Picking up where the last film left off, we discover that the thrill-seeking crew have been rescued and were part of a mere ultimate scare. A year later the group is out to explore more of America’s greatest haunted attractions. But they then find that once again they may be stalked by the group known as the Blue Skeleton who stalked them in the last film.
I was a pretty big fan of the original film and it has since become one my must-watch films in October. When the unexpected announcement of the sequel came a mere couple of months ago, I was interested but not expecting much. Thank god my expectations were low. The majority of this movie isn’t even horror, it feels so much more like some kind of fun documentary you’d find on T.V. about different haunted attractions in America, and in that sense it’s pretty fun. Hell, they visited a couple of places in my own state that I hadn’t heard about. Even some of the other ones they visited looked fun. The first film had this aspect sure, but at least it still felt like a movie and had some creepy and horror elements sprinkled throughout. We finally get to the horror in the last 15/20 minutes of the movie, and some of it is a little creepy, but also feels a bit lacking and goes too fast. And then…we are given a stupid, nonsensical ending that makes this feel like such a pointless movie. Hell, not going to a lie I was even a bit confused as to what this purpose was and just left me with a bunch of questions as to how this was all being set-up. The original felt simplistic and left you with no questions about the motivations of the villains or any questions in general that left you aggravated. While the same characters from the first film return, they aren’t as interesting, nor do you care about them, except for maybe the girl, but even she is very one-note the whole time.
As mentioned, this movie works to give you some fun ideas on what to do during the great month of October, but as a horror movie, it doesn’t even feel like that even when the horror does come at the very last minute. Pretty pointless movie in the long run, all the way down to its plot. It should have been left with the creepy ending of the first film.
–Cody Landman
