Director: Ben J. Williams
Year: 2023
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
Hosting a special party in the woods, a group of friends tries to have a special celebration together only for a series of prehistoric creatures to crash the occasion and kill several of the group, and after getting away the survivors band together with her father’s mercenary team to kill the creatures.
Review:
This was a decent enough if somewhat flawed sequel. One of the finer aspects present with this one is the way it manages to take a seemingly hokey setup and manages to have some fun with the concept on display. While the initial guise is initially set to involve a friendly gathering in the woods that gets attacked by the creatures and the resulting storyline involves the means of surviving in the wilderness by the survivors, this one pulls off a rare feat by having the couple survive and get away from the creatures bringing about a secondary fun change in the ensuing trauma of the occasion ringing off for the main girl. The impact this has on her and the extent to which she sets out to bring together her father’s old mercenary team to hunt down and kill the creatures is all fun enough given a solid motivation and reasoning to do so while also managing to give off the kind of worthwhile motivation to bring about some great action in the second half after the opening rush.
That allows the film to continue with a solid slew of cheesy creature feature attacks as the type of encounters here have that particular brand of cheesy concepts played off remarkably straight. The opening attack on the group’s cabin in the woods party is a fine starting point as the series of ambush attacks to get the appropriate setup for the second half involves the group heading out into the wilderness to take them down. This leads into a series of cheesy encounters where the military team arrives in the woods and tries to take out the creatures in the surrounding areas which results in a solid slew of encounters where the main focus on ineffective gunplay against the creatures leaves this one with plenty of battles and gruesome deaths which manage to provide some solid aspects.
There are some issues with this one that hold it down. Among its biggest drawbacks is the strange inclusion of reusing a good bit of footage from the first entry here that doesn't serve much purpose in the film. The idea of connecting this one so closely to the original through these scenes is somewhat flimsy since her surviving character doesn’t fit in to find the soldiers to track down the creatures, the whole series of flashbacks to spell it out stop a film already this short cold to get it unleashed, and the whole thing is a weak way to introduce this particular storyline. There’s also no reason for the irritatingly cliched storyline about one of the team trying to sell the eggs to spite the team which makes no sense and is thankfully dropped soon enough. Lastly, there’s also the typically cheesy creature effects here with the obvious silly CGI sticking out throughout which are all enough to bring this one down overall.
Overview: ***/5
A fun enough if somewhat slightly lacking sequel, there’s a lot to like here which makes this one enjoyable enough overall although the issues present here do manage to keep it below the original. Those with an appreciation for this type of genre, an affinity for the style attempted here, or have enjoyed the first one will have a lot to like here while most others out there will want to heed caution with it.
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