ARTISTICALLY speaking, what do you think about franchise horror?

[Dr. Briggs]

Call me a cynic, but I just see these as studio cash grabs. It's not like you have a creator who has a distinct vision for an overarching story or even one who is actively involved in working on the following movies to create that. Recently, I got to review one of those dreadful After Dark Original movies and I got my first comment troll. He went on about how great the movie was (it wasn't), how "people loved it" (they didn't) and how the studio wanted a sequel. I went on to tell him that getting a sequel is not an indication of a movie's quality, just it's money-making potential.

Transformers 2, anyone?

It doesn't happen often, but what about when you do have a creator with a vision? Normally creators only plan to have one film at first, but it's not a stretch to say they can have plans to follow up with more artistically-sound stories.

If something spans like 8 sequels it's less and less likely that the director has such "visions" for stories (unless we're talking Coffin Joe), but then when you have 8 sequels there's also the chance that eventually a real fan will take up the reins from people who don't really care, and make an installment that finds a grain of ingenuity within the previous "formula" sequels and makes something creative from it.

That in itself poses a question; how much of the artistry of these films be chalked up to intent? How much of it is perception, and do the "ends" (the films themselves) outweigh the means (the filmmakers' wishes)?