The world of horror cinema has a way of finding ideas that work and sticking to them. This has the dubiously positive effect of extending simple concepts well beyond their initial intentions and into double-digit sequels. With barely two hours stretched to almost twenty, some of these ongoing brands get a bit convoluted.
Though many of the big names have undergone a full reboot, wiping the slate clean. A simple slasher can grow into a sprawling saga of supernatural nonsense. The plot rarely adds up and frequently contradicts itself, but these more complicated horror franchises are interesting developments in the genre.
Child's Play
From the outside, a killer doll looks as simple as horror concepts come. Plenty of other franchises have been built around the same idea, but this one goes the extra mile by explaining itself with absurd detail. The film begins with serial murderer Charles Lee Ray backed against the wall by the police and resorting to his trump card to survive. Turns out, Chuck has a history with voodoo magic, which he uses to put his soul into a popular doll. Since then, Chucky has been hard at work trying to get himself a new body. The introduction of magic is wild enough, but the rules keep changing to accommodate one sequel after another. Chucky's voodoo powers allow for whatever weird nonsense the creator wants to throw out there. From his wife and kid to his fourth wall breaking, Chucky's narrative only really makes sense one film at a time.
Friday the 13th
Who or what exactly is Jason Voorhees? Any given horror fan could give a general physical description, identify his iconic look or weaponry, and state the finer points of his modus operandi, but what is he? There are ten canonical Friday the 13th films, a crossover with A Nightmare on Elm Street, and a widely despised reboot. Two of those films, the first and the fifth, don't feature Jason as the killer. Jason seems to pull out new layers of backstory and incredible new capabilities in every new film. By the late entries, he was a revenant who could heal from any injury and rise from his grave after being slain. Beyond even that, his soul was untethered from his frame. Then the demons, Freddy Krueger included, appear, to drag that aforementioned soul to Hell. Things got out of hand for Jason and Camp Crystal Lake around the time he could possess another person by feeding them his heart.
Puppet Master
The flagship property of the widely regarded schlock house Full Moon Features is another standout in the evil toy subgenre of horror. The actual moment-to-moment content of the Puppet Master franchise typically centers around a variety of puppets with unique gimmicks slaughtering unsuspecting innocents. The backstory, however, is a bizarre contradictory mess. The story starts when an immortal Egyptian steals the magic of life from the god Sutekh. While he's suffering from a severe wound in Paris, a man named Andre Toulon takes him in. The immortal teaches Toulon his magic, which he uses to bring his delicate marionettes to life. His puppets have gone on to be the heroes and villains of the story, battle the Nazis, and kill hundreds along the way. That origin story has changed over the years, as has the motivation of the puppets. It got so messy that studio head Charles Band directed the 2003 film Puppet Master: The Legacy just to make the continuity make sense, only to render it complex once again in the following films.
Phantasm
This lesser-known horror franchise is buoyed almost entirely by one of the best villains in the industry. Angus Scrimm's performance as the Tall Man should stand alongside Robert Englund's Freddy as a note-perfect horror antagonist, but it's just too obscure to claim those accolades. The franchise intentionally follows the logic of a dream, which is a fun way of stating that it makes no sense. The aforementioned Tall Man is an alien from another dimension who takes the guise of an undertaker and transforms corpses into dwarf-like slave creatures. The film constantly brings up concepts that it swiftly abandons. The bizarre rules and shifting power set of its villain make this movie feel uniquely complex when it's really just building itself one scene at a time.
Hellraiser
The lore of Hellraiser is more complicated than the trademark puzzle box. So, there are these torture fanatics called Cenobites who can only come to Earth when someone solves an ornate puzzle. They're seemingly capable of anything and anyone who summons them will be captured and brutally tormented forever. They look like demons and their home world looks like Hell, but they're actually former humans who became so obsessed with sensation that they willingly submitted to transformation. They serve either a demon or an alien god named Leviathan who allows them to travel between dimensions to seek greater depths of pain and pleasure. If someone reminds a Cenobite that they used to be human, it can split them into a human and non-human half, leaving the monster part to run wild. This is one of the most esoteric and weird horror franchises ever to gain mainstream popularity. The lore takes a backseat most of the time, but every Hellraiser film gives the impression of endless alternate realities just around the corner.