Developing a sequel to a great movie is always difficult. But for every time Hollywood rises to the occasion and gives us an exemplary sequel like The Godfather Part II, Spider-Man 2, Aliens, or Paddington 2, there are just as many times when they completely drop the ball. And sometimes, they don’t just drop it—they smash it right into the f***ing ground.
So let’s break down some of the terrible sequels that followed in the footsteps of great movies. The kind that makes you wish everyone involved had just quit while they were ahead.
For this list, I’m sticking strictly with direct sequels that were released in theaters, so you won’t find anything like Jaws: The Revenge or American Psycho II sneaking in here.
Speed is one of the great high-concept action movies because it understands the beauty of simplicity. There’s a bomb on a bus, and if the bus drops below 50 miles per hour, it explodes. That’s basically all you need. Keanu Reeves is perfectly cast as Jack Traven, Sandra Bullock became a star as the enormously likable Annie, and Dennis Hopper gives the movie a memorable villain who always seems one step ahead. Even when the action eventually leaves the bus, Speed keeps moving. It is lean, exciting, charming, and exactly as long as it needs to be.
As the film was a huge success, the studio naturally wanted a sequel. Bullock returned for Speed 2: Cruise Control, but Reeves chose not to, which immediately robbed the sequel of the chemistry between their characters. And then there is the central gimmick. A runaway bus tearing through Los Angeles at 50 miles per hour creates instant tension; a luxury cruise ship slowly heading toward disaster does not exactly have the same urgency. I will say that Willem Dafoe tries his best as the villain, and the massive practical destruction in the finale is undeniably impressive, but it can’t hope to live up to the original.
Every so often, I think of Jim Carrey in 1994 and the ridiculously amazing run of movies he had. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Dumb and Dumber, and The Mask. All released in the same year! Incredible.
The Mask is fantastic, and it’s easy to see how it helped Carrey become a superstar. As timid bank clerk Stanley Ipkiss, Carrey gets to play both the put-upon straight man and, once the magical mask goes on, a human cartoon with seemingly limitless powers. Director Chuck Russell wisely builds the entire movie around Carrey’s energy while mixing Tex Avery-style animation with then-cutting-edge visual effects. Cameron Diaz makes an unforgettable film debut (that red dress was something else), and Peter Greene gives the story a suitably nasty villain. It is silly, stylish, and endlessly quotable.
Each of Carrey’s 1994 movies have received sequels, and although I seriously considered Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd, I’ve got to go with Son of the Mask. It might be one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. No Carrey. No Diaz. And not much of anything audiences liked about the original. Jamie Kennedy stars as aspiring cartoonist Tim Avery, whose infant son gains the mask’s powers, leading to an endless barrage of aggressively over-the-top CGI gags. It’s a shrill, hyperactive family comedy with almost none of the charm or mischievous edge of its predecessor.
The Exorcist isn’t just one of my favourite horror movies, it’s one of my favourite movies, period. With incredible performances from Ellen Burstyn, Jason Miller, Max von Sydow, and, of course, Linda Blair as the possessed Regan, it still feels unnervingly impactful and frightening more than half a century later.
As great as The Exorcist is, the one thing it has never been great at is… sequels, and Exorcist II: The Heretic might be the worst of the bunch. It’s so bizarre that it almost feels like somebody deliberately set out to make the exact opposite of the original movie. Instead of expanding the mythology of The Exorcist, it buries it beneath a mountain of New Age weirdness. The original made demonic possession feel terrifyingly plausible; The Heretic somehow made it feel silly.
As awful as The Heretic might be, at least it has some entertainment value, so perhaps the honour of being the worst sequel should belong to The Exorcist: Believer.
Caddyshack may not have much resemblance to a traditional plot, but that’s part of its appeal. It really just throws a remarkable collection of comic personalities onto a golf course and lets them bounce off one another. Chevy Chase as Ty Webb, Rodney Dangerfield as Al Czervik, Ted Knight as Judge Smails, and Bill Murray as Carl Spackler, a deranged groundskeeper who spends the film hunting a gopher. It doesn’t work for everyone, but the film captures a particular kind of comedy that would be almost impossible to recreate.
But eight years later, Caddyshack II tried anyway, with almost none of what made the original special. Chevy Chase is the only major star to return, and even he feels stranded. The class warfare, country-club snobbery, and gopher antics are all still there in one form or another, but now they feel like ingredients being checked off a list. The PG rating also chips away much of the irreverence that defined Caddyshack in the first place.
That’s ultimately the biggest problem. Caddyshack had a messy, anything-goes chemistry that became its greatest strength. Caddyshack II feels like it was made by somebody who didn’t understand why the first movie was funny and never stopped to figure it out.
Highlander is just so much fun. On paper, it sounds completely ridiculous: immortal warriors have been battling throughout history until only a few remain, at which point they must decapitate one another to claim “the Prize.” Yet it all works beautifully. Christopher Lambert gives Connor MacLeod an appealing melancholy, Sean Connery is enormously charming as his mentor Ramirez, and Clancy Brown’s Kurgan remains one of the great larger-than-life villains of the 1980s.
And then came Highlander II: The Quickening, which proceeded to take that mythology and drive it straight off a cliff. The immortals, whose mysterious origins were part of the first movie’s appeal, are suddenly explained as beings from another planet — or another dimension, depending on which cut you happen to be watching. Connor is now an elderly man living beneath an artificial shield that protects Earth from radiation; Ramirez is inexplicably resurrected; and the elegant fantasy mythology of the original becomes a science-fiction mess. It’s almost impressive how quickly the sequel manages to make everything that seemed cool and mysterious about Highlander feel completely ridiculous.
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Now it’s your turn. Head to the comments and let us know which sequel to a great movie disappointed you the most.