Director: Brian Yuzna
Year: 1990
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Cult
Plot:
Trying to investigate an apparent suicide, a reporter is drawn into a strange cult-like collection of women looking for new bodies using homeless people to host their demonic leader and tries to find a way of keeping a dangerous prophecy from coming true when they target a friend.
Review:
This was a slightly-more enjoyable sequel that still has some problems with it. One of its better qualities is the fact that there's a lot more here than just a simple demonic cult offering as there's a wholly enjoyable backstory to what's going on here. The initial story about the suicide attempt and the strange situations that surround it are quite engaging, which is nicely matched by the later storyline of her investigation slowly leading her further and further into their powers which enable plenty of exciting times through some highly effective and shocking scenes.
As these are based on the distorted and demented hallucinations that are part of the Insectoid fantasies she develops throughout the second half, this helps get the film going along quite nicely while also managing to follow along the secondary revelations here. The whole deal with the insects leads into the film's greatest strength throughout here in the demented atmosphere present that tends to run rampant quite readily due to these elements.
Even still, it never does manage to overcome its few small problems due to that. The main issue here revolves around the finale which is quite a bit overdone and really lacking in any kind of coherent logic, rationality or even scary moments as the abduction and resulting sacrificial ceremony don't play out as expected and just fall incredibly flat due to playing out exactly as it's expected to do without fail. Hardly any of it makes any impact much like the fact that the film is so dependent on the weird and otherworldly visuals that it never makes sense how to properly use them.
This one tends to run around thinking that it needs to simply throw weird and slimy special effects around hoping that will cause the audience to squirm when it does nothing of the sort and instead simply continues an overlong tradition of random scenes of slimy bugs after another which isn't scary in the slightest. By making it to that scenario, it forces the film into a state of relaxed attitudes and uninspired sequences that are hard to get into and what ultimately holds this one down.
Overview: **.5/5
Decent enough but still with some problems, there’s some generally likable features on display that are enough to keep it likable over a couple of flaws that hold it down. Those who are curious about it, appreciate this style of genre feature, enjoyed the previous entries in the series, or are fans of the creative crew will like this one the most while most others out there should heed caution.
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