C.C.C. Issue #7: Top Five Unknown Movie Sequels

C.C.C. Issue #7: Top Five Movie Sequels you've never heard of

This issue is something of a sequel to last week's. Before, I was counting down the ten movie sequels I think are as good, if not better than, the first. This week, I will be examining five sequels that have gone under most people's radar (including my own), or faded from memory as the year's have passed. I have ranked them both on how good or bad the sequels are, and how well known they are, both compared to the original films and to one another. Next week I might  switch it up and look at the more negative side of things, in a top ten worst movies countdown, or I will take a look at some TV. I haven't decided yet, but make sure to check it out!

Top 5 Movie Sequels you’ve never heard of

Criteria: Must not have been as successful as original, and be a sequel to a movie at least relatively well known.

5. Ace Ventura Jr. Pet Detective (2009). Sequel to: Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995). 

This sequel/prequel you may or may not have heard of. Ace Ventura is a Jim Carrey cult classic, definitely one of the funniest movies of 1994. Love it or hate it, the sequel which followed the next year, When Nature Calls, didn’t live up to the first one’s originality or hilarity. However, it was still miles better than this direct to DVD threequel, which follows the misadventures of Ventura’s son trying to save his mother from going to jail. Met with an enormously negative response from critics and viewers, the only way I found out about this one was by looking at the Ace Ventura box set. It contained 1 and 2, the animated series, and an advertisement on the box for Jr. Needless to say, I don’t own this abysmal and nearly unknown TV film. 

4. The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999). Sequel to: Carrie (1976)

I found this pointless sequel in a five dollar bin at a used bookstore—weird place, I know. Well, it’s the only other place I’ve seen it other than amazon.com. And let me tell you, the reviews for it on amazon suck. Brian de Palma’s Carrie was an effective adaptation of Stephen King’s first novel, and the remake didn’t receive the overwhelmingly negative response I had expected. This sequel to the original opened at second place back in spring 1999, and only made under 18 million dollars in total at the box office. Compared to its estimated 21 million dollar budget, that made it a pretty big flop. Indeed it was, both financially and critically. No one remembers this film, no one really knows about this film, and it doesn’t deserve to be remembered.

3. The Birds II: Land’s End (1994). Sequel to: The Birds (1963)

Remember the Alfred Hitchcock classic about killer birds? No, not Psycho, not Vertigo, The Birds! I was surprised to find out this had a sequel, not because a sequel to this well known classic seemed unlikely, but because I had never heard of it. As it turns out, this sequel was a made for TV sequel...and it’s considered an unrelated sequel. How can a movie called The Birds II not be a direct sequel to The Birds? Well, apart from featuring attacking fowl, that is correct.  Major negative reviews here as well (beginning to see the pattern?) and it even featured Tippi Hedren—who was in the original—but as a different character! That makes less sense than the title. Ah, who cares, this movie is for the birds anyways. 

2. Return to Oz (1985). Sequel to: The Wizard of Oz (1939)
 

This sequel represents the longest span of time between a film’s release and its sequel’s release. Coming out a whopping 46 years after Dorothy went off to see the wizard, this film chronicles her return to the world of Oz and the discovery that it is destroyed, leading her to try and save the world with new found friends. Dorothy is played by Fairuza Balk, who had never been in a film before this. Unlike the previous three films on this list, this one received only mixed reviews, and has since gone on to garner a cult following, despite having performed poorly at the box office upon initial release. Obviously many people have heard of The Wizard of Oz, and younger audiences are beginning to learn about it thanks to Sam Raimi’s prequel Oz: the Great and Powerful. But I had never heard of this sequel until only recently. And I still haven’t seen it! It may have been acknowledged upon release, but I think a lot of people nowadays have forgotten this Disney flop, or don’t know about it at all. 

1. The Son of Kong (1933). Sequel to: King Kong (1933)

Everyone knows King Kong. No one knows the sequel. Let me start at the beginning. First was the 1933 black and white classic, which featured Willis O’Brien’s world famous giant ape battling stop motion dinosaurs on Skull Island and scaling a model Empire State Building on Madison Avenue. It was remade in 1976—with a couple cheesy Toho installments in between—but that remake paled in comparison to the original. An atrocious 1986 sequel was made called King Kong Lives, and finally a proper, epic, well made remake came out in 2005, from Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson. But wait, forgetting anything? That’s right, a direct sequel to 1933’s King Kong was made and released the same year, this one about a return expedition to Skull Island and the discovery of Kong’s son, whom they nickname Little Kong. I haven’t seen the whole film myself, but am well aware of its existence. It seems like no one knows this movie exists, which is ironic, because it is probably the best of all five of these sequels. That is why it’s number 1: it is an unknown sequel to one of the best known pieces of classic cinema.