10 Horrendous Movie Sequels No One Wanted
Let's be honest here, not all sequels are made equal.
Some build on the original and bring something fresh to the table. Others, well, let's just say they take the table, flip it, and then set it on fire. Here are 10 movie sequels (or should we say – attempted cash-grabs?) so bad, they might just make you question your love for the original.
1. Jaws: The Revenge (1987)
You'd think after three movies, they'd stop messing around with sharks. In this baffling installment, the shark is apparently out for revenge against the Brody family – because, you know, sharks hold grudges? Ellen Brody, now a widow, is convinced the shark is stalking her family. Her son is eaten, so she heads to the Bahamas, because sharks can't go to warm waters, right? Wrong. The shark follows her. Ellen hops on a boat to kill it, because at this point, why not? Honestly, it's a fishy mess that leaves audiences groaning.
2. Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997)
Remember that adrenaline-pumping movie with Keanu Reeves and a bus? Yeah, forget that. In Speed 2, there's no Keanu, and we're not on a bus anymore. Sandra Bullock returns, but this time she's on a cruise ship with a new boyfriend. A computer hacker takes control of the ship and aims it at an oil tanker. High-speed chase on the open water? Nope. The boat crawls toward disaster, and the passengers try to take back control.
3. Batman & Robin (1997)
Gone are the days of Tim Burton's dark and moody Batman. Instead, we get neon lights, rubber nipples on the Batsuits, and some of the most cringe-worthy one-liners ever. Batman and Robin, played by George Clooney and Chris O'Donnell, must stop Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy from freezing Gotham and overgrowing it with mutant plants.
The duo gets help from Batgirl, and they all wear skates to fight Mr. Freeze's henchmen. Yep, skates. As for the box office, it managed $238 million globally, but it was so critically panned that it killed the Batman franchise until Christopher Nolan resuscitated it.
4. The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
After the mind-blowing original and an okay-ish second part, what we got was this hot mess. Neo is stuck in a train station between the Matrix and the real world. Meanwhile, humans are defending Zion from a machine invasion. Neo decides he needs to go to the Machine City to negotiate with the machine's main interface. He does this while battling Agent Smith, who is multiplying like a virus. There's a lot of philosophical mumbo-jumbo, but none of it saves the movie from feeling like a letdown.
5. Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000)
What made the original Blair Witch Project compelling was its faux-documentary style and reliance on psychological horror. The sequel tosses all that out the window. A group of tourists arrives in Burkittsville, Maryland, to explore the Black Hills where the original movie was filmed. They set up cameras in the ruins of a factory and black out for 5 hours. When they wake up, their research is shredded, and they find a tape buried in the ground. The movie then turns into a sequence of gruesome murders and weird hallucinations, utterly failing to capture the essence of the original.
6. Son of the Mask (2005)
Remember the hilarity and weirdness of Jim Carrey in The Mask? Well, forget all that, because this sequel doesn't even feature him. This time, it's Jamie Kennedy donning the Mask of Loki. He's an aspiring cartoonist who becomes a human cartoon when he puts on the mask. Then his dog finds it, and then his baby wears it. Yep, a baby with Mask powers. It's a convoluted, terrifying mess of CGI and forced comedy. The movie was a box office bomb, grossing only $57 million against a $100 million budget.
7. Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
You would think a sequel to one of the scariest movies ever made would be, well, scary. Nope. In this one, Regan, the girl who was possessed in the first film, is now living in NYC and undergoing psychiatric treatment. A priest played by Richard Burton tries to understand the demon that possessed her by using a synchronizer – a device that links people's minds. Instead of frights, we get a journey into locust psychology and some really odd dance sequences. Truly blasphemous to the original.
8. Grease 2 (1982)
Swap John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John for Maxwell Caulfield and Michelle Pfeiffer, and what do you get? A sequel that nobody asked for. The plot essentially mirrors the first movie but flips the gender roles. This time, it's the guy, an English student, who tries to change to win the heart of the coolest girl in school. They break into song about reproduction and motorcycles, but none of it has the magic of the original.
9. Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (2003)
Did anyone wonder what Harry and Lloyd were like in high school? Me neither, but this prequel-sequel decided to show us anyway. Without Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels, the characters are flat caricatures. They meet in high school and get involved in a special needs class scam run by the principal. There are plenty of stupid antics, including a subplot involving a treasure hunt for a hidden lunchbox, but none of it is genuinely funny. The whole thing feels like a cash grab riding on the original's coattails.
10. Basic Instinct 2 (2006)
Fourteen years after the original, Sharon Stone returns as Catherine Tramell, the seductive crime novelist. This time she's in London, and once again, she's a suspect in a gruesome murder. A criminal psychologist gets entangled in her web as he tries to evaluate her. While the first movie was provocative and thrilling, the sequel is basically a series of ridiculous sex scenes and dialogue that makes you cringe harder than a teenager watching a love scene with their parents.