With all the sequels, reboots, and “requels” we been getting lately come perhaps the most prolific follow-up of all: prequels. Lately, we’ve been seeing A LOT of those – to variable degrees of success. Orphan: First Kill is a lot of fun, but it has issues. The Cabin Fever prequel from years ago is better left in the past, and the Leatherface prequel is still splitting fans in the love it and hate it camps. However, the Predator prequel Prey is getting rave reviews and most fans seem to love it. These are just a few and we have much more coming soon including Furiosa, a prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, and Pearl, a prequel for X that was shot back-to-back with its original. With these two and a few more coming up that look really good, what are the horror prequels we want to see?
Alien LV-426
Set after the events in Alien and before Aliens, this film would show the lives of the folks sent to LV-426 to terraform it. It would start with them being sent to this new planet, full of hope. The movie could show them settling in, working, perhaps even paying homage to the little bits of footage of that life seen in Aliens. Then soon after, just when things look peaceful, something crashes on the planet or shows up from a cave. It’s not seen at first because that is basically the signature for Alien films. Hint at the fact that the Queen looking for a way into the human buildings. Maybe she finds an air vent, gets in, and then stalks the inhabitants, taking a few here and there, leaving a trail of chest bursters. The film can easily not show any other xenomorphs until the very end when a Queen is seen going back in the vent as a ship lands with Bishop overheard talking to them. Of course, name-dropping Newt here isn’t a bad idea. They can show her parents looking for her and maybe even depict how her folks ended up in the same area as all the others, with Alien eggs nearby, a bit like in the first film.
Spaulding and Fam
This would be a prequel to House of 1000 Corpses following a younger Capt. Spaulding and his family, including Ma Firefly, Otis, Baby, Winslow Foxworth Coltrane, Tiny and a few others. The story could focus on their rise to infamy, show how Baby was a psychopath from early on, how Otis was a messed-up teenager/young man. Show that the family has always been killing people, with Dr. Satan’s influence on them all. Make this film about them and not about the victims as much as in House of 1000 Corpses. It would have to be brutal, bloody and violent. Make them earn their reputation and have a very high body count. Perhaps even show the Murder Ride being put together with some “real” corpses.
Hostel: Slaughterhouse
This one is a bit of a reach, but it still could be tons of fun in terms of horror and gore. Take the character played by Miike Takashi, seen for a total of about 1 minute on screen in the original and give him an entire movie. Use his line “you could spend ALL you money… in there” as a tagline, and from there, the film can develop this mysterious Japanese businessman (or perhaps he isn’t a businessman at all) travelling the world, going from slaughterhouse to slaughterhouse. You could follow his victims a little and see them die in horrific ways. Then have glimpses of his other life, living the life of a married man with kids and grandkids, travelling to family-friendly locations, attending school plays, and going about as normal of a life as possible. Of course, this would require either a man who looks like Miike or Miike himself to come back. The character can be a man of very few words, making him almost mute, just a quick line here and there, but nothing that gives too much away about him besides the glimpses of his regular life. This one can be set just before the first Hostel or span many years before that story, showing how far back the organization goes. The character being a bit older allows the prequel to go pretty far back. Of course, ideally, Eli Roth would come back to direct as these films are his, and the 3rd one directed by someone else is better left forgotten.
Monster Squad: Before the Squad
Set a few decades before the original Monster Squad, this film is the origin of Scary German Guy, entirely based on the fact that he knows a lot about monsters, and it’s brought up in the original movie without much of an explanation. The film can start with a shot of his house from the original, then de-age the house and roll back time until we reach this man in his 30s with a wife and a couple of kids. He’d be first seen doing homework with one kid, telling a bedtime story to the other, doing stuff a good dad would do. Then, have something, a shadow come and eliminate or kidnap his family. Then, he must look inside himself, pull from his family’s past (perhaps a Van Helsing connection?) and do as much research on monsters as he can before setting off to save his family. This could lead to him meeting a slew of different monsters and eventually a master for these beings – someone who pulls the strings of evil and forces the monsters to do his bidding in one way or another. This should be fairly family-friendly and have some humor, of course, but it should also have some genuinely scary moments.
Chromeskull: Beginning
This would be a tough one to make without the late Rob Hall’s involvement, but the right talent could pull from his creation and give Chromeskull a backstory. In this prequel, Chromeskull would be seen beginning his killing spree. We’d see a few kills without the camera, then the addition of an older camera, a few more kills, then the camera we’re all used to shows up – but handheld, not ideal. Eventually, after a few more kills, the camera gets mounted to his shoulder after he gets hurt during a kill to free up his hand. Of course, the accident disfigures him and leads to him wearing a mask. His kills should be messy at first,, as we see him ply his murderous craft. As he hones his skills, the organization behind him from the second film can be seen watching over him, helping him get to the level he wants to be as a killer. This could easily lead to a much-expanded universe with a whole organization of killers trained by him and living in the Chromeskull world fans know and love. The main goal here are to get in plenty of kills and plenty of blood. We’d climax with him getting disfigured, then end with him wearing the mask from the first film. Of course, Nick Principe would have to come back, along with the right people to write and direct, which is no easy feat. It could perhaps even lead to Chromeskull: Exhumed, finally seeing the light of day.
The Lost Boys: David
This almost happened years ago with Eric Red and Joel Schumacher, so perhaps Red could come back with his script and bring David’s backstory to the big screen. Getting the casting just right would be essential. There is no way that Kiefer Sutherland can play a young David anymore unless massive CGI is involved, but that wouldn’t feel right. So, the proper casting of David would be the start of everything, then the rest of the cast would be essential too. As Edward Herrmann is no longer with us and cannot be playing Max, perhaps keeping him off-screen in most interactions or his vamped-out form could help create a great way to add mystery around him and the question of whether or not he was David’s creator. Also, not knowing how long David has been a vampire leaves a lot of room for creativity. He could easily have been created in the 1950s, being a greaser or something along those lines before getting turned and adapting to the style of each decade as they pass to be better able to attract new youths into Max’s clutches. The story here could go in so many different directions, bringing all the lost boys together or focusing on David alone. The film could start with him as a human, living his life and going on vacation to Santa Carla one day with his parents, meeting another teen, being lured in, becoming a vamp and climaxing in his first kill and taste of blood, and how he fell absolutely in love with the lifestyle, leaving his parents behind looking for their missing son.
These are just a couple of our ideas for horror prequels we want to see. What are yours? Which beloved, or even lesser-known, horror film would you want to see a prequel for?