Horror 'JUMP THE SHARK' Contest
 

OK - a simple idea (and probably been done before but i don't remember it and i'm old so tough noogies):

Arguably every horror franchise has a 'jump the shark' moment (for those who don't know 'jump the shark' means the point at which a tv show or franchise goes off the rails into the realm of hte silly or pathetic - the phrase is derived from the episode in Happy Days when the Fonz literally 'jumps a tank filled with sharks' on his motorcycle for some ridiculous reason.)

So, let's have a discussion about the point where major horror franchises jumped the shark.

First up -- the granddaddy of them all:

HALLOWEEN

Was it Halloween 3 ?

5... Back to normal in H20, again in Resurrection.

Wouldn't consider the remake a part of the series (Though I did enjoy it).

Oh yeah, and Fonzie was on water skiis when he jumped the shark. (Yes, I remember watching it on Nick at Nite).

How about that Superman movie that had Richard Pryor in it

Was that also a part 3? I think it was... a trend is building.

The third does seem to one to push most series "over the shark".

Alien

The Godfathers

Halloween

Jaws

There are a few exceptions

LOTR

PIRATES

HARRY POTTER

hmmm, perhaps 3 is the magic number although wasn't NOES 3 one of the best and I recall Jason 3 being the beginning of the hockey mask (although it was also in 3-D so that is points against it

Evil Dead?

i've got to say i'm not a HUGE fan of Army of Darkness - though I'm not sure you can jump the shark in a franchise like EVIL DEAD

What about Hellraiser 3 - I don't even remember it but was it goofy?

I don't know about goofy.

Another one I don't think jumped the shark at 3-Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I liked the third, it took until part 4.

wasn't child's play 3 the one at the military school - that was definitely a low point in the franchise

Yeah... I was about to say that. Creepshow 3,

i don't even remember creepshow 3 - yikes

It's new, fucking terrible. IMDb Bottom 100 terrible. No involvement from Romero or King.

maybe 3 is the universal number (well almost universal) where a franchise is taken over by money-grubbing executives

I'm not sure if some of these third instalments mentioned (such as Alien and Hellraiser) are correctly labelled as having 'lost it'.

Progression/evolution is more appropriate I think - otherwise we can easily end up with 'more of the same', time after time (Friday the 13th).

Halloween 3 is an extreme example, which despite being a very good horror movie in its own right, upset just about everybody with its irrelevance to the first two films.

Ginger Snaps? I didn't care much for part 3.

i actually liked halloween 3 and think it was a bold and daring idea that would have been really interesting if it had taken off (just think about a new 'installment' in theaters each halloween season!!)

on a related (well barely) note - what happened to the Trick R Treat film that I saw previews for awhlie back?? I thought it was coming out this halloween?

Pushed back, I guess they were afraid of going up against Saw.


I liked Halloween 3 too, I didn't when I was around 12 and all I cared about was Michael when I watched a Halloween movie, but now I like it.

I liked Halloween 3. I thought the Halloween series jumped the shark with 4 and never quite recovered. I thought H20 was half-okay but it didn't do what Halloween II did for me.

Halloween II is at least as good as Jaws 2, as a cheeseball sequel. It's fun.

You crazy pumpkin man.

Isn't it when it lost it kind of line of direction? Isn't that the question?

I watched pt 3 again recently, I got into it, but it definatley took the series off track. I can't imagine another movie taking a series that far off track actually.

Well, I thought it was more when the series goes downhill...H3 wasn't a downhill drop to me, but 4 was.

Well maybe it's a bit of both, but even though Halloween 3 can hold up as a movie I think it still took the series downhill by going of track..

They should never have called it pt 3, just season of the witch.

Or maybe Season of the Little Bitch.

Yeah, season of the ditch this Franchise will end up in...

Not a lot of people knowthis but the original title was "Peanut Butter Your Stonehenge"--true story. ;) :cool: :eek: :eek:

It's already been mentioned concerning Halloween 3, so I'll leave that one go. I actually liked 4 and 5 as a basic continuation of the themes from 1 and 2.... obsessive madman out to kill someone. They pretty much nailed it. For that particular series I think H20 dragged enough to bore me (and I am rather tolerant of sequels at this point.) Although Resurrection did a good job of making the entire thing interesting despite completely lacking Pleasance and the involvement of anybody related to Laurie Strode.
I would say that 28 weeks later pretty much swung away from 28 Days Later. Too much focus on the american soldiers trying to look cool in the beginning. The entire movie had a very different feel. It was much more about gore and bloodshed than the first one had been. I don't mind that, but it seemed to be lacking the underlying message about society that the first one carried with it. I feel it did a disservice to the original movie by removing that.
The third Phantasm...BAD. We watched it anyway because we wanted ot get the entire series under our belts, but we ended up giving it the MST3K treatment.
I'm loving this topic, btw. I can't really speak on the Nightmare on Elm street or Friday the 13th series as it's been a while since I've watched all of them. But Jason in outer space was freaking ridiculous. I'm sure that one jumped the shark sooner than that, it's just not coming to me off the top of my head at the moment.

f13 sort of embraced its cheeziness fairly early at least by 3 - but i think the big jump had to have at least been at "Jason Takes Manhattan"

YES.
Thank you. I remember that one now. The scene where he's stalking through the city and...if I remember correctly because it followed on the heels of another Jason movie, there was a shot of him in front of a billboard with his image on it?

Very good call.

the sad thing is i remember going to see Jason Takes Manhattan and the ads had all had Jason slaughtering street punks and muggers - but then the first 90% of the film is on the stupid cruise ship and only the last like 20 minutes are in manhattan - freaking annoying as hell!

they left it SO open for a crossover with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. GOD! Wasted oppurtunities.

I am with you on that, I would have liked more of him in the city...

It took a slight turn at pt 5 where Jason was just imitated, though him being dead for a movie and coming back in 6 was really just character building.

But when they took him away from Crystal Lake , that was when they jumped the shark!

Really? It wasn't when he fought a girl with psychic powers?

I don't think so, why don't you like telekinesis?

Fighting someone with powers of their own was cool... why not, it's not really jumping the shark like him stowing away on a boat to the City..

It became almost as horrific as a horror film when these two characters were introduced.


The Great Gazoo

Scrappy Doo - I mean WHAT THE FUCK? He's meant to be the nephew of Scooby and stole his slogan from baseball! I would kill scrappy doo if I met him. And if that wasn't enough, here's the rest of scooby's relatives courtesy of Wikipedia.

Scooby-Dum: Scooby's cousin, a blue-grey dog. A Mortimer Snerd-esque dog who longed to be a detective. Was rather dimwitted (he'd keep looking for clues even after the mystery was solved).
Scooby-Dee: Scooby's cousin, a white dog. Spoke with a Southern accent, and was an actress.
Yabba-Doo: Scooby's brother, a white dog owned by Deputy Dusty in the American southwest. Unlike Scooby's and Scrappy's, his typical custom catch-phrase at the end is "Yippity-Yabbity-Doooo!!!", and not "Yabba-Dabba-Doo!", presumably due to obvious reasons.

Dooby-Doo: Scooby's triplet brother, a singer. He is one of Scooby's few siblings to have hair on his head.

Momsy and Dada Doo: Scooby's parents.

Whoopsy-Doo: Scooby's cousin, a clown. Owned by Norville's uncle, Gaggy Rogers.

Ruby-Doo: Scooby's sister, and mother of Scrappy-Doo.

Skippy-Doo: Scooby's triplet brother. Highly intelligent. He is Scooby's only sibling to wear glasses.

Howdy-Doo: Scooby's brother. Enjoyed reading supermarket tabloid newspapers. He appears to become a redhead.

Horton-Doo: Scooby's uncle. Was interested in monsters and science.

Dixie-Doo: Scooby's cousin.

Grandpa Scooby: Scooby's grandfather.

Great-Grandpa Scooby: Scooby's great-grandfather.

Dumper Scoots: A confused lion that thinks he is a dog. Having the same speech pattern as Scooby-Doo he believes he is Scooby's cousin.


FUCKADOODLEDOO!!!!

We were talking about Friday the 13th, not your kidy candy trip that your on...

I really can't be asked to argue with you again Disease so why don't you stop your pathetic attempts to make my time at HDC shit.

Poltergeist 3 was silly.

agreed - i wasn't a fan of poltergeist 2 - but 3 was ridiculous - wasn't that the one in the high rise building?