Plenty of horror movies have proven successful enough to spawn franchises. But how many of those debut installments remain the best of their respective IPs? And, for that matter, which of those first installments is the best when compared to other franchise-starters? And just what makes it the best? A host of factors apply when gauging their quality, including memorability, rewatchability, general scariness, writing, the list goes on. What follows is a ranking of the first installments of ten major horror franchises and just the first installments. That means the ranking came down to only the merit of that one movie, not how well or how poorly it was followed up.

Note that this was restricted to straightforward horror franchises, so no Alien or Predator here. Furthermore, to be considered, it had to be a franchise with quite a few films under its belt (a.k.a. more than three), be they theatrical or direct to video. From killer dolls and vengeful mothers to enigmatic men with butcher knives and the son of the devil, here are the first installments of 10 famous horror franchises, ranked.

It may have introduced the world to Chucky, a truly iconic slasher villain, but isn’t even the best of its own franchise. That said, it’s still pretty terrific, with note-perfect performances from both Catherine Hicks and, of course, Brad Dourif as the voice of Chucky.