Being a horror fan isn't easy. You fall in love with a no-bullshit, nightmare-inducing killer, then the next thing you know he's in Manhattan, going to hell, or bumbling around in space. It was probably never John Carpenter's intention to have the ultimate opponent of Michael Myers be Mr. Break Ya Neck, either. But that's the nature of being a horror fan: If it's a good enough monster, you will have to bear the pain known as "sequels."

That's why the fun of horror franchises doesn't lie in the simple "Well, TECHNICALLY Hellraiser 4 is a SEQUEL to Hellraiser 9." It lies in seeing how all of them connect. I'm not talking about all of the films in one series ... I mean ALL of them. Yes, it is insane to try to rationalize all the plot holes and inconsistencies found from film to film. Doing it means that you have almost zero empathy for the logic users of the world. But you could at least connect them all with a common theme and come out with a sense of closure for some of these horror series that ended abruptly or rebooted without any real conclusion.

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Where It All Began

What started off as an innocent Easter egg in the first Nightmare On Elm Street (there is a scene wherein Nancy watches the Evil Dead with the expression of someone sitting through a VCR autopsy) ...