Director: Michael J. Bassett
Year: 2012
Country: Canada/France/USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Troubled by strange dreams, a teen and her friend go on the run from a series of strange creatures and visions which prompt her to visit a dreaded town of eternal darkness in hopes of finding an answer for her journey.
Review:
For the most part, this one wasn't all that bad and really had some good parts to it. What really tends to make this one work is the fact that there's an exciting slew of scenes here that not only help with the action but also manages to help the story make more sense coming off the original which is quite surprising. Though the original does good enough with what's presented here, this one really fleshes the story out more by going all-out for the two features by managing to convey the mysterious voices in her head, her strange dreams and constant fleeting visions of shadows stalking her in the first half as being quite important to the film. Not only are they great suspense-builders at generating rather creepy scenes, they also come with a special point that's slowly revealed about her true destiny and how that all ties into the initial escape here which is quite a novel concept here at using scares to sell the story.
That also leaves quite a nice balancing act in the second half as the first half tends to run more on the suspense route while the second one comes off more as an action-packed showcase with a large amount of thrilling action scenes all centered in the titular town which is the best part to this. The initial walk-through of the deserted city streets, the attempts at avoiding the patrols in the amusement park and the main sequence of her trying to get out of the underground tunnels filled with strange monsters and deformed mutants down below is really exciting and packs enough action, gory kills and fantastic visuals to make for a stand-out sequence that's wholly enjoyable while still managing to combine the earlier tactics of focusing on the action to tell the story.
These are more than enough to hold off the one main flaw with this one, as it's easily the 3D workings throughout here. This is painful to watch in 3D with camera angles purposefully tilted at odd angles simply so claws, blades or tongues from the different creatures can be thrust into the screen in utterly-shoddy CGI that never looks realistic or enjoyable. It's a lame tactic that never works well and always manages to ruin the scene whenever it's featured, which makes those scenes distracting and obvious, hurting what would otherwise be a rather enjoyable entry.
Overview: ****/5
While obviously filled with some rather distracting and problematic elements, taken on its own merits this was quite an enjoyable and even impressive offering. Give this a chance if you're able to separate the films' history from its own elements or have a curious feeling to check this one out, while those who are more faithful to the games should likely heed caution.
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