Ex-Deputy(Ransone, still no name, and charmingly awkward as ever) continues the investigation. He's found another house. Rural, middle of nowhere, instead of a small town one. Burning them seems to work - it's tied to the locations. But there's a problem. There's someone living there. Now, he has to keep them from leaving, without wanting to tell them why.
Sequels to horror stories fail. They just do. We know too much now. You can't pretend we don't. Retread? Too different, it won't be the same. How could you possibly follow up? By shifting the perspective, setting and approach to the material by just the right amount, maintaining yet expanding the lore and cleverly retooling key elements. The children are creepier and better used, the family is more prominent and interesting, a writer's studying is replaced by a protective former cop whose fondness for, and bonding with, his charges grow and develop. And the films are shown for a different reason. Bughuul appears in different ways, somewhat more overt, hardly any of them compelling. That does bring up the negatives. Deaths go too far, ending up as torture porn, if at times genuinely scary rather than merely gross. The CGI is limited in use but never looks convincing.
This builds solid tension and suspense. The jumpscares are quite good, always surprising and not too frequent. Ideas for what grips us are creative, at times excessively so. This moves nicely along, giving enough time to each major plot point. In addition to the welcome increase in dialog and lines in general, far more happens in this. While this improves on the first in few ways, it takes enough risks and gives us the right amount of the unexpected, that which we didn't get before.
There is a lot of gruesome, disturbing content, violence and some graphic gore and strong language in this. I recommend this to any fan of the genre. 7/10
Sequels to horror stories fail. They just do. We know too much now. You can't pretend we don't. Retread? Too different, it won't be the same. How could you possibly follow up? By shifting the perspective, setting and approach to the material by just the right amount, maintaining yet expanding the lore and cleverly retooling key elements. The children are creepier and better used, the family is more prominent and interesting, a writer's studying is replaced by a protective former cop whose fondness for, and bonding with, his charges grow and develop. And the films are shown for a different reason. Bughuul appears in different ways, somewhat more overt, hardly any of them compelling. That does bring up the negatives. Deaths go too far, ending up as torture porn, if at times genuinely scary rather than merely gross. The CGI is limited in use but never looks convincing.
This builds solid tension and suspense. The jumpscares are quite good, always surprising and not too frequent. Ideas for what grips us are creative, at times excessively so. This moves nicely along, giving enough time to each major plot point. In addition to the welcome increase in dialog and lines in general, far more happens in this. While this improves on the first in few ways, it takes enough risks and gives us the right amount of the unexpected, that which we didn't get before.
There is a lot of gruesome, disturbing content, violence and some graphic gore and strong language in this. I recommend this to any fan of the genre. 7/10