The first true feature-length movie sequel is widely considered by film historians to be 1916’s The Fall of a Nation, a follow-up to the hyper-controversial D. W. Griffith classic The Birth of a Nation. However, it wasn’t until around the 1970s, driven by the rise of blockbuster filmmaking following the release of Steven Spielberg‘s Jaws in 1975, that sequels really started to become a widespread commercial trend in the movie industry.
But while many of the greatest feature films in history have been sequels, cinephiles tend to agree that it’s not exactly common for a sequel to live up to its predecessor. It’s one thing for a sequel to be disappointing, however, and a wholly different thing for it to be an absolutely atrocious movie. Indeed, for every Godfather Part II or Return of the King, the world is subjected to at least a few sequels worthy of being counted among the worst films ever made.
10
‘Staying Alive’ (1983)
Directed by John Badham, 1977’s Saturday Night Fever was a major critical and commercial success, popularizing disco music around the world and launching John Travolta into true international superstardom. The film was such a hit that a sequel soon made itself inevitable. Alas, that ended up being one of the most slapped-together sequels in film history, Sylvester Stallone‘s Staying Alive.
Staying Alive stripped away all of the gritty social realism and weighty dark tone that made Saturday Night Fever such a success.
With a well-earned 0% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, Staying Alive stripped away all of the gritty social realism and weighty dark tone that made Saturday Night Fever such a success, instead delivering a follow-up so sanitized and clichéd that it ends up feeling immensely bland. With the lack of any good music and Stallone’s direction completely misunderstanding what made the original film work, it’s no wonder Staying Alive turned out as poorly as it did.
9
‘Highlander II: The Quickening’ (1991)
Image via InterStar
Back in 1986, Russell Mulcahy‘s Highlander was an unfortunate commercial failure and received somewhat mixed reviews, but a home video release allowed the film to become one of the biggest cult classics of the ’80s. With that sleeper-hit cult success and a desire to expand the world of the movie came plans to make sequel, which tragically ended up manifesting in the form of Highlander II: The Quickening.
It’s easily one of the worst movie sequels with the most terrible writing. Fans of the original hate it because it dismantles, contradicts, and actively retcons the lore of Highlander, while regular movie-watchers who encounter the terrible fate of experiencing Highlander II hate its nonsensical plot, its uneven tone, and its B-grade absurdity.
8
‘BloodRayne 2: Deliverance’ (2007)
No conversation about terrible cinema can ever be complete without at least a mention of Uwe Boll, generally considered one of the worst filmmakers in the history of cinema. His first movie adaptation of the BloodRayne video game franchise was already bad enough, featuring Ben Kingsley delivering one of the worst phoned-in performances ever delivered by a great actor, but the direct-to-DVD sequel Bloodrayne 2: Deliverance somehow managed to be even worse.
It’s some strange kind of vampire-Western hybrid that feels every bit as cheap as you’d expect from a straight-to-video Uwe Boll film, and then some. A recast lead, flimsy cardboard sets, entirely lifeless fight choreography, and a disregard for the video games that would be insulting if it weren’t so unsurprising, all make BloodRayne 2 more painfully boring than it is insultingly awful.
7
‘Home Alone 4’ (2002)
After the tremendous success of Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, it became all the more of a tragedy just how terrible Home Alone 3 was. However, no one could have possibly been ready for the made-for-television disasterpiece that is Home Alone 4. The first film in the series without any contributions from John Hughes, the creator of the franchise, it’s one of the worst family movies in film history.
Home Alone 4 commits the cardinal sin that, not coincidentally, many of the worst sequels in film history commit: bringing back the original characters without any of the actual heart, logic, nostalgia, or cast members of the original. The result is a complete destruction of everything that makes the first two Home Alone movies true Christmas classics, including a bastardized version of Kevin McCallister that comes across not as a charismatic yet mischievous boy, but more of a brat with a grating personality.
6
‘I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer’ (2006)
The original slasher I Know What You Did Last Summer by Jim Gillespie has never exactly been the most highly-praised of teen slashers, but it had more than enough charm to become a cult classic and helped revitalize the genre alongside Scream. On the other hand, its sequel, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, is one of the worst horror movies ever made. However, the straight-to-video threequel I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer is on a tier of awfulness all of its own.
It’s the absolute bottom of the barrel of the slasher genre of horror, abandoning almost everything that gave the franchise its identity. There’s zero connection to the original cast or characters, the story is ludicrous at best, and the visuals and editing that characterized many of the worst straight-to-video movies of the 2000s are particularly egregious here.
5
‘Son of the Mask’ (2005)
On top of helping further enshrine Jim Carrey as one of the biggest comedic stars of ’90s cinema, The Mask has stood the test of time as one of the greatest comic book movies of the 20th century. After the original plans for a sequel fell through when Carrey rejected to reprise his role, however, what we got instead was Son of the Mask. Alas, the whole thing is an affront to the Seventh Art itself.
The reasons why Son of the Mask is one of the worst family movies of the 2000s are almost too many to count. It’s not just Carrey’s absence that hurts the experience: this soulless sequel takes the cartoonish charm and energy of the original and transforms it into a nightmare of bad visual effects and unfunny jokes. It’s too unsettling and crude for children, yet too infantile for any self-respecting adult to enjoy.
4
‘Jaws: The Revenge’ (1987)
Steven Spielberg’s Jaws completely revolutionized not only horror thrillers, but Hollywood cinema as a whole. As soon as the concept of blockbuster filmmaking came around, the industry was never the same again. With it, however, came the unintended consequence of cash-grab sequels like Jaws: The Revenge, easily one of the worst horror movies in film history.
As mediocre as Jaws 2 is and as terrible as Jaws 3-D is, nothing compares to Jaws: The Revenge, an entirely nonsensical and absurdly silly piece of survival horror that’s best left unwatched. While many logic-defying sequels throughout history have endured as so-bad-they’re-good classics, Jaws: The Revenge doesn’t even have the decency to be anything more than dull and boring.
3
‘Megamind vs. the Doom Syndicate’ (2024)
The original Megamind was a reasonable critical and financial success for DreamWorks, but it wouldn’t be until the film started to gain a cult following in subsequent years that the studio realized the potential of a follow-up. Thus came the idea for Megamind vs. the Doom Syndicate to serve as a pilot film for Peacock’s Megamind Rules!, but much to fans’ chagrin, it ended up being one of the worst animated movies of all time.
It’s not just the disrespect of the film being little more than a glorified extended episode of the show, nor is it just the fact that it was so cheaply produced that it’s visually repulsive at best. It’s the complete erasure of the original voice cast, the insulting contradictions of pre-established lore, the childish humor that should appeal to no one over the age of five, and the absolutely bizarre character choices.
2
‘365 Days: This Day’ (2022)
Upon release, the Polish erotic thriller 365 Days enshrined itself as perhaps the single worst erotic thriller of the 21st century. Its threequel, The Next 365 Days, is somehow even worse. But it’s the middle chapter in the trilogy, 365 Days: This Day, that has the strongest claim to the title of “worst romantic movie in film history.” It’s an absolute disaster in virtually every single way that an erotic drama can be.
While the original film is bad enough for how it romanticizes Stockholm syndrome, kidnapping, and sexual abuse, This Day makes the premise endlessly worse both ethically and narratively. There is practically no plot, the whole movie consisting of nothing but poorly-shot soft-core sex scenes to the beat of overused licensed pop songs.
1
‘Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2’ (2004)
Though critics hated Bob Clark‘s Baby Geniuses, the film was a financial success. As such, a sequel was inevitable. When it came out, though, Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 was not only universally panned by critics, it also failed to make back even half of its budget and has long been remembered by many as the single worst sequel in the history of cinema.
Indeed, Baby Geniuses 2 is one of those movies that are terrible from start to finish, an absolute disaster whose 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes is arguably a bit too generous. The CGI for the babies’ lip-syncing lends the film a horrifying uncanny valley quality, the plot makes next to no sense, and the humor is so agonizingly unfunny that even toddlers should find it a bit too infantile for their taste.
Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2
- Release Date
-
August 27, 2004
- Runtime
-
88 Minutes
- Director
-
Bob Clark
- Writers
-
Robert Grasmere, Francisca Matos, Steven Paul
