Director: Andrew Jones
Year: 2016
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Killer Doll
Plot:
Desperate for a new job, a woman arrives at a run-down paranormal oddities museum as a night-shift cleaner with a few other workers trying to get the place up and running, igniting the belief that the centerpiece exhibit carrying a cursed doll might actually be haunted.
Review:
Overall, this was a decent enough, if problematic, follow-up. Among the better features of this one comes from the immensely fun setup that manages to work nicely as a follow-up to the original while still being enough of a standalone entry to be fun for what it is. The idea of the girl arriving at the museum as a nightshift worker while trying to earn some extra money and trying to work out the kind of strange vibe that washes over the place due to the influence of the doll working over everyone else there makes this setup work rather nicely. These early scenes, involving her going around trying to do her job cleaning the displays and picking up after everything else at the museum, with the smitten security guard starting a relationship with her, make this get off to a solid start by introducing enough bits of storyline progression from the original about how the haunted doll got into their custody.
Once it gets into the aspects of this one featuring the slow dawning of the idea that the doll’s alive through a series of accidents that take place around the museum, the film picks up considerably with a lot to like. The idea that it might be alive and chasing her around with those first encounters of it moving suddenly when no one’s looking or appearing to attack an unsuspecting victim by drawing them into the area makes for some chilling moments throughout here as it leads to the series of encounters towards the end involving the doll taking out the remaining members of the crew that are trying to put into motion a series of tricks to trap the doll to prove its existence. It comes along with a fantastic twist in the final few moments about the true nature of the doll’s evil and what it’s going to accomplish being set free in the world, giving the film some likable elements.
However, there’s also the issue with the absolutely sluggish tempo on display that saps the film of any real interest from the beginning. Regardless of how well the material is handled in depicting the incidents around the museum, trying to make sense of the accidents and strange scenarios around her, it doesn’t overcome the fact that it’s all cliched material that takes place, which leaves this one feeling immensely familiar and predictable as it goes along. With even the secondary storyline regarding the police investigation into the murders in such a dreary, dull monotone state, regardless of what’s taking place around them or how obvious the supernatural implications of what’s happening, the presentation here is immensely dragging without much to speed it up. Combined with the cheesy low-budget limitations featured here, these all manage to bring this one down.
Overview: **.5/5
A slightly more enjoyable, if still problematic, sequel, this one manages to be a somewhat more worthwhile feature, even if the majority of the flaws are still present in this one. Those with an appreciation for the type of genre fare present or who are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like here, as most others out there should heed extreme caution.
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