Director: Brian Gibson
Year: 1986
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Trying to get away from their haunted house, the family that was originally targeted comes under attack once again by the same source as before in their new dwelling and must find the source of its power in order to finally rid themselves of the evil being.
Review:
This one here wasn't all that bad of a sequel. One of the better elements here is the fact that it carries over from the first one and shows the family unit together that was so vital in the first one. Bringing it back relates them more to the events of what came before as what starts this off pretty much right from the beginning. There are some good moments here and there that are pretty enjoyable, as the first attack in the bathroom is a great highlight with some great special effects showing the spirits getting released and an imaginative series that had a great sense of trying to be original, the braces wiring springing to life and ensnaring them in the bathroom is a big scene that's pretty imaginative, and the displays of his religious powers are rather entertaining.
The entire vomit creature scene is full of great moments as the early scenes of him possessed and trying to toy with her is quite chilling before leading into the cheesiness of the rest of the sequence including the creature itself which looks great and pretty realistic before the all-out encounter in the garage which contains the rather chilling brawls with the electrical wiring and the running chainsaw getting put to great use. That leads into the thrilling finale back in the caverns underground which lend themselves to a spooky setting where the skeletons and cramped rocky settings give this the fine backdrop for the battle in the other dimension which is pretty thrilling overall and really offers a lot to like. These all add up to a film that's far better than it should be even though there are a few problems here.
There is one overriding problem with the film that is really hard to shake its PG-13 rating. This really shouldn't be much of a problem, but the fact is that it has to retreat on its horror moments to make it more acceptable for the younger crowd to not get too scared at it. That severely reduces the power of the film's potential when it has to scale back the reason for its being to make it more acceptable. There's also the fact that a couple of times what is eventually revealed completely contradicts what happened before comes about for no reason with the fact that it makes the family seem destined to their fate instead of just being plagued by a random ghost attack. It really destroys the continuity of the two films. There were some slight scenes that never really felt right in terms of the continuation of the series. The film also has a very slow start and takes a while to get going. It's all mostly exposition to get into the film, but it could've done with some cutting out to tighten it up. Otherwise, there are some enjoyable parts here.
Overview: ***/5
A decent follow-up to a classic, there’s enough here to keep this one going along nicely despite being an obviously lesser variation of the original even with these positives. Those with an interest in this style of genre fare or are curious about continuing the series will have a lot to like here while most others might want to heed caution.
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