Horror fans are notoriously difficult to please, and they can be even more difficult to please twice in a row. Sequels in general receive a lot of criticism, but in the horror world they can be brutalized almost as much as one of the victims depicted in the actual films. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that horror fans are used to successful movies turning into long-running franchises, as in the eleven-movie long Friday the 13th franchise (nine movies if you choose to ignore Jason X and Freddy vs. Jason, which a lot of fans choose to do).

A lousy sequel draws particularly sharp barbs because fans know that a drop in quality can kill a franchise faster than Fuad Ramses can kill a sorority’s worth of blondes. The fan reaction, then, will either serve to push the series back onto the right track, or at least allow the “true fans” to declare that they were prescient enough to know when the series jumped the shark.

The system is not always fair, however. Sometimes, a decent sequel can be either roasted or overlooked completely by the fans. It may be that the movie is good enough on its own, but just doesn’t have what the fans wanted in a sequel. It might be that the sequel experiments with a new direction. Or it could just be that the first film set impossibly high expectations. Whatever the reasons may be, perhaps it is time to pull some of these unsung gems out of the bin and give them a second watch. Here are Sprocket’s picks for the top five underrated sequels to horror movies.

5. Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Halloween III: Season of the Witch falls into the category of sequels that did not have what the fans of the original were looking for. In this case, fans of the original were looking for Michael Myers, the relentless killing machine whose speechless, plodding rampages had fueled the first two installments in the series.’

Producer John Carpenter and the production staff of Season of the Witch made a gutsy move with this installment. Having told the story of Michael Myers as far as they saw fit, they opted not to bring the killer back, nor even to build directly off of the events of the first two movies. Instead, they took what they had originally thought of as a movie and its sequel and conceived a franchise built around it. Instead of building it around a character or a city, however, they envisioned a franchise built around a central theme – terrible, horrifying events that all just happen to occur on the night of Halloween.

All of this meant that when fans returned expecting their favorite ghostly-white killer, they instead were confronted with a blood- and slime-splattered tale of horror centering on a popular series of latex Halloween masks and the deadly secret of the company that manufactured them.

The central cast features strong performances, the production values are high, and the content is creepy. The danger this time around breaks a new boundary not usually approached by horror of the time as the main threat focuses primarily on young children instead of on teenagers or twenty-somethings. All of this is topped off with one of the truly classic endings in horror films that rivals the bleakness of even the grandfather of them all, Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

The decision to link the film so closely to the previous Halloween films rather than just trying to sell it as a follow-up was made for a good reason. The filmmakers feared that fans would be less likely to respond to “from the makers of” than they would to “a new chapter of.” Fans, however, were not amused. Despite positive reviews, Halloween III: Season of the Witch plummeted from the top box office slot shortly after its opening weekend and drew howls from fans of the original. To this day, many fans of the franchise scratch their heads and wonder why it ever got made.

For a horror fan with an open mind, however, Season of the Witch is a great creepshow feature and a solidly made film. For your underrated-movie appreciation night, it will make a great opening feature.

4. Land of the Dead

Largely overlooked in the hype surrounding the remake of Dawn of the Dead was George Romero’s own new addition to the Dead franchise. Land of the Dead marks the fourth official chapter of Romero’s own Dead movies. To say that this follow up to Romero’s classic trilogy was long-expected would be a vast overstatement. Very few people expected a fourth installment, nor was there a lot of call for it. When 2004 saw a remake of the second film of the trilogy (Dawn of the Dead), it was only natural that Romero would respond by doing things his own way yet again, but even so the movie-going public was neither clamoring for it nor optimistic.

Land of the Dead is set decades after the original trilogy, and the dead have advanced so far in that time that they now overrun most of the Earth. In a heavily-fortified city, the last survivors of humanity are bunkered, doing their best to survive. Mercenaries can be hired out who go into the area around the city hunting and gathering, and inside the city a sharp division exists between the poor and the rich. The wealthiest man in the city (played by Dennis Hopper with his usual mania) keeps the rich living in luxury far above the streets, while the poor amuse themselves by taking pictures with captive zombies or baiting the zombies with live animals.

While the remake’s production team was touting what they felt was the scary new element of their version (“These zombies are fast! Grr!”) Romero was returning to the social satire roots that were at the base of the original Night of the Living Dead, examining the division between those who live in poverty and those who live in luxury. Everything seems easy, the movie seems to say at times, when you can afford to pay people to do your dirty work.

Not only that, Romero reminds us of what made the slow, clumsy, plodding zombies of Night of the Living Dead scary in the first place. Their simple single-mindedness makes them push on toward their goal, no matter what the consequences. Their slow, shambling pace makes clear to everyone that when a person is caught by a zombie, it is nobody’s fault but their own. One has to screw up in order to be caught, and the reality of Romero’s Dead franchise is that everybody screws up eventually. The zombies may only finally, after decades, be able to operate simple machines, but humanity with all its knowledge can still screw up to the point that slow, shambling monstrosities that lack the basic ability to jump can still take them down.

2004’s remake of Dawn of the Dead features slick production values, grotesque splatter effects, and all the tragic hipness that can be packed into a modern horror flick. Romero’s Land of the Dead, however, has the most important element a Dead film can feature – the spirit of the original.

3. Jason X

Fans of the Friday the 13th franchise probably know the famous story that Jason X was never intended to be a real film. The idea was originally pitched as a joke – a seemingly ridiculous “Jason in Space” idea. New Line Cinema was eager to pick up on the idea, however, and the film was off and running before anybody realized what had happened.

Fans of the series tend to ignore the film – and for good reason. Jason X is very much removed from the spirit of all nine previous installments. It is a futuristic science fiction actioner in which a cryogenically frozen Jason is thawed out aboard a salvage ship peopled by androids and college archaeology students. While still violent, it lacks a lot of the savagery associated with the earlier films, instead focusing on a more action-friendly brand of beat-em-up fighting.

In fact, the film – modeled loosely on classic sci-fi thriller Alien – plays very much like a dark comedy with a healthy dose of slapstick. Jason is responsible for more deaths than in any other installment – 28 total – but they tend to be of a more ridiculous nature. A virtual visit to Camp Crystal Lake has Jason reenacting one of his more notorious kills, and a badass robot fights the killer hand-to-hand, making it a virtual wishlist of fanboy dreams. On top of that, the filmmakers packed the film with inside jokes. The character of Dallas is named after a character from Alien, several characters are named for the screenwriter’s friends on the MMORPG Everquest, and a reference is made to a gun called the BFG – familiar to most players of Doom.

What many of the people who see Jason X fail to notice, however, is that while it may not be good at being Friday the 13th, it is very good at being what it is. As comedy actioners go, the writing is refreshingly free of lame puns. When they do appear, they are delivered so skillfully and with such knowledge of how lame they are that they actually work for once. As odd as the situation seems, the film is superb at building tension. Ultimately, it succeeds in reinforcing the theme of its model, the Alien franchise, in that those who survive are those who keep their wits about them.

In the underrated sequel movie party, Jason X will provide some fast-paced fun. It does not match the other Friday the 13th films for scares, but it deserves a second look for its quick writing and clever action sequences.

2. Damien: Omen II

The Omen is a classic of horror cinema. A star performance by Gregory Peck, intense direction by Richard Donner, razor-sharp editing by Stuart Baird and a driving score by Jerry Goldsmith combined with a chilling David Seltzer screenplay to produce one of the most memorable horror films ever created. Naturally, anything that followed such a film would have a lot to live up to.

The follow-ups never quite managed to live up to the intensity of the original, but they remain some of the best overlooked horror films. The Final Conflict: Omen III is largely hampered by its adherence to the sequence of events laid out in the Book of Revelation, but Damien manages to hold on to some of uneasiness of the original as we encounter the possible Antichrist yet again, this time in his formative years. The thirteen year-old boy is attending a military academy where his knowledge of military history stuns his professors, and he shows amazing leadership skills for one so young.

Damien manages to walk the thin line that the original laid down, pushing the concept of Damien’s ultimate fate without ever truly crossing over into the realm of certainty. This time around, Don Taylor and Mike Hodges take the wheel as directors and Jerry Goldsmith provides the score. The lead goes to William Holden who turns in an excellent performance, but is ultimately outshone by Jonathan Scott-Taylor, whose chilling, aloof performance as the alleged-Antichrist-to-be forms the linchpin of this installment. At times, Damien is almost likable – only to turn distant and superior the next. The viewer is left to wonder at how charming someone so evil can truly be.

The reputation of The Omen’s sequels was further tarnished by a shambling, unkempt made-for-television installment (Omen IV: The Awakening) and an all-gloss-no-substance modernization (2006’s The Omen: 666 – suggesting we skipped 662 sequels, I guess). As a result, one of the stronger horror trilogies ever filmed is more remembered as one great film with horrible sequels. Damien and even The Final Conflict, however, are undeserving of the reputation, and as far as films go are only guilty of being strong, but not as strong as the original.

1. The Exorcist III: Legion

The history of the Exorcist series is filled with tension and strife. Director William Friedkin and creator William Peter Blatty clashed over some points of the original film, including how the film should end. The second film – the only one of the franchise apart from the original to turn a profit in its theatrical release – was made over the protests of Blatty, had to be heavily rewritten following the death of Lee J. Cobb (who played Lt. Kinderman in the original), and was ultimately laughed off the screen by the audience at one of the most notorious Hollywood openings ever. Not easing the tension for the second film was the fact that Warner Bros. ignored Blatty’s own literary sequel – Legion – in favor of a psychedelic mish-mash of modern psychology and pseudo-voodoo.

Considering the response to The Exorcist II: The Heretic, it seems odd that the producers would return to the series again – but return they did. This time, they decided to return to their roots, seeking to adapt Legion to the screen, Blatty took the opportunity to direct this installment in the series this time around. He originally intended it to be sold as its own film without the Exorcist name attached, but the studio demanded that he add it on. The film disappeared, thanks in no small part to the lingering bad feelings surrounding the second installment of the series. Fans of the original knew only that the first sequel hadn’t worked, so why should they trust the second? As a result, the more fitting follow-up to Friedkin and Blatty’s original fell by the wayside.

The film contains no reference to the events shown in Exorcist II: The Heretic. Instead, it builds on the end of the original The Exorcist. Lt. Kinderman – this time played by George C. Scott – is the center of attention this time as he investigates a series of brutal murders that fit into the pattern of a Zodiac-style serial killer. Luckily for Kinderman, he knows exactly who the killer is and where to find him. Unluckily for him, the killer has been dead for almost fifteen years – making it difficult to explain the latest wave of killings.

Exorcist III: Legion features star performances from its cast, including not only Scott, but also Jason Miller, who reprises his role as Father Damian Karras from the original, and Brad Dourif, who is better known to horror fans as the voice of both the Cryptkeeper and the killer toy Chucky from the Child’s Play series. With no irony and no dependence on lurid special effects, rookie director Blatty creates a subtle, disturbing psychological thriller that can almost blot out the memory of The Exorcist II: The Heretic. The second film and the two prequels are strictly take-it-or-leave-it fare, but The Exorcist III: Legion – while not quite matching the sheer style of the original – is a strong enough entry that it deserves a place among the better sequels of cinematic history.