ROTTEN TOMATOES: Six Horrible Part Sixes

Six Horrible Part Sixes

With Saw VI in cinemas this week, how will it rank against these horror franchise bombs?

by Michael Adams | October 21, 2009

With the seemingly never-ending Saw series notching up its sixth instalment this week -- that's six in just six years, which must be some kind of series record -- weary audiences and critics may well be wondering whether it's time for the filmmakers to put down the torture tools. (Of course, that's unlikely to happen if the reliable Halloween grosses continue to roll in on as predicted.) How will Jigsaw's latest outing rank next to these horror franchises, whose part sixes invariably rank among the series' very worst?

Oh and don't get us started on Cosby riding an ostrich. The horror, the horror...

12%

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare

Having killed off all but one of the teens of his dream town, Freddy gets a visit from his long-lost daughter whose death inspired his own initial rampage. Sorry, what? This was followed by Wes Craven's New Nightmare: talk about false advertising.

Series status: The remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street is released next year.

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers

You know him now as the funnyman from I Love You, Man, but 15 years ago Paul Rudd was Tommy, teenager terrorised by Michael Myers, aka The Shape -- who'd been introduced to the world in the 1978 slasher classic Halloween. Ominously, The Shape survived stabbing, a hail of bullets, a fall and Donald Pleasence's overacting in the original, and has been coming back ever since. Episode six tried explain such invincibility via the mystic, age-old "Curse Of The Thorn". But of course!

Series status: Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween II makes it 10 films and counting.

52%

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

At the start, Jason -- old hockey-mask face himself -- is dead and buried. So what better way for a former near-victim currently in a mental asylum to get closure but than to dig up his body? Convenient lightning resurrects Jason , who, naturally, wants to keep killing. Even more conveniently, camp Crystal Lake has been reopened and it's stocked with fresh counsellors just waiting to get hacked up. At the end of this one, Jason goes to the bottom of said lake -- but drowning ain't gonna keep him dead!

Series status: This year's remake of Friday the 13th was a success, so they're "reimagining" Friday the 13th Part II.

29%

Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood

1993's schlocky Leprechaun introduced Jennifer Aniston and inspired an entire franchise. This wack sequel finds the little Irish monster trying to get his gold back from a bunch of unfortunate homeboys and girls.

Series status: This was the last: star Warwick Davis has his hands full with the slightly classier Harry Potter series.

Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return

The original Stephen King short story was made into a 1984 movie about kids in a corn farming town who killed off their parents under the evil influence of teen preacher Isaac and the demonic spirit they worship, known as He Who Walks Behind The Rows. Here Reverend Isaac comes out of the coma he's lain in for 19 years and before you know it corny horror reaches new heights -- or lows.

Series status: Series status: Part 7 followed. The film was remade for TV this year and will soon be "reimagined" for the big screen.

Leonard Part 6

Horror, you say? Nothing's as scary as this Bill Cosby "comedy" in which he plays a spy called out of retirement to fight an evil vegetarian and her... army of hypnotised animals! Even Cosby warned people off this one during his PR tour at the time.

Series status: The "joke" of the title was that this was the only film in the series. Thankfully.

(1-20 of 32 posts) | Reply

jarek writes:
on Oct 21 2009 11:09 PM

Children of the Corn has already been remade, it's not "soon to be". It aired on SyFy last month.

(Reply to this)

movieguy117 writes:
on Oct 21 2009 11:11 PM

That "Freddy's Dead" graphic is also used on "Leprechaun," just in case you didn't catch that...

(Reply to this)

Josh E. writes:
on Oct 21 2009 11:23 PM

Leonard Part 6 is a terrible movie but for some reason I just love it. I (used to) watch it over and over on this terrible VHS tv recording we have...

(Reply to this)

MAdams writes:
on Oct 21 2009 11:26 PM

In reply to this comment (#2554996)
Thanks, Jarek. That was mentioned in original text. Will correct it on posting.

(Reply to this)

Tyrant writes:
on Oct 21 2009 11:36 PM

There was one part of Freddy's Dead I loved: "You forgot the power glove!" Hearing about that old thing just made me laugh. It's a bad movie, but Robert Englund made it watchable.

(Reply to this)

ARTaylor writes:
on Oct 21 2009 11:49 PM

(Un)Thankfully I've only subject myself to two of these abominations.

Halloween 6 was a complete and utter piece of crap in every way imaginable. I can't even say what it was about. It was so bad I've blocked it from my memory. I would rank it just above Zombie's versions and just below Halloween III: Season of the Nothing to do With the Rest of the Series. Luckily H20 came along and saved Michael this crap.

Jason Lives was also pretty bad. This was where they made three mistakes that unfortunately perpetuated themselves throughout the remainder of the series. 1-That Jason is an unstoppable zombie. 2-Jason is revived and killed in every entry. 3-Jason becomes the main character, thus removing any chance of any possibly interesting character from having any kind of development. I met C.J. Graham, who played Jason in this entry, and even he admits that it was lousy, and if it weren't for the money neither he nor Kane Hodder would have done it.

(Reply to this)

Joe N. writes:
on Oct 22 2009 02:23 AM

You're forgetting the Hellraiser series!

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BatsInTheBelfry writes:
on Oct 22 2009 02:37 AM

Um... Jason Lives is actually my second favorite of the series, behind part 4. It didn't take itself seriously for one second. It was more comedy than horror.

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brandon s. writes:
on Oct 22 2009 03:27 AM

What do you expect? What kind of nowhere franchise gets to a number 6 anyway? All of these films are trash of the lowest level, as are virtually all of their fellow sequels. I have had the misfortune of sitting through 3 of these roughly 15 years ago and I think I'd rather subject myself to torture. This Saw franchise is no exception- what's wrong? Can't come up with any original ideas? And of course the brainless American masses will line-up opening weekend guaranteeing more mindless sequels, instead of refusing to show up and proving to the goons who makes these that Americans aren't a bunch of morons.

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De4ective Detectiv3 writes:
on Oct 22 2009 05:02 AM

Some decent part 6's

Star Trek
Star Wars
James Bond
Harry Potter

(Reply to this)

Wayne C. writes:
on Oct 22 2009 05:53 AM

For serious, 52% is actually a pretty good percentage for a Friday the 13th movie.

(Reply to this)

The Great One writes:
on Oct 22 2009 06:01 AM

Friday the 13th: Part VI Jason Lives is the best film in the series! You guys are insane.

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THE MANWHORE writes:
on Oct 22 2009 06:38 AM

I agree "The Great One"! Part 6 was one the best ones! Parts 5, 8 & 9 were the worst ones IMHO!

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Gordon Franklin Terry Sr writes:
on Oct 22 2009 07:19 AM

nooooooooooooo waaaaaaaaaaayyyy! I can see where you're coming from but in terms of the horror genre the list is off

FREDDY'S DEAD is one of the best in the series (and takes us INSIDE Freddy's mind in 3D!!!!!)

Tom McLoughlin who directed the classic "Zombie film" ONE DARK NIGHT directed FIRDAY THE 13TH PART 6

HALLOWEEN 6: CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS is good in the Producer's Cut of the film.

---
and HELLRAISER 6 can't be better or worse than F13 6 or Freddy 6
--
Hey Michael Adams, did you do what I used to do in high school ( execptthere was no internet to speak of really in circa 1987) and type "6" or "VI" in IMDB.com and print whatever came up?

I totally empathize with your capriciousness in "lassoing" any 6 films with the numeral '6' in the title though . . .

because "normal people" don't care about the (relative) significance of Tom McLougin directing FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 6 or the (relative) importance of FREDDY'S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE.
--

I think its POP-CULTURE. Like "ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY's A-Z ZOMBIE MOVIE LIST" didn't really reflect the zombie sub-genre or anything; it was just pop-culture "normal people" fun.

My family (who is home with the flu) and I watched WAR OF THE WORLDS 2005 and I said "look at the distance between Tom Cruise and the children; note the separation both geographically and relationship-wise."

the response: people don't watch movies and think about scope and distance; they just watch movies.

That's POP-CULTURE. "just watch movies; don't think"

I hate POP-CULTURE and the notion of not thinking critically about anything.

(Reply to this)

bluestar50 writes:
on Oct 22 2009 08:44 AM

In reply to this comment (#2555039)
I agree that part 6 of the Star Wars franchise was good, up until they introduced the annoying Ewoks, then it pretty much turned into a kid's movie. IMO. I also thought that Star Trek VI was pretty good too, after the horrible crap that part Star Trek V was.

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nbrush writes:
on Oct 22 2009 09:18 AM

I'm surprised Halloween- Curse of Michael Myers got such a low rating. It was no masterpiece and committed a cardinal sin- explained why Michael kills and can't be killed (The Shape is supposed to be mysterious), but it at least had a creepy feel to it.
Friday the 13th 6 was one of the better ones- behind 1 and 4, so that feels very out of place here.

I'm no movie genius, but what other part 6s are there? Star Wars, Rocky, Hellraiser, (prolly Land Before Time and Air Bud lol), Harry Potter, James Bond, Texas Chainsaw Massacre (I think part 6 was one of the two recent remakes though- maybe the Begining?), ... I can't think of too many more. I'll try to google them

(Reply to this)

Dexter Morgan writes:
on Oct 22 2009 09:36 AM

IFC played "Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare" one night, which called for a family gathering. It was one of the most fun times I've had watching a film ever, despite the film being rubbish as hell. Tyrant, thanks for the laugh because I almost forgot about the sheer stupidity of Freddy Krueger playing Nintendo. That film is hysterical.

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crystalwhiteeyes writes:
on Oct 22 2009 09:58 AM

I actually really enjoyed Freddy's Dead, and The Curse of Michael Myers. Of course story-wise it's horrible, but atleast they were both enjoyable to watch. The Power glove scene was great when he was whipping the Roadtrip star with a towel, then later saying "What do you know? I beat my high score!" Silly, but pretty funny. They weren't too terribly bad.

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Dave J. writes:
on Oct 22 2009 10:15 AM

If Michael Adams gonna chose what he perceives as the worst one of the horror genre series than he's kind of left "The Omen" series out, unless of course he liked them all. And as far as comedies is concerned I don't see anything mentioning about the Police Academy series, some movie critics called as one of the most overated franchises in movie history.

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Dave J. writes:
on Oct 22 2009 10:27 AM

Some of the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" movies are a little over the top, this is another series that qualifies for this list, I think I counted 8, not including the 1974 movie "Deranged".

(Reply to this)

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood

Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return

Leonard Part 6

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