're killing us! - Ah.
- But they have a secret weapon,
newcomer Kristen, played by Patricia Arquette,
has the power to bring people into her dreams.
- Nancy. [chuckles]
- For the first time,
Freddy's victims have safety in numbers.
♪
- [grunting]
Led by Nancy, they form a gang of freedom fighters.
- They're able to take on these, like, superhero personas
in their dreams and fight back against Freddy.
So like one of the them becomes this super cool punk chick.
- Let's dance.
- The kid who's in the wheelchair is, like,
able to walk.
It's about wish fulfillment as well as, you know,
being murdered.
- But the teens soon discover Freddy has his own bag
of new tricks.
♪
- Freddy is in the imagination of the person he's haunting.
And the imagination is larger than life, it's kicked up,
it's surreal. [screams]
- There's a massive worm-like creature that is gruesome
but also perverted.
And I think that's just what makes it all the better.
It's horror, like, be weird.
- This film has some of the more spectacular
and memorable deaths.
- The scene where the guy's veins are being ripped out
with Freddy playing him like a little puppet
and then slicing those veins,
and he falls to his death;
that's an amazing kill.
- [screaming]
- The thing that made "Nightmare on Elm Street 3" stick out
so much is that it was the first entry into fun Freddy
before he became silly Freddy.
So he was still scary in this,
but having a bit more time to quip.
- What a rush.
There were scenes in 3 where I would be really bad,
really evil.
And then they would add a one-liner.
Sorry, kid, I don't believe in fairy tales.
- [screaming]
- That, all of a sudden, becomes scarier,
of this guy just like, not only is he gonna kill you,
but he's gonna have a little too much fun doing it.
- [screaming]
- I altered one line to play a little better as Freddy.
And it's become a fan favorite.
Welcome to prime time, bitch.
- [screaming]
- Wes would tell you that he's a little upset
with the exploitation of the humorous part
of Freddy's personality.
And I back him on that.
But Wes is responsible for that.
Wes created a character that cracked wise.
I'm your boyfriend now, Nancy.
But the fans loved that, and that's one reason we exploited
the humor so much is because the fans,
you know were just crazy for Freddy's personality.
- Great sequels make bold choices.
"Nightmare 3" saves its biggest shock for last.
- Whatever happens, stay together.
- It's so heartbreaking because he--he tricks Nancy
after he's already wreaked havoc on her dad
in the real world, and he reenters the dream world
in the form of her dad.
Then he lulls her into this
state of, like, comfort and familiarity.
- I'll always love you.
- And then Freddy Krueger's there again.
[laughs] He'll get ya.
[scary music]
♪
- Die. - [screams]
- Nancy dying in part 3 was hard to take.
I mean she was the O.G.
So you never want the O.G. to be killed off.
But I didn't see it coming. I didn't think--I thought
for sure Nancy would never die.
- And I think that's something that the fans needed
and the story needed, and I think that bringing her back
and bringing that story full circle,
helped make Freddy Krueger who he is today.
- Some sequels reinvent the franchise.
And some--
[phone rings]
Dig even deeper into the formula.
- It's happening again, isn't it?
- Hello? - [screams]
- For a sequel to be great, you have to give the audience
what they're expecting, just not in the way they think
they're gonna get it. You gotta be like a magician.
You know the trick's coming, I'm telling you the trick's
coming, I'm telling you the trick's coming,
and then you still do it, and they go "Wow.
I didn't see that coming." - [screams]
♪
After the massive success of "Scream,"
the pressure was on director Wes Craven, and writer
Kevin Williamson to come up with another magic trick.
- How do you make a sequel to a horror movie
that's about horror movies?
It's a film commenting on itself essentially
all the way through. And the answer is,
of course, you make a sequel that's about sequels
to horror movies. - Sequels suck.
- No. [indistinct arguing]
- By definition alone, they're inferior films.
- So it does a good job of honoring the first movie,
but also having its own identity making fun of sequels.
- It's been two years since the Woodsboro murders,
Neve Campbell returns as Sidney Prescott,
now in college.
- Hello? - Hello, Sidney.
- Sidney really starts the movie
with some post-traumatic stress.
- Who is this?
- You tell me.
♪
- Cory Gillis. [beep]
- Sidney seems to be coping
until a sneak preview of "Stab,"
a movie based on the events of the first "Scream,"
ends when someone dressed as Ghostface
goes on a killing spree.
- One of the things I think horror does really well
is when an old nightmare comes back.
And it comes back in a worse way.
And that's what happens to Sidney.
- The two Windsor College students were murdered
last night during a sneak preview
of the new movie "Stab."
- To survive, Sidney and her friends have to ask,
"What would the killer in a sequel do?"
- In "Scream," they've set out the rules.
How to survive a horror movie. Well, by "Scream 2,"
there are rules for sequels.
- [shouts]
- The kills are more elaborate,
the body count is always bigger.
Never assume the killer is dead.
- Remember me? - Why don't you show your face
you [bleep] coward.
- My pleasure.
- The return of Ghostface
throws the audience off balance.
The film disorients its audience even more
by intercutting pieces of "Stab."
Perhaps the first-ever remake inside of a sequel.
- The "Stab" franchise comes into its own in this film.
So "Scream 2" gets to comment on, you know, the history
not only of slasher films and that, but its own legacy.
Because you get a recreation of the original Scream in there
that's hysterically funny. - Really?
- You still think it's me? - No.
- Said I didn't do it. I'm innocent.
- I know. - So it becomes this strange
sort of hall of mirrors thing. - I've been going through
a lot lately, Billy. - Someone tried to kill me.
- I know, I know. - Sid, I think you need
to just move on. I mean...
both: When my mom left my dad, I accepted it.
- Yeah. both: Your mom left town.
- She's not lying in a coffin somewhere.
- My mom's dead and she's never coming back, ever.
- Stupid.
- So tell us about this part
you're getting rave reviews for.
- Well, I play this young girl, Sidney Prescott.
- "Scream 1," my agent sent me the script
and I got to the part where they were like, "You know,
they might make a movie of your life."
And she's like, "Yeah."
- With my luck, they'd cast Tori Spelling.
- And I was like--[gasps] But because, um,
she says that, when they make "Scream 2" they were like,
"Oh, we'll cast Tori Spelling," which was kind of brilliant.
I was like, "I'm in. Perfect."
- But beneath the self-aware jokes...
- When'd she start smoking?
- Ever since those nude pictures on the internet.
- It was just my head.
It was Jennifer Anniston's body.
- "Scream 2" asks
"What is the real emotional impact
on slasher film characters who make it to the sequel?"
- Look, Sid, if there is some freaked out psycho
trying follow in Billy Loomis's footsteps,
they're probably already in your life.
- As Neve Campbell's character learns about life,
we're learning with her.
And part two is, "Guess what. It's not over.
"You thought it was over?
"You thought only one bad thing would happen to you?
"No, things can get much worse.
"This horrible thing happened
and you have to deal with that trauma forever."
- I don't want to see you get hurt.
- She can't trust anyone around her.
That's a big theme in these movies.
Who can you trust?
Because you got to know the killer.
- I need to be alone right now, okay?
- Sidney goes up against Ghostface again,
but as we know, the original killers are no more.
- [screams]
- So we have no idea who it could possibly be.
Could it be Gale Weathers
trying to get another book deal?
Could it be Dewey? Does he really have that limp?
Is he faking it? - You have a point.
- And I think that was the main point of part two.
It was removing all trust so that the audience
is just completely nervous and on edge,
trying to figure out what's going on.
- [screams]
- The twist-filled climax reveals the Ghostfaces
are two new characters;
psychopathic film student--
- Mickey? - I'm gonna blame the movies.
- And the mother of the murderer Sidney defeated
in the original film. - Mrs. Loomis?
- You killed my son.
- The killers' identity has a purpose,
to deepen the series' exploration
of the nature of violence.
- "Scream 1" basically asked the question,
"If you can't blame the movies, who can you blame?"
- Movies don't create psychos!
Movies make psychos more creative!
- [screams]
- "Scream 2" suggested who you can blame.
And look who the killer was.
It was the mother.
So "Scream 2," in a weird way, is saying
we can blame the parents.
Bad parenting creates psychos.
- And it sets up for the other sequels.
Now you know it can be anybody.
- Another way to make an old franchise new again,
is to turn the clock back to the very beginning.
- Let's purge, y'all!
[siren blaring]
- This is not a test.
This is your Emergency Broadcast System
announcing the commencement of The Annual Purge.
[tense music]
- 2013 saw the release of "The Purge."
A film about a near-future America
in which all violent crime is legal for 12 hours.
- [screams]
- The violence and brutality of "The Purge"
was intended to reflect the rising tensions
writer/director, James DeMonaco,
and his collaborators saw growing in America.
♪
- Working in the horror genre allows you
to not necessarily explore themes that are different
than would be in a drama, but it allows those themes
to reach a much broader audience.
"The Purge" is a great example of that.
- Didn't you hear what I said? No more killing tonight.
- I think this country has gone off the rails
with its relationship to guns,
and "The Purge" is about
if that keeps going where we might wind up.
Kind of a cautionary tale.
- Is it that hard to understand?
- "The Purge" was an enormous success,
so inevitably, sequels followed.
[siren blares]
For the fourth film in the franchise
DeMonaco decided to explore the origins of Purge night,
turn the focus from the privileged to the poor.
He brought in Gerard McMurray to direct.
- You can't purge me, man. I purge you.
- It was centered around these inner-city communities
which was very heavily within our Black communities.
You needed a Black filmmaker and Gerard was able to really
bring home the honesty and the truth.
- What they're doing to us, what they're doing
to this country--I am worried about this country.
♪
- The result was "The First Purge,"
an action/horror film that's also a scathing indictment
of race, class, and power in America.
- The American dream is dead.
We will do whatever it takes to let you dream again.
[chanting] USA!
- In the near future, the NFFA,
America's neo-fascist ruling party,
runs a test of the Purge in the New York borough
of Staten Island. - Staten Island,
the chosen site, has become the focus for the entire world.
- The FFA offers money to people who need it,
and this is how they incentivize murder.
- The benefit of acting violently without worry
of consequence, that's a freeing violence.
- They have their reasoning for it, which is, you know,
if we give one night of access and freedom to commit
any crime you want to do, then that would lower the crime rate
for the rest of the year.
That's what they say.
- This bull[bleep] experiment really happening tonight?
- Community activist Nya is against the Purge.
But her younger brother Isaiah sees it as a way out
of poverty.
- I think Isaiah's anger is relatable to everyone.
I think everyone feels, you know, a responsibility
to feed, look after their family,
and the frustration of the opportunity
that might not be there.
- This is wrong!
- The sister wants to help her community survive,
and learns some unsettling truths along the way.
- Nya discovers that this is deeply rooted
in something bigger than just a crime rate.
This is rooted in classism, racism.
- You really think these regular folk
gonna pop each other like gangsters when the time comes?
- Yeah, people pissed. They ain't got no money.
[bombastic rap music]
- But at least at the beginning,
it's not all darkness.
- What would Black people do when it comes to the Purge?
Right, like, we gonna have a party.
We gonna be out on the estate.
We gonna be doing what we doing.
We gonna be having some fun and it's a Purge party.
♪
- There's no law.
We can have a street party all night long
and nobody will stop it.
That's kind of what I think would really happen
if there were a Purge.
- Some kind of block party.
- The FFA saw that--
they were confused. - Parties?
- They're watching, like why are they just having fun?
We mean business.
[motors roaring]
- But, of course, in the film, and also maybe this would also
really happen, people came from outside of this community
and they're wearing clan outfits.
And they're wearing neo-Nazi outfits.
[eerie music]
- By the end, a ruthless drug dealer,
who in virtually any other movie would be a villain,
almost singlehandedly
fights off the government assassins.
- You know, he's the community "thug" so to speak,
who has to sort of rise up
and fight off these outsiders...
[rapid gunfire]
Who have literally flooded this poor community
to try to just kill as many Black and brown people
as they can.
And it's tough. It's tough to watch.
[gunfire]
- That's the truth.
What do we do and how are we supposed to remain optimistic?
Which they do, which is a beautiful ending.
It's very optimistic.
And "We're gonna fight this thing."
But honestly, where do you go after that moment?
- So what to do we do now?
- Now...we fight.
- When I spoke to a lot of my friends about it,
"The First Purge" felt the most truest to real life
and people felt like "Yo, wow. This--this feels
like it could actually happen.
[siren blares]
And if we don't actually come together as a people,
then nothing's going to change.
- It's over?
- For now.
[tense music]
- There is another way to breathe life
into a horror sequel.
- Awake! Awake! Awake!
- Go for the laughs.
- [laughing]
- Hi, I'm Chucky. Wanna play? - [screams]
- Hey, wanna play?
Hi, I'm your friend to the end.
[eerie music]
- What do you do when your iconic horror franchise...
- I'm your friend to the end. [laughs]
- Feels tapped out?
- There had been three Chucky movies,
"Child's Play" 1, 2, and 3.
"But Child's Play 3" was not very successful.
- You got me.
I'm bad.
- And I felt that we had fallen into a rut of kind of
remaking the same movie.
All: Ade due Damballa.
- And that was something I didn't want to do again.
- So Chucky creator Don Mancini threw away
the slasher formula and went in a very different direction.
[thunder booming]
Horror comedy.
The result was "Bride of Chucky."
- I felt that if we embraced the absurdity
inherent in the premise
of a two-foot killer doll who swears
and wields a knife and chases you down and kills you,
we could revive the franchise.
- "Bride of Chucky" introduces Tiffany,
girlfriend of the serial killer
trapped in Chucky's body.
- Well, hello, dolly.
- She's determined to bring her lover back to life
and she will stop at nothing to get her way.
- Awake!
- In a stroke of genius, Jennifer Tilly was cast
opposite Brad Dourif, the voice of Chucky.
- She's the perfect person for this in so many ways.
She's an Oscar nominee, just as Brad Dourif is,
she has incredible comedic charisma,
physical beauty, sexiness, and a wonderful voice.
- Thanks, sweet face, I owe ya one.
- Tiffany has a certain insouciance
that people are attracted to.
I mean she's just like the super cool girl.
You know, she just doesn't give a [bleep].
- Let me in, huh? I'll catch my death out here.
- Promises, promises.
- But she's also a dichotomy
because she loves Martha Stewart,
she likes to make Swedish meatballs
and chocolate chip cookies.
- Who the [bleep] is Martha Stewart?
- My idol.
- Whoa!
- To be Chucky's soulmate, of course, she had to be
a remorseless killer,
but on the other hand, she's also very sentimental
and romantic and kind of sweet.
- We belong dead.
- That's not Chucky at all.
So it created a combustible relationship.
- Tiffany resurrects Chucky
but their reunion quickly turns sour.
- [screaming]
[screams]
- After a fatal lover's quarrel,
Tiffany's spirit is also trapped in plastic.
- You son of bitch! What have you done to me?
When she suddenly finds herself in a doll's body,
she's kind--she's mad.
I mean, but she doesn't fall into depression.
She gets out the hair dye
and the black nail polish and tries to approximate a look
that she is comfortable with.
- To regain human form, the couple needs to get across
the country to steal a magical amulet.
They hitch a ride with two unsuspecting teenage runaways.
- Oh, my God.
- A road trip that quickly turns into a bloodbath.
[horn blares]
- There is so much more gore
in this movie than the other films.
- It's a measure of how much respect Don has for you
if he kills you in a really horrible way.
- Now! - [gasps]
- Ah!
- Killing together helps Chucky and Tiffany
revive their love and lust.
- All couples have something that brings them together
in the first place.
In Chucky and Tiffany's case, of course,
it's murder and sex.
- Well, at least you haven't forgotten
how to show a girl a good time.
- So they have their honeymoon period
which climaxes in their big night in Niagara Falls.
- One of the bloodiest scenes in the movie
leads into one of the most strange and ridiculous scenes
in the whole film.
Which is when they're in the love motel.
And that couple's in the bed.
Tiffany has the champagne bottle
and throws it up into the mirror.
And it just shatters into hundreds of pieces
and impales them on the waterbed.
And blood and water explodes everywhere,
which then leads into...
a very bizarre sex scene.
- Oh.
- Which is so weird, but so fantastic.
But again, really weird.
[laughs]
- We were the first people to do doll sex.
After that, "South Park" did a movie where they had doll sex.
Our doll sex I thought was a little bit more charming.
- But like many love stories,
this one takes a tragic turn.
- She so wants to be loved by Chucky,
and does so much stuff for Chucky,
like cooking and making his favorite dish
and trying to make him happy.
And he does a thing where he's critical or puts her down.
And then every once in a while, she snaps.
- Those dishes aren't gonna wash themselves, you know.
- The Tiffany character is an abused woman.
You know, she's an abused spouse.
The movie's throwing in its sympathies
with the woman victim.
- [grunting]
- [screams]
- I feel like the "Bride of Chucky" is a romantic tragedy
because it's almost Romeo and Juliet.
It's almost like a love that was never meant to be.
I love you, Chucky.
We belong together, forever.
- And at the end,
she turns the tables on her abuser.
- [grunts] - [screams]
- We belong dead.
Goodbye, darling.
I'll see you in hell.
- [groans]
- Following up a hit is difficult.
[eerie music]
- [screams]
- Now imagine making a sequel
to an all-time horror classic.
- In 1960 Alfred Hitchcock directed
one of the most famous and influential films of all time,
"Psycho."
- We all go a little mad sometimes.
Haven't you?
- 23 years later came the sequel no one asked for.
[dramatic musical sting]
"Psycho II."
- By the '80s, Hitchcock was treated like some sort of
cinematic saint. - Mm-hmm.
- So the idea of remaking a Hitchcock film--
- The idea of sequelizing a Hitchcock icon was unthinkable.
- People talked about it like sacrilege.
- I'm sorry.
I didn't mean it to sound uncaring.
- What do you know about caring?
- But "Psycho 2" proved everyone wrong.
Richard Franklin, director of the Australian thriller
"Road Games," was convinced he could make a sequel
that paid tribute to the original
but was strong enough to stand on its own.
Franklin hired Tom Holland, another Hitchcock disciple,
to write the screenplay.
- I was desperate for a job,
and I thought, "Well, that's really the end of my career."
Because I--you just knew that the critics were gonna savage
you for having the temerity to do it.
- Holland and Franklin knew
that they couldn't give "Psycho" the sequel
it deserved without one essential element.
- The only way that we could do it
was to get Tony Perkins back as Norman Bates.
♪
Tony had felt that the Norman Bates was a curse.
And so he didn't want to do a sequel.
So I had to figure out how to write a script
that would be so terrific for the actor
that he'd have to do it.
And so it was how to give him a character arc,
how to make it into an acting piece.
And that's how I came up with,
well, you just ask logically, if it's 22 years later--
which is what the time had been since the original--
where would Norman have been?
- The film opens as Norman Bates is released
from a mental facility and returns home.
His doctor says he is cured.
Others have their doubts.
Norman's redemption is threatened
by a vengeful figure from his past, Lila Loomis.
The sister of the woman Norman killed in the shower.
Once again, Lila is played by Vera Miles.
- And when he murders again,
you will be directly responsible.
- I think we identify with Norman in a different way
in "Psycho 2" than we did in "Psycho 1."
"Psycho 2" is about, you know,
a misfit trying to find his way back to the world.
- Can I help you?
- I'm Norman. Norman Bates.
The new cook's helper.
- Norman gets a job at a diner and begins a relationship
with a sympathetic coworker, Mary, played by Meg Tilly.
They move in together.
- Is this room where you had your troubles?
- One of them, yeah.
- Well, I don't know what happened to you in the past,
Norman, but you're never gonna get over it.
Not unless you face it.
- Then he starts getting messages from Mother.
[tense music]
Is Norman back to his old ways,
or is someone trying to frame him?
- I'm becoming... confused again.
- You're rooting for Norman to keep it together.
You're rooting for Norman to be a--to be sane.
To be happy.
And now you don't want any of the horror stuff to happen.
- To stay true to Hitchcock's style
while updating it for 1983,
Richard Franklin hired cinematographer Dean Cundey,
then known for "Halloween" and "The Thing."
- Originally, we wanted to do it in black and white
so that it looked like the original.
But Universal was pretty adamant,
no black and white.
Richard was very, very specific about how he wanted to,
you know, make sure that visually our version
was a continuation.
Nothing unusual.
And to me, that was a great sort of challenge,
but fun thing to look at.
- The filmmakers also modernized the sequel
with graphic violence Hitchcock wouldn't have
been allowed to show in 1960.
- This is very post "Friday the 13," post "Halloween,"
so you do get some nods to that.
You get to Dennis Franz, for example,
getting his face slashed.
- [groans]
[eerie music]
- Which is kind of a full color version of what happens
to Martin Balsam in the original one, but you know,
to see it in color makes a big difference, obviously.
- "Psycho 2" ends with a series of twists
that would make Hitchcock proud.
- Why did you lie to that sheriff and say Bates
was with you this afternoon? - Mother.
- The Meg Tilly character is the daughter of Vera Miles.
They start to torture him and drive him mad.
And then Mary, who's wormed her way
into living in the house with Norman,
starts to feel sorry for Norman.
- I've been to all your meetings,
I've done everything you've asked me for years,
but I am not going to hurt Norman anymore.
- And she realizes that Norman really is a good person
at that moment and trying to hold on to his sanity.
- Norman, do you recognize me?
It's me, your mother.
- And eventually, it costs her life
because Norman has gone crazy.
- Let me help you. - You killed them all!
- Freeze!
[gunshot]
- Well, this is why the sequel doesn't suck
is because the ending makes sense.
Typically in good sequels, the rules of that movie
then change what happened in the first movie.
[tense music]
Here in "Psycho 2" you find out that Norman's mother
really wasn't his mother.
- So...
are you really my mother?
- That his real mother is still around.
- The woman you thought was your mother was my sister.
- And that she's the one that's been killing everybody,
punishing them for what they did to Norman,
putting him away.
And he whacks her over the head with a shovel.
And then he's back to being Norman Bates again.
[dramatic music]
He carries her up the stairs
and you hear that creepy voice again.
- I'm not sleepy.
Put me in my chair.
- Yes, Mother.
- So the arc of the movie
is really Norman losing his mind
a second time
and the irony is,
he ends up at the end of the movie as crazy as a loon
and nobody knows it.
It's a tragedy, in a way.
- Don't let them take me back to the institution.
- Anthony Perkins is even be-- as great as he is in "Psycho,"
I think he's even better in "Psycho 2."
I think it's one of the great lead performances
in any horror film ever made.
- You can't make me...
kill her.
- You don't know the effect that a film's gonna have.
I went to a dinner, oh, I don't know,
seven or eight years ago with all the big horror directors
and they voted "Psycho 2" the best horror sequel ever.
[dramatic music]
♪
[screaming]
- What do you call a sequel that ups the ante
on everything in the original
then gleefully tears it apart?
♪
"Gremlins 2: The New Batch."
- In 1984, the horror comedy "Gremlins"
was set loose on the world.
It was a critical and financial success.
Warner Brothers wanted a sequel.
Director Joe Dante did not.
- When I was offered the opportunity
to make a sequel to "Gremlins 1," I said no.
I'm sorry, I'm tired.
I just did this "Gremlins" movie.
We had to make it up on the fly.
We had to invent the technology.
I'm exhausted, I'm sick of Gremlins
I don't want to have anything to do with it, good luck.
- Six years later, they made Dante
an offer he could not refuse.
- They said, "We really want this picture
and we want it enough to let you do whatever you want."
So I have never gotten an offer like that before or since,
and I said "Okay."
[laughter]
- Dante and screenwriter Charles Haas
turn "Gremlins 2" into a monster movie
imbued with the establishment-baiting spirit
of classic Warner Brother's cartoons.
- You might as well just start the movie.
- Roll 'em.
- "Gremlins 2" seems like,
in the most glorious way possible,
um, a filmmaker biting the hand that feeds him.
[screaming] - Most sequels continue
the story by expanding on the original premise.
"Gremlins 2" took the premise and shredded it.
Are you a fan of "Gremlins 2: The New Batch"?
- I think Joe Dante became a director
so he could do "Gremlins 2."
♪
There always is a little bit of a "Mad Magazine" parody
of his own movie running in the margin
of a Joe Dante film.
And with "Gremlins 2," he was able to do a "Mad Magazine"
takeoff on the first "Gremlins" for the entire movie,
for the length of the movie.
- "Gremlins 2" trades the small town setting
of the first film
for a Manhattan office tower where returning stars
Phoebe Cates and Zach Galligan once again become entangled
with the loveable Mogwai, Gizmo.
- Cute, isn't it?
- Inevitably, Gizmo gets wet...
- [screaming]
Spawning a legion of evil gremlins who run riot
through a building that's a microcosm of American society
in the early 1990s.
- Now this week we have our special salute
to luncheon meat. - [laughs]
- Cultural satire goes hand in hand
with the satire of the movie itself.
- "Gremlins 2" is sort of a movie about how there didn't
need to be a sequel to "Gremlins."
I didn't expect that there would ever be a sequel to "Gremlins"
and much less that I would be making it.
Uh, so I decided to make a movie about sequels
and what are they worth.
- When they start goofing on every aspect
of the original premise, in the movie, in the sequel,
that was hysterical
about, like, "Hey, don't eat after midnight."
- Well, what if they're eating in an airplane
and they cross a time zone?
I mean, it's always midnight somewhere.
[laughs]
- Well, once Phoebe Cates started parodying
the Santa Claus story-- - That's grea--
the--the Phoebe Cates parodying the Santa Claus monologue.
- Something terrible happened to me
on year on Lincoln's birthday.
- I didn't know you were allowed to do that.
I was like, "Are you allowed to make fun of your own movie?"
- This man with this beard-- - Honey, um...
- And a hat, looked just like Abe Lincoln--
- Honey, I really don't-- - Except for the raincoat.
- It made fun of the first movie.
It made fun of the concept of sequels.
- This is worst than the first one.
- We just show these movies, madam.
We don't make them.
- It made fun of capitalism.
- I look at him, you know what I see?
Dolls with suction cups staring out car windows.
- Joe Dante just seemingly took everything he loved
and then used it to make fun of everything he hated.
- All the great horror movies are in black and white.
Mr. Clamp only likes color.
- It's got so many clever and original ideas.
Including having a film critic
give the first film a bad review again
in the second film before I'm killed by the Gremlins.
Whoa, wait a minute. I was just kidding, ow.
A ten, it's a--
- [guttural grunting]
[laughing]
- I'm sure some people in the audience are watching
that movie with their popcorn in their hand thinking,
"What is happening?"
- "Gremlins" 2 also topped the first film by bringing in
special effects maven Rick Baker to create a diverse
new group of monsters.
- It's eating my vegetable medley.
- [burps]
- Mutant products of gremlins running amok
in the genetics lab.
- There is a phenomenal Key and Peele sketch
about the pitching of "Gremlins 2"
that's so [bleep] funny.
- What if we did this?
Everybody here gets to design they own Gremlin.
- They weren't just like cute and fluffy and then green.
These were mutated Gremlins.
So you get spider Gremlins, flying Gremlins.
- [screeching]
You got talking Gremlins.
- Mind if I have a brief word with you?
- You got my favorite, you got the bougie Gremlins
with big red lips,
super incredible dress and wig.
And of course the flashing Gremlin with the sick glasses.
- [laughing]
- You got ever single Gremlin you could want in the movie.
- The madness builds until the spectacular finale
when the heroes manage to prevent a Gremlin apocalypse.
[electricity sparking]
- I'm melting! I'm melting.
- "Gremlins 2" just gets better every time you see it.
- "Gremlins 2," I think,
might possibly be the best sequel of all time.
- Probably "Gremlins 2" is my most personal movie.
Not in that it's personal to me, except that it's
my most unfiltered movie.
I had nobody looking over my shoulder,
telling me what to do,
and there's a lot of me in it.
- And to this day, there's never been a "Gremlins 3."
'Cause it feels like "Gremlins 2" scorched the earth.
- [groaning]
- Horror sequels give us a way to return to the worlds
that fascinated and frightened us the first time around.
We get to see our favorite characters back in action.
And we get more of everything.
More monsters. More scares.
- [screams]
- Bigger and crazier kills.
The best sequels give us what we want--
make the old seem new again.
♪