Fiction, Pop-Culture & Film Series.
Like "The Living Dead" films, foreign (again mainly Italian) distribution has led to a complex set of unrelated films being combined into a variety of loosely related series. This time 3 US film series are involved: Evil Dead. House and Demons.
Evil Dead
Sam Raimi's horror/comedy Evil Dead Series comprises of 3 films.
- The Evil Dead (1981)
- Evil Dead II (1987) aka Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn.
- Army of Darkness (1992)
A TV series:
- Ash vs The Evil Dead (2015)
Theré's also a remake:
- Evil Dead (2013)
There's also a musical and a short lived proposal to do a Ash vs Freddy vs Jason crossover.
House
Is a series of mostly related horror/comedy films.- House (1986)
- House II: The Second Story (1987)
- House III: The Horror Show (1989) aka The Horror Show.
- House IV
Why am I connecting these two unrelated film series? Don't blame me, blame the Italians.
La casa
La casa (The House) was the Italian name for the first two Evil Dead films. Fair enough, names are changed.
- La casa (1981) [The Evil Dead]
- La casa 2 (1987) [Evil Dead II]
The success of these films in Italy lead to the film then in production to have a name change, leading to a series of mostly unrelated "sequels"
- La casa 3 (1988) aka Ghosthouse.
- La casa 4 (1988) aka Witchery aka Ghosthouse 2 (UK)
- La casa 5 (1990) aka Beyond Darkness.
Then to take the whole thing a step further, they decided to distribute some of the House sequels as La Casa sequels.
- La casa 6 (1987) [House II: The Second Story]
- La casa 7 (1989) [House III: The Horror Show]
Just to confuse things further: La casa 5 was also released (on video) in the US as House 5.
Then the Germans got involved.
Horror House
The Germans released 2 of the films as their own mini-film series.
- Horror House (1989) House III: The Horror Show (La casa 7)
- Horror House 2 (1990) La casa 5 (Beyond Darkness)
That's not too bad. Why were we worried about the Germans? Well, to explain that we have to head back to Italy.
Brivido Giallo (1986)
Lomberto Bava did a Italian cable series consisting of 4 unrelated films.
- "Graveyard Disturbance"
- "Until Death"
- "The Ogre"
- "Dinner with a Vampire"
Houses of Doom (1989)
Another Italian cable series of 4 films - this time too violent to be aired.
- "The House of Lost Souls"
- "The House of Clocks"
- "The House of Witchcraft"
- "The Sweet House of Horrors"
Ghosthouse
So... back to the Germans, who decided to release different Italian films as a series.
- Ghosthouse (1988) [La casa 3]
- Ghosthouse 2: Das Ungeheuer (1986) ["The Ogre"]
- Ghosthouse 3 (1989) ["The House of Lost Souls"]
- Ghosthouse 4: Haus der Hexen (1989) ["The House of Witchcraft"]
The Changeling
The Germans (again) decided to make one of the Brivido Giallo films into the sequel for an unrelated Canadian film.
- The Changeling (1980)
- The Changeling 2 (1986) ["Until Death"]
Demons
- Dèmoni (1985) aka Demons, Demonzu (Japan), Dämonen 2 (West Germany), Dance of the Demons (West Germany)
- Dèmoni 2 ... l'incubo ritorna (1986) aka Demons 2, Demonzu 2 (Japan), Dämonen (West Germany), Dance of the Demons 2 (West Germany)
- Dèmoni 3 (1991) aka Black Demons.
One of the Brivido telemovies was release in some places as the third of the Demons films.
- Demons III: The Ogre (1986) ["The Ogre"]
A film based on "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas" was originally intended to be Demoni 3:
- La chiesa (1989) The Church, Demonzu 3 (Japan).
A whole bunch of unrelated films got added to the series in Japan and the US:
- La setta (1991) The Devil's Daughter, Demons 4: The Sect, Demonzu 4 (Japan).
- La maschera del demonio (1989) Demons 5: The Devil's Veil, Demonzu 5 (Japan).
- Il gatto nero (1989) The Black Cat, From The Deep, Demons 6: De Profundis, Demonzu 6 - Saishû sensô (Japan).
- Dellamorte Dellamore (1990) Cemetery Man, Demons '95.
Notes:
- La maschera del demonio was a remake of the 1960 film with the same name (known as Bloody Sunday in the US.)
- Il gatto nero is often suggested to be based on "The Black Cat" a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. The story has been adapted a number of times and the name has been used along with false claims of being adapted many more.
- Il gatto nero was originally proposed as the final film in Dario Argento's Three Mothers thematic trilogy and makes references to the first film.
- Dellamorte Dellamore is based on Tiziano Sclavi's Dylan Dog comics, which were again adapted in 2011's Dylan Dog: Dead of Night.
The Three Mothers
A thematic trilogy based on the personification of the three sorrows in Thomas de Quincey's "Suspiria de Profundis." As noted above, Il gatto nero was planned to be the third film in the trilogy.
- Suspiria (1977)
- Inferno (1980)
- The Mother of Tears (2007)
Re-Animator
The Re-Animator series of films are based on the HP Lovercraft story: Herbert West, Re-Animator:
- Re-Animator (1985)
- Bride of Re-Animator (1989)
- Beyond the Re-Animator (2003)
Clearly there's not a part of this mess. Wait, what's that? Mexico want to play too:
- Resurrección satánica (1985) [Re-Animator]
- Resurrección satánica 2 (1987) [House II: The Second Story]
Or to simplify:
