I was thinking that the movie franchise equivalent to Mega Man vs. Mega Man X (in terms of quality, disregarding that the two series are related) is probably Friday the 13th vs. Hellraiser. With Friday the 13th, you know exactly what you're going to get - it's never going to be particularly great or special, but it's never going to go off the rails either (except the one time it did, catastrophically, with Mega Man 8 GOES TO HELL). Hellraiser starts off genuinely great and hits one solid riff on that, takes a wrong turn but is still kind of tolerable for a few more entries*, completely jumps off a direct-to-video cliff by the fifth, and hangs around for four more things and a reboot that no one was asking for.
*I hated HELLRAISER: BLOODLINE ("in space") until I saw its pathetic shadow EVENT HORIZON.
As a longtime horror buff myself, I say I kinda agree with that.
ReplyDeleteAs cheap as the Friday the 13th movies are, they're all fun to watch for the most varied reasons. The only one that's downright disgusting is part 9 (WHAT WERE THEY THINKING), even part 8 has some stupid charm to it.
As for Hellraiser, it's hard not to cease caring for it after those jumps in time of part 4. But hey, later on at least we get a very yummy Kari Wuhrer in a film that's half bad half good (or was it the contrary?), and even Revelations had its moments with the younger cast - who gave their blood on screen while adults were acting like zombies.
Ed - your tastes are way too similar to mine. It's getting weird!
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