I'm glad I re-watched the first movie before seeing this.
Similar to the first one, I'm a bit conflicted. The expectations created by the first one are impossible to live up to. There was plenty of mystery in the first half of the first one. The loss of that mystery made the second half feel like a different movie. This one starts with no mystery, and the mystery that gets manufactured isn't very demanding. This means that the tension is lowered, making it less effective as a horror movie.
There's no bigger problem than the setup that they have to start out with. The audience knows that the father is holding the evil spirit. It seemed obvious that the mother knew. Now the movie has to start out by casting doubt on that ending? It's not an enviable position.
There are two specific things that made this movie shine. First, the effects work is great. I'm very pleased with the shots involving the lettered dice. The scene where the ghost appears while the mother is walking through the house on the phone - very well done. I actually rewound to be sure that I saw it. The reveal right after that was just fantastic. I'm very, very impressed with how that turned out.
The other thing that pleased me, and saved the movie in my mind, was the tethering of the plots. It's one thing to make a direct sequel. That can work pretty well - I like Halloween II. This was retroactively tying these stories together, and it worked very well. This is hard to detail, but there are scenes from the first movie that are explained by inclusion in this one. This reminds me of what I like about the Paranormal Activity movies, and I wish more movies would do this type of thing. It's a difficult thing to do, but the payoff is great. It can make a lesser story feel more important. Almost like it transfers some of the goodwill from the other movies.
Horror-research wise, I felt like it repeated a few similar horror cliches - sexual identity issues, abusive mothers leading to kill (a la Psycho or Sleepaway Camp). The possessed father trying to kill a young son (The Shining, obviously).
But I did realize that there's a power to be had in using these elements like teeth. Teeth are a primal kind of thing, and a lot of people have strange phobias or preoccupations with them. Their inclusion isn't terribly important to this story, but it's an interesting device.
Another addition - I noticed when Carnival of Souls was playing on a TV, and thought it was a tasteful reference. There's a scene later when a bunch of ghosts reach for one of the kids, which seemed to be emulating that movie. Also a nice reference.
No comments:
Post a Comment