These characters all made big brain moves in these horror film sequels.
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00:00If there's one thing horror movie characters are known for, it's being on the stupid side.
00:05An abandoned house, you say? Let's break into it in the middle of the night.
00:09A Ouija board? Ooh, let's play with it.
00:12A book of ancient spells that says don't read this under any circumstances ever?
00:16Well, you get the idea.
00:17This is why it's so surprising when a character in horror actually does something halfway intelligent,
00:23like escaping a villain's trap or turning their own strengths against them.
00:26Believe it or not, there are enough examples of this to make a list,
00:31even when we're just focusing on horror sequels.
00:33So with that in mind, I'm Ellie for WhatCulture,
00:36and these are the 10 smartest decisions made in horror movie sequels.
00:4110. Heading for them all, Dawn of the Dead
00:44Though it doesn't feature any of the same characters from George A. Romero's 1968 Night of the Living Dead,
00:501978's Dawn of the Dead is considered a spiritual sequel,
00:54as well as being the second in a large series of Of the Dead films made by the horror maestro.
00:59In the wake of a zombie apocalypse, four survivors team up to find a safe haven.
01:04Whilst flying around in their commandeered helicopter,
01:06the group spot the perfect place to hide out, an abandoned shopping mall.
01:10In terms of zombie refuges, it doesn't get much better than this.
01:14Large building with a fortified entrance? Check.
01:17Good supply of food, drink and other necessities? Check.
01:20Chance to run around all the stores you weren't allowed in as a kid? That is also a check.
01:25Holing up in the mall was a genius idea that has been copied many times in subsequent zombie fiction,
01:30and one that keeps the group safe for a majority of the film.
01:34Sure, it all backfires on them when a group of bikers break in,
01:36but before that, things were going swell.
01:399. No gun, no problem. Zombieland Double Tap
01:43Speaking of malls, that's precisely where the subject of this entry joins the party in this horror comedy sequel.
01:50In Zombieland Double Tap, the follow-up to the excellent Zombieland from 2009,
01:55Columbus and Tallahassee discover a new survivor named Madison hiding out in a shopping complex.
02:01Madison is your stereotypical dumb blonde, more focused on looking good than staying alive,
02:06and with about as much brain power as a reanimated corpse, if not less.
02:10Still, at a key point in the movie, she shows that she's not a total lost cause.
02:15Later in the film, Wichita is under attack from an undead assailant.
02:18Despite being the only member of the gang without a gun,
02:21Madison wades into battle and distracts the zombie with a can of pepper spray she had in her bag.
02:27This gives Wichita time to escape her grisly fate.
02:30So there you have it, the so-called bimbo wasn't actually as stupid as she looked.
02:34Well, actually, she was still pretty stupid.
02:36This was kind of just a one-off, but still, don't judge a book by its cover.
02:40Number 8. Using the camcorders, Blair Witch
02:43After Book of Shadows, Blair Witch 2 wiped out pretty much all of the goodwill generated by the first movie,
02:49a new movie was released to try and resurrect the iconic franchise.
02:53Spoilers, it did not succeed.
02:56Whilst Blair Witch from 2016 turned out to be nothing more than a diluted rerun of the first film,
03:01at least it gave fans this moment of horror protagonists using their resources to their advantage.
03:06Lisa Arlington is the last surviving member of a group of teenagers who set out to discover what happened during the original film.
03:14Lisa realises that anyone who has looked at the evil spirit has been killed,
03:17so cleverly, she uses the camcorder of a fallen group member to spy on the creature without directly engaging with it.
03:25The plan goes really well as Lisa is able to walk backwards around the room without being attacked.
03:29Sadly, the spirit uses the voice of one of her friends to get her to turn around, leading to her demise.
03:35But, that being said, the original camcorder idea was pretty smart.
03:39Number 7. Keeping a gun handy, Curse of Chucky
03:42The sixth instalment of the Child's Play franchise, Curse of Chucky, is largely separate from the rest of the series, with a few exceptions.
03:50However, when the post-credits scene rolls around, the movie is taken back to where it all began.
03:55After the main events of the film, which begin with Chucky being sent in the mail to his next victim,
04:00the murderous doll once again packages himself up and arrives in the home of an unsuspecting man.
04:04The poor fella in question is a grown-up Andy Barclay, Chucky's owner in the first Child's Play film.
04:10The red-headed menace thinks he finally got one over on his former foe,
04:14but just before Chucky attacks him with a knife, Andy turns around and blasts the doll with a shotgun.
04:19How many horror characters have survived one movie, only to take their eye off the ball and then get splattered in a sequel?
04:25Andy knew that Chucky wasn't going to go away, and so he kept himself armed in case his past returned to haunt him.
04:30This might seem a little pessimistic, but without this attitude, Andy would have definitely been dead meat.
04:36Number 6. Making a chainsaw hand, Evil Dead 2
04:40When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.
04:43Or in the case of Ash Williams, when life takes away your hand, you make a badass weapon.
04:47After the critical success of the first Evil Dead film, Bruce Campbell returned to the role of the quip-spitting hero
04:53to take on even more deadites in the middle of a secluded wood.
04:57Unfortunately for our hero, his right hand gets infected by the demon's evil curse.
05:02Knowing that it will spread to the rest of his body if he's not careful,
05:04Ash grabs a nearby chainsaw and severs it, leaving a bloody stump in its place.
05:09Still, let's try and look on the bright side, eh?
05:12Not wanting to be at a disadvantage against the horde, and having seen what the garden tool can do,
05:17Ash decides to modify the chainsaw so it can be fitted to the end of his arm.
05:21With a boomstick in one hand and the saw in place of the other, Ash is now a bona fide deadite killing machine.
05:27Now, whilst this idea is very cool within the realms of fiction, please do not try this at home.
05:32Number 5. Shredding Michael – Halloween Ends
05:35The third and final instalment of the recent Halloween trilogy,
05:39which smartly ignores most of the guff that followed John Carpenter's original,
05:43is called Halloween Ends, an apt title for the movie that finally finished off Michael Myers.
05:48After battling both Michael and her granddaughter Allison's murderous new boyfriend,
05:53Laurie Strode is finally able to defeat the masked monster that has haunted her for so long,
05:58slicing his wrist and letting him bleed out, and also cutting his throat.
06:02Michael is dead, but Laurie is no fool and decides to finish the job once and for all.
06:09Laurie and Allison take Michael's corpse to the local salvage yard,
06:12where, accompanied by the residents of Haddonfield, all of whom have suffered at Michael's hand,
06:17they chuck the demented killer's body into an industrial shredder.
06:20Yep, that ought to do it.
06:22So many horror movie villains have come back from near death, including Myers himself,
06:26so Laurie was incredibly wise to go that extra mile to ensure the shape never returns.
06:32Number 4. Checking into a psychiatric ward – Final Destination 2
06:36Surviving murderers, demons and ghouls is one thing,
06:40but when the enemy chasing you down is death itself, that's a whole different ballgame.
06:44That's the dilemma faced by the characters of the Final Destination franchise,
06:48which somehow manage to get five films out of the exact same premise.
06:52Person has a premonition.
06:54Person plus others survive an accident.
06:57Death picks them off in various gruesome ways until they get even.
07:00Lather, rinse, repeat.
07:02At the end of the first movie, audiences think that Alex, Clear and Carter are safe,
07:07until death claims Carter by dropping a sign on him.
07:10Alex is killed off screen by a falling brick,
07:12leaving Clear to take some pretty drastic action to avoid the same fate.
07:17As shown in Final Destination 2, Clear commits herself to a psychiatric ward,
07:21which might be the one place on Earth where death can't get her.
07:25A padded cell, round-the-clock supervision, little contact with the outside world,
07:30Clear made a very good choice here.
07:32Unfortunately, she decides to try and help a new group of survivors,
07:35which ends up getting her killed.
07:37Well, that's what you get for being nice.
07:39Number 3. Putting on the sweater.
07:41Friday the 13th Part 2
07:43He might be the most famous character in the whole franchise,
07:47but Jason Voorhees doesn't become the main villain in the Friday the 13th series until its second film.
07:53Out to avenge the death of his beloved mother,
07:55Jason puts on his best burlap sack,
07:57and goes on his first of what would become many killing sprees.
08:01Towards the climax of Friday the 13th Part 2,
08:04Jason has a girl named Ginny cornered in the shack where he keeps an altar to his mother.
08:08Staring death straight in the face, or lack thereof,
08:12Ginny makes a big brain play.
08:14She puts on a sweater that used to belong to Pam,
08:17which tricks Jason into thinking Ginny is his mother.
08:20Though he eventually catches on,
08:22this buys Ginny enough time to escape and eventually survive the ordeal.
08:26Jason was so attached to his dear old mum
08:28that the thought of her somehow returning was enough to quell his murderous rage.
08:32It's quite cute in a way, once you look past all the killing that is.
08:352. The Penn Tracheotomy – Saw 5
08:39The whole point of the traps that inhabit the Saw universe is to test the victim's will to live,
08:44to see how far they're able to go in order to keep themselves alive.
08:48For one poor soul, this meant stabbing himself in the neck.
08:51Saw 5 carries on the story of Agent Strahm,
08:54who was left to die at the end of the previous film.
08:57Strahm may have escaped that predicament,
08:59but he quickly finds himself in another.
09:01His head is encased in a box that is rapidly filling up with water.
09:05Realising he wasn't going to evolve a set of gills in time,
09:09Strahm knows he needs to find another way to breathe.
09:12Using nothing but a pen,
09:13he performs an amateur tracheotomy on himself,
09:15which allows him to survive.
09:17Sure, he's now got a massive hole in his throat,
09:19but Strahm didn't die, which is a pretty good trade-off.
09:22Oh wait, never mind,
09:23he ends up getting smushed to death in a trick room at the end of the film.
09:27Eh, better luck next time, buddy.
09:28Number 1. Leaving town, Scream 2
09:31What's the one thing that horror victims have in common?
09:35They would have survived had they just kept their noses out and walked away.
09:39This is precisely what Joel Jones does in Scream 2.
09:42Joel is the replacement cameraman for reporter Gail Weathers
09:45after the death of Kenny in the first film.
09:48Gail is on the case when a new ghost face emerges,
09:50with Joel in tow to capture all the big moments on film.
09:53But it soon becomes clear that the new murderer is following the same pattern
09:57as the original ghost face,
09:58killing people with the same names as the first Woodsboro victims.
10:02And whilst there were no Joels in the first film,
10:04this one realises that he'll probably be the stand-in for Kenny.
10:08Fearing the worst, he gets out of town.
10:10And you know what?
10:11He lives.
10:12It's not a particularly heroic thing to do,
10:15nor does it make for compelling cinema.
10:16But Joel's decision to leave while he still could saved his life,
10:20and that's what counts.