Movie sequels have the potential to both improve and expand upon their original films. Some of the all-time best sequels, such as The Empire Strikes Back, Aliens, The Dark Knight, and The Godfather: Part II, took a core concept and enhanced it by introducing more complex themes. A good sequel feels satisfying, but a great one feels necessary.

There’s nothing Hollywood loves more than a sequel, even if they’re nothing more than shameless cash grabs that fail to expand the original’s lore. However, some sequels fall into a different category; because of how much they change and how out-of-the-blue they seem, they’re more « weird » than either « good » or « bad. » These are ten of the weirdest movie sequels ever, bizarre experiments that come across as harrowing when compared with what came before.

10 ‘The Suicide Squad’ (2021)

Director: James Gunn

The DCEU is an extremely odd franchise that has jumped between various tonal extremes. However, the series’ most radical shift was between the two installments in the Suicide Squad series. While David Ayer‘s 2016 film was a complete mess that felt both too gritty and too silly all at once, James Gunn‘s nontraditional 2021 sequel, The Suicide Squad, subverted expectations in the best of ways.

Still, The Suicide Squad makes for an unusual way to continue a franchise; while it retains fan-favorite characters like Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) and Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), it also introduces new leads, including Dobert DuBois (Idris Elba) and Christopher Smith (John Cena). The result is a sequel/reboot that feels out of place despite its many achievements. A shame because Gunn’s anarchic sense of humor and surprisingly potent satire of American interventionism produced a truly witty and surprisingly heartfelt into a mostly mediocre cinematic universe.

The Suicide Squad

Release Date

July 28, 2021

Runtime

132

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9 ‘Gremlins 2: The New Batch’ (1990)

Director: Joe Dante

Joe Dante‘s 1984 classic Gremlins was an extremely strange entity that almost seemed like it slipped through the system. With its inventive mix of comedy, horror, action, and holiday cheerfulness, Gremlins didn’t belong to any one genre or appeal to just one select audience. While it’s impressive that Dante was able to make such an inventive project on his first try, his 1990 sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, took the series in an even weirder direction.

With celebrity cameos, corporate villains, and an anarchic series of sight gags that only heighten in ridiculousness as the film continues, Gremlins 2: The New Batch is an unfiltered satire of excess. Any of the sincerity that the first film contained is absent within an ironic commentary on the state of the film industry, paving the way for the meta-humor that would dominate the 21st century. The New Batch also introduced Greta, the Female Gremlin, a horror icon that has stood the test of time.

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8 ‘Exorcist II: Heretic’ (1977)

Director: John Boorman

William Friedkin‘s The Exorcist is probably the greatest horror movie of all time. A significant reason behind its success was Friedkin’s realistic approach to the material, which made the film feel quasi-documentarian. It would be an understatement to say that director John Boorman took a vastly different approach with his 1977 sequel Exorcist II: The Heretic. The second installment in the horror series takes it in a bizarre direction to incorporate locusts, African tribal rituals, and surrealist imagery; it’s so utterly strange that it doesn’t even feel like the same franchise.

The Exorcist II: The Heretic may have been a critical disaster, but it succeeded enough to generate a recurring franchise based on the 1973 original. In this way, perhaps The Heretic deserves more credit; it had the bravery to take the series in a radical new direction instead of simply reiterating what came before. And while its efforts were largely unsuccessful, it gets an A for effort.

Exorcist II: The Heretic

Release Date

June 17, 1977

Cast

Linda Blair , Richard Burton , Louise Fletcher , Max Von Sydow , Kitty Winn

Runtime

117 minutes

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7 ‘Moonranker’ (1979)

Director: Lewis Gilbert

In the wake of the success of Star Wars, Hollywood was desperate to make science fiction films that could capitalize on the film’s blockbuster success. Thus, the James Bond producers decided to adapt Ian Fleming‘s novel Moonraker, in which 007 (Roger Moore) struggles to protect mysterious outer space technology from SPECTRE. While the novel keeps Bond Earth-bound, the 1979 film adaptation brings the character to outer space for a ridiculous battle on a floating space station.

Since this is a 007 movie, the events lead to the franchise’s first (and only) outer space sex scene, an idea that is even wilder on screen than it sounds. While every installment in the Bond franchise has a certain element of ridiculousness, Moonraker steered the Moore era of James Bond off the deep end, fully embracing the camp elements that had been only implicit thus far. The film was not well received, and the franchise would later reinvent itself once Timothy Dalton took over. However, Moonraker will always remain one of Bond’s most bizarre outings.

Moonraker

Release Date

June 26, 1979

Cast

Roger Moore , Lois Chiles , Michael Lonsdale , Richard Kiel , Corinne Clery , Bernard Lee

Runtime

126

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6 ‘Superman III’ (1983)

Director: Richard Lester

Director Richard Lester famously replaced Richard Donner in the original production of 1981’s Superman II and added a level of comedy to the otherwise serious superhero sequel. Lester maintained a similar yet even more outlandish tone with his 1983 sequel, Superman III. The third film in the series tells a relatively straightforward, earnest story about Clark Kent (Christopher Reeve) returning to Smallville, as well as a completely inconsequential storyline featuring Richard Pryor.

The segment involving Pryor is so unrelated to anything in the DC universe that it feels like it was stolen from an entirely different movie. Superman III contains visual sight gags and slapstick humor that feels closer in line with 1980s comedies than anything resembling its predecessors; it represents a more innocent era where comic book films were not treated as seriously. Ironically, the lack of legitimate stakes in Superman III is reflective of Clark’s humble origins and serves as a more earnest representation of the character than some of the darker installments in the series.

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5 ‘Big Top Pee Wee’ (1988)

Director: Randal Kleisner

Paul Reubens created an all-time comedy classic with Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, but the sequel didn’t benefit from Tim Burton‘s steady direction. Big Top Pee-Wee took Reubens’ most iconic character on an adventure to save a small traveling circus act from disbanding. The first film had the virtue of setting Pee-Wee loose in the big city, where he could interact with various iconic places and different people.

However, his barnyard antics were far less pleasant to watch for 90 minutes; as it turns out, there aren’t many original farm jokes out there, even for Pee-Wee. Big-Top Pee-Wee is guilty of over-indulging in the earnestness that the first film was lampooning. It no longer feels satirical but rather clumsy and bizarre. While the lack of self-awareness makes the film a major step down in terms of quality, Reubens is still so perfect in his most iconic role that Big-Top Pee-Wee can still be enjoyed as an entertaining and delightfully weird romp.

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4 ‘Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan’ (1989)

Director: Rob Hedden

To be fair, the Friday the 13th series has always had a fairly bizarre set of logical rules. By the time it reached its eighth installment, Jason had already died and been resurrected several times before battling a powerful psychic in Friday the 13th Part VII: New Blood. Alas, its follow-up, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, promises more than it can deliver. Jason spends most of the film picking off the most unlikable set of teenagers ever before letting loose in the Big Apple for the final few minutes.

Friday the 13th: Part VIII- Jason Takes Manhattan took the franchise beyond its original scope, revealing how ridiculous it could get. Thrusting Jason into any recognizable version of reality was a bold move, especially because he might just fit in the Big Apple’s crowded streets, hockey mask and all. The film’s biggest mistake is limiting Jason’s time in Manhattan to mere minutes in the third act. And while it’s far from a great movie, there’s plenty to enjoy in this misguided effort.

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3 ‘Star Trek V: The Final Frontier’ (1990)

Director: William Shatner

Leonard Nimoy proved with Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home that cast members from the franchise could indeed leap into writing and directing. Unfortunately, Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner, lacked the creative abilities of his co-star, as evident from his directorial debut. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier took the crew of the Enterprise on a quest to find their creator and asked the question, « What does God want with a starship? » This all comes after a prolonged sequence involving Kirk and Spocks’ vacation, where the good captain attempts to teach his science officer how to sing at campfires.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is a strange mix of themes that is simultaneously too silly and too ambitious. While the slapstick comedy feels like a complete misreading of the merits of the Star Trek franchise, the attempts at analyzing religious fanaticism feel stolen from a more focused movie. Nevertheless, The Final Frontier is worth watching for any Star Trek fan interested in the extent of Shatner’s ego.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

Release Date

June 9, 1989

Runtime

107 minutes

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2 ‘Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning’ (2012)

Director: John Hyams

Roland Emmerich‘s Universal Soldier is an illogical science fiction sequel, but the series took on an entirely different approach when director John Hyams took over the series with 2009’s Universal Soldier: Regeneration. The direct-to-VOD sequel turned the franchise into a grounded action series, and 2012’s Day of Reckoning pushed the series into even more experimental territory and turned it into a surrealist horror film.

If Universal Soldier felt like a cheap rehash of The Terminator series, then Day of Reckoning felt like a B-movie amalgamation of Apocalypse Now, Funny Games, and the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky. The shift in tone may have been jarring for anyone expecting a standard sci-fi action-adventure story, but Day of Reckoning works because of how seemingly contradictory the two films are in terms of tone. The use of ultra-violence and commentary on toxic masculinity in Day of Reckoning wouldn’t have been nearly as effective if it hadn’t been preceded by a blockbuster as generic as Universal Soldier.

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1 ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ (2018)

Director: J. A. Bayona

The Jurassic Park franchise was already out of ideas by the time it reached its fifth installment, as Colin Trevorrow‘s 2015 sequel Jurassic World had done nothing but essentially remake the first film in the series. However, director J.A. Bayona had a slightly different take with his 2018 sequel Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. The film begins as a fairly standard continuation of its predecessor before transforming into a bizarre Roger Corman-esque haunted house story that sets dinosaurs loose in a mysterious mansion that belongs to an exotic billionaire (Toby Jones).

Jurassic Park rose to the peak of summer blockbuster entertainment thanks to the genius of Steven Spielberg. However, each sequel provided a different level of disappointment, taking what once worked and reducing it to its bare minimum. Fallen Kingdom’s decision to turn the series into a campy B-movie at least managed to take it in a new direction, embracing the series’ inherent horror elements to deliver a refreshing entry into a franchise that had largely over-extended its welcome.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)

Run Time

128 mins

Release Date

June 22, 2018

Actors

Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard

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NEXT: 10 Movies That the Audience Didn’t Know Were Sequels