With Welcome to Derry coming to HBO Max to give us the backstory on Stephen King’s It, and Crystal Lake slashing onto Peacock to do the same for Friday the 13th—plus HBO Max’s animated Gremlins show, which is hopefully still en route—it’s a boom time for horror franchises getting prequel series.
Inevitably more will follow, and we have some suggestions, both for what should be considered and what should be avoided. But first, beware of redundancies. Bates Motel gave a creative origin story for Psycho, while Castle Rock peeked into the past of another King villain, Misery’s Annie Wilkes. And while not prequels, shows like I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scream, Hannibal, and current hitChucky have already claimed the turf of the movie series they took inspiration from. So we might have to veer a little off the well-worn horror path for this list. Except for the obvious first few…
