Director: Giulio de Santi, Tiziana Machella
Year: 2017
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Exploitation
Plot:
Still trapped in the devilish hotel, the fabled hitman is shocked to learn he's being held by the same demons he had encountered before and must reclaim the elements held inside the hellish dimension in order to generate his body back on Earth, setting off to face the demon hordes intent on preventing that.
Review:
This was a fairly enjoyable and worthwhile follow-up. Much like the original, there's a lot to like with the fact that this one is shot in a point-of-view manner which continues to make great use of the format in its visual storytelling. Utterly forced on principle to be up-close and personal to the proceedings as the filmmaking tactics demand the actor be a central figure to what's happening around him, it results in a chilling setup to play out. As the confrontations and various situations presented here offer a near video-game experience with how they focus on interacting here, it develops an immediacy to the action that becomes quite immersive as time goes on. Moreover, the numerous jump-scares are even more effective as the darkness and insanity offer up a fun time here.
That becomes evident in the film's hallmark where it's all about the gore and brutality as it goes along. The fact that the gore is all over-the-top practical splatter that literally rains buckets of entrails and viscera at moments, creates a fine atmosphere of extreme and graphic bloodshed. This is a near-constant from the start, ranging from having skulls ripped open, limbs being blasted off, decapitations, stabbings, impalements, and getting blasted to pieces with numerous gunshots resulting in the body being left nearly unrecognizable. The constant nature of this bloodshed manages to offer up the kind of blood-drenched atmosphere that's immensely appealing, which goes alongside all the fine make-up on the numerous creatures to give the film a lot to like.
There are some big issues with this one which is the exact same flaw in the original. The main issue is the over-the-top nature of the shooting style wearing thin quite easily, much quicker even than it did in the first one. The jumpiness of the transitions here imitates a video game on autopilot where it focuses on intense action for a brief moment only to have someone off-screen explain what's going on or make vague threats about what's to come. The need to constantly have the plot explained in a narration-like style from the one other member he meets who agrees to help him gets old and tiring quickly just as well, especially with the unhelpful nature of the instructions. Given the fact that it's all the way through the film, this can be a little much and brings it down somewhat.
Overview: ***.5/5
A strange film in that it's technically better than the original in every respect but also manages to get the same flaws to an even greater degree as well, this one tends to be a rather troubling one to look into overall. Fans of the original will undoubtedly be into this one on sheer principle as well as those looking for extreme, over-the-top violence while most others would be lost here and should heed caution as a result.
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