Living in a Horror Sequel

Anthony: Don’t worry. No one’ll recognize you. You’re safe now.

Johanna: Safe? So, we run away and then all our dreams come true?

Anthony: I hope so.

Johanna: I’ve never had dreams. Only nightmares.

Anthony: Johanna, when we’re free of this place all the ghosts will go away.

Johanna: No, Anthony. They never go away.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Horror is a genre like no other in its fondness for sequels. Why this happens is simple: they are often cheaper films to make in general and sequels make money by capitalizing on an already established audience. Time and time again, evil springs alive again in Crystal Lake, Haddonfield, Springwood, Gatlin, Miles County, wherever the Lament Configuration is opened or a certain Good Guy doll is obtained.

But the unintended effect is not allowing evil to ever die or truly be defeated. Love may live today but evil does not die tonight. In fact, horror is probably the only genre where the antagonists are the connective tissue between films as they slaughter established protagonists left and right. There are of course stray franchises that have repeat protagonists who live to see another day and reappear in sequels to fight their enemies again (e.g. Laurie Strode in Halloween and Sidney Prescott in Scream). But more often than not, these franchises are known for their antagonists.

I’m thinking in particular of the growing Terrifier franchise right now. Somehow, the only franchise that remotely matches my feeling at seeing Donald Trump win a second presidential race is Terrifier. I know that may be surprising given some of my issues with the franchise to date. And it does feel a bit offensive to be honest. I would never want to insult Art the Clown (a demonic murderous clown) by comparing him to Donald Trump. But there is a similarity in never quite knowing what will happen next but dreading it nonetheless.

Sienna Shaw is the Final Girl I keep thinking about right now. Someone who gets the shit beaten out of her and literally rises from the dead to continue to fight against a sinister clown who should be dead but appears to be powered by an otherworldly demonic force.

We tried to be the Harbingers. The unkempt gas station owner who doesn’t know how to properly convey the danger to the carefree group of young adults. The town drunk hiding in the pantry to plead the case that danger is lurking in the shadows. Sienna herself telling her family that Art the Clown is back in Terrifier 3. But the Harbingers failed. And the consequences for those who survive and what is left for them will be felt for decades to come.

Those of us that are still here – we’ve already played this game. We’ve already been put into one of these traps, frantically weighing our options on how to fight back. It would have been nice if it worked to be the Harbinger, but once again we are the Final Girls. Having only started to process our trauma from the last massacre, we have to recover as much as we can and deal with what happens when the evil returns.

They want our pain. They want our suffering. It is what evil feeds off of as it takes total control and feasts on our flesh. We won’t be feeding that hunger this time. There will be no going high or trying to reason with the better angels. We are not the same Final Girls who just get killed at the beginning of the sequel or go insane in the back of a pickup truck and this is not going to be the same movie.