Four Horror Franchises by Subtitles Quiz

Answer: Friday the 13th

The fourth film in the "Friday the 13th" series, "The Final Chapter" was released in 1984 and, obviously, it was not the final "Friday". Although it appeared Jason Voorhees died at the end of "Part III", he escaped the morgue 'alive' at the beginning of this film, headed back to Camp Crystal Lake, and started the whole thing over again, only with Corey Feldman (as Tommy) thrown into the mix.

At the end of this one, Jason actually did die... but that really didn't stop him.

Answer: Friday the 13th

Jason wasn't really a threat in "A New Beginning", the fifth movie in the "Friday the 13th" series... at least not in the traditional sense. Tommy Jarvis, now played by John Shepherd, was the concern in this iteration, having had his mind overtaken by the mere thought of Jason, now dead and buried after the events of the previous movie.

A notable low point for the series as a result of this, the studio would end up bringing Jason back in the sixth movie, "Jason Lives", allowing lightning to resurrect him from the grave.

Answer: Friday the 13th

Though Tommy was able to absolve himself by drowning Jason (again) in Crystal Lake at the end of "Jason Lives" (movie six), "Friday the 13th: The New Blood", the seventh film in the set, ended up bringing the killer back from the depths thanks to the psychic abilities of Tina, whose telekinesis is pushed enough to restart his heart.

It's a bit of a bottle movie; the terror doesn't really leave the cottages and woods around Crystal Lake before Tina puts him back under the water (with the help of her dead father, also drowned in the lake).

When Jason comes back in movie eight, he boards a cruise ship bound for New York City, leaving Crystal Lake behind almost entirely until the 2009 reboot.

Answer: A Nightmare on Elm Street

The third in the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" series and the first to be a direct continuation of the story set up in Wes Craven's original film, "Dream Warriors" brings a new set of kids before Freddy Krueger, all from within a psychiatric hospital specializing in dream therapy and night terrors. Though all seems to be a nightmare (pun intended), the teens here are lucky to have the assistance of Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) who faced and beat him once before. Fortunately, the surviving 'Dream Warriors' return for the fourth film, "The Dream Master", even if they get one-upped in that battle.

Answer: A Nightmare on Elm Street

The fifth "Nightmare on Elm Street", "The Dream Child" brought Freddy back alongside Alice, who made her debut as the final girl in the previous iteration, having Freddy ripped apart by the souls he'd devoured over the years. In this fifth film, she ended up conceiving a child and this managed to be yet another conduit for Freddy to take advantage of.

Introducing Freddy's mother, Amanda Krueger, as a forsaken nun, this trip to Elm Street (without actually being on Elm Street), managed to be one of the last slasher horror films of the 1980s.

The series would barley make it into the 1990s.

Answer: A Nightmare on Elm Street

And the craziest thing, which we should come to expect for horror films, is that calling something 'Final' generally means it'll never end. "The Final Nightmare" was the sixth "Nightmare on Elm Street" film and though it came out purporting that "Freddy's Dead" in 1991, it was followed in 1994 by "Wes Craven's New Nightmare", which brought back Heather Langenkamp (as herself) and put a meta spin on the story. "The Final Nightmare" wrapped up Freddy's earlier story to an extent, not going back to fight Alice necessarily, but wiping out any remaining Springwood kids (in 3D).

Answer: Halloween

"Halloween III: Season of the Witch" (1982) was the only movie in the franchise not to feature the infamous Michael Myers, as the "Halloween" series was originally meant to be an anthology. It was only due to the popularity of the first movie that creator John Carpenter brought him back for the second, following the immediate aftermath of the original with Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasance reprising their roles. "Season of the Witch" instead involved a company selling evil masks on the eve of Samhain, using their products to organize children for sacrifice to their pagan gods. Due to its poor reception, the studio brought Myers back for the next film, "Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers", when it released in 1988.

Answer: Halloween

Though the "Halloween" series persisted through the mid-'90s with a new group of victims, led by Laurie Strode's niece (Jamie), the 1998 film "Halloween H20: 20 Years Later" was the one that brought Laurie back, framing her as a headmistress at a private academy having faked her death to escape Michael once and for all.

Naturally, he comes back, prompting her to face off once again against the unstoppable killing machine. The movie was, to that date, the top-grossing "Halloween" film, reestablishing Curtis' scream queen status.

Answer: Halloween

While "H20" was considered a step in the right direction, the goodwill was squandered with the 2002 film "Halloween: Resurrection" which not only killed off Strode in its opening scenes, but placed Myers into a reality-TV-esque scenario in his childhood home.

The movie effectively killed the series, and all subsequent entries into the franchise deviated from this timeline with Rob Zombie picking up the films with a gritty reboot in 2007 and then David Gordon Green retconning the bulk of the franchise and bringing back Curtis to reprise her role with a trilogy starting in 2018.

Answer: Paranormal Activity

Though the first several "Paranormal Activities" followed a fairly clear plotline involving Katie Featherstone and her nephew (as the story went back and forth in time), "Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones", the fifth movie in the series, released in 2014 and took things in an almost entirely different direction, picking up with a Hispanic family dealing with, presumably, the same demons. Linking to the earlier films through a small bit of time travel at the end of the movie, it signified a swift downturn in the quality of the annual, cheap-to-make franchise.

It wouldn't end there either.

Answer: Paranormal Activity

Released as the sixth and purported-to-be-final movie in the series, "Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension" was released near Halloween in 2015 and continued the series' late obsession with wormholes and time travel, focusing on a young version of Katie (and another new family) under completely different circumstances. What this movie was able to do, however, was seemingly wrap up the series, putting a rough capstone on the six films and calling it a day.

While successful in the box office, the film was critically panned and Paramount shelved the franchise.

Answer: Paranormal Activity

Though "Paranormal Activity" was intended to be at rest, 2021 saw the arrival of a seventh iteration of the series, this time straying almost entirely away from the plot of the first six movies. In this one, a couple of friends headed out to Amish country in pursuit of a bit of family history only to discover the demonic forces at play in this creepy, rural community. Still maintaining its found-footage style (with a bit more refinement), it was really only "Paranormal Activity" in name, created and pushed during the COVID-19 pandemic to push new users to the Paramount+ streaming platform during the Halloween season.