Director: Rene Perez
Year: 2016
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Slasher
Plot:
Stuck in hard times, a struggling single mother accepts an offer to become a part of a new reality show and joins the others on the shoot deep in the woods to escape from a masked killer, but when they learn it's a setup with a real killer stalking them one by one, they try to get away alive.
Review:
This here was quite the decent follow-up effort. One of the better aspects of this one is the improvement in several areas over the original, including upping the ante on the body count. Rather than focus the time on a single individual, this one takes great use of the reality show-shoot concept by artificially adding a few extra bodies to hack up, which also means it contains some extra blood and gore in the kills, with more opportunities to do so. From the opening assault on the lone victim in the woods to the tied-up and mutilated body, this one features a nice start here, while still undergoing the confines of the reality show setup that it goes through in the first half.
The game itself is quite a decent setup with them attempting to survive a make-believe horror film only to find themselves in a real one, and with the isolation of the deep woods and plenty of atmosphere generated from the lavish house, which leads to plenty of good fun to come from the stalking scenes to be featured here. From the series of ambushes showing him sneaking up on the victims inside the house to the chase through the woods after finding the strung up body inside the tree, these scenes here aren't that bad and definitely set up the fun to be had in the final half where it's down to the two of them in the final confrontation in the woods which is a decent overall setpiece that has a lot to like with the shootouts and confrontations with the killer.
It also doesn't hurt that this continues to exploit its fine central killer, who is an insanely chilling presence that this one gets a lot of mileage out of, as the flesh-colored mask wrapped in barbed wire and twisted metal still leaves an indelible mark during his scenes. These here hold it up over its few minor flaws. The main issue here is the fact that there's just such an abbreviated and quick ending that it's nearly impossible to be put off by what happens since it's smack in the middle of a battle that has both sides at a standstill, rendering it impossible to know what happened. This literally reads as though it ran out of money and never bothered to go back to finish what was going on, as this just ends without deciding anything.
As well, this one suffers from a similar flaw to the original in its lack of overall clarity with what's going on. Hardly anything is explained at all here, from what the employer at the computer monitors is trying to accomplish to what the purpose of the killer is supposed to mean and why he's unaware of it all from the start. Alongside the moments where it's obvious the low budget comes shining through, these are what hold this one back.
Overview: ***/5
An overall solid and worthy follow-up indie slasher, this one comes off well enough for what it is that it is able to overcome the drawbacks present that hold it down to be a slightly better entry than the previous film. Those with an interest in this style of genre fare, fans of the original entry, or hardcore indie slasher fans will have a lot to like here, while most others should heed caution.
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