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It gives me no shortage of pleasure to say: horror movie fans have been eating well lately. From Sinners to Weapons to what I'm hearing about 28 Years Later: the Bone Temple, it's an excellent time to be a fan of being scared with your friends (from movies, anyhow), and if I might even go a step further, it's a great time to be a fan of horror prequels.

As we've talked about on the website before, it's become a trend in recent fright films to wind the clocks back a little bit, giving viewers a little window into the origin of that monster you're going to be checking your bed for or that curse that certainly can't be real (right?). And from where I'm standing, that horror trend is reaching from beyond the big screen and out toward its smaller, but no less important, sibling. 

Yes, if you ask me, the future of horror TV is littered with prequel stories. And if you give me just a moment of your time, I'll tell you why.

2025, according to Pennywise

If prequel stories are to be a new dynasty in horror TV, then we've already arguably seen that dynasty's founder in 2025. Greenlit because of the success of Andy Muschietti's IT duology, IT: Welcome to Derry didn't just serve existing Pennywise fans; it created a whole new legion of them. As reported by Deadline on December 18 (just 4 days after it aired), IT: Welcome to Derry's season finale scored a whopping 20 million viewers, a number that we assume continues to grow every time someone sees that new, blood-drenched Pennywise design on their Instagram.

But as we've established, we're here to talk about the future. And already, one horror icon that's just as famous, if not moreso, than Pennywise himself, is slated to get the Welcome to Derry treatment. Admittedly, in a very different, terrifying US locale.

A new face(mask) for Camp Crystal Lake

As I probably don't have to tell you, horror fan, Jason Voorhees himself is undergoing a bit of a background exploration as the Linda Cardellini-starring Friday the 13th prequel Crystal Lake. Set to release sometime in 2026 on Peacock, this is the first time that a long-form Vorhees story has been on a screen in 15 years. As if that alone isn't enough to get viewers tuning into Crystal Lake (not to mention the idea of ex-Velma Cardellini as Pamela Voorhees), then Peacock's production partner certainly will - it's weirdo staple A24, after all. 

But that's hardly everything on the horizon for horror TV that requires an editorial time machine. Pennywise is already confirmed to return for another, even earlier season of IT: Welcome to Derry, and there's also the matter of a certain xenomorphic horror prequel that we're going to mention momentarily. But before we get too far into our own future, I think it's worth pausing to ask - why? Why do horror creators want to dip intoa  franchise's past these days? What about horror prequels is working?

Objects are scarier in the rear-view mirror

What does turning the clocks back on a familiar horror story accomplish, anyway? Well, for franchises that have spent plenty of time getting into the lore and abilities of their leading monsters, a prequel provides the opportunity to remind an audience of a time when we were still discovering those favorite freaks. But don't just take it from me - take it from Noah Hawley.

The showrunner of another very successful 2025 horror prequel, Noah Hawley, said this of his choice to introduce a new, terrifying creature in FX's Alien: Earth.

"The most critical feeling that you get from seeing Alien for the first time," Hawley told SFX Magazine, "[is the] is discovery of the life cycle of this creature. Every time you think that you know what this monster is, it changes into something worse. You can’t ever get back with those creatures. But if I bring in new creatures, you don’t know how they reproduce, what they eat, how they’re parasites."

In a similar vein, one of the most lauded parts of IT: Welcome to Derry was the show's revelation that Pennywise experiences time differently than humans, casting a whole new light on what we've already seen of Bill Skarsgård's clown-shaped killer. As any good prequel should, it casts new light on a story we thought we already knew, and ironically, that light was scarier than the dark.

Like any other corner of culture, the horror world is always subject to ups and downs (case in point - I thought that I'd be writing a lot more about Five Nights at Freddy's 2 money last month). So it may very well be that the horror prequel bubble we're entering is one that'll pop just as fast as it formed. If so, though, we'll still get to take a look back and enjoy examining this moment - what made it scary, how it affected the future, how we survived.

And, to my point, isn't that exactly what a good horror prequel does?

In the immortal words of Danny Elfman, "Life's no fun without a good scare." Join Popverse's weekly explorations of the best opening moments of horror cinema in The Coldest Open, and then check out:

• The best horror movies of all time, according to horror aficionado Greg Silber
• The most underrated horror movies from the past couple years
• All the new and upcoming horror movies for 2025 and beyond

And much gore. Er, more. Much more.