As some of you may know I recently move to Belgium for a work opportunity, and during my first few weeks here other than attending a film festival for smaller profile releases, I’ve not had a huge amount of time to check out new releases. This the first film I’ve watched since the move, and I must say maybe it was a bad choice.
Edit for further reference I am seeing this first but my review of Strangers Chapter Two which I will be seeing in a few days, my second film here, will be released earlier this is just down to my release order and wanting to tie up that loose end which came out for a lot of people much earlier than it did here.
This film is dark, the grainy sort of film quality they project onto some scenes makes them feel like snuff films, the fact that you are seeing little kids getting hacked into pieces only adds to this. It really doesn’t shy away from showing horrific child abuse and slaughter.
I liked that the film developed a lot of the ideas from the first film and really pushed into more of a supernatural direction. There was of course supernatural elements to the first film, but they were mostly in the background, this went full on Nightmare On Elm Street. Therein lies the problem, part of this film wants to be incredibly serious, Ethan Hawke’s character goes on long monologues about what hell is like, but then comes out ice skating and twirling, clearly going for the comedy. This film really needed to decide on one tone before filming began.
Overall, I enjoyed that this film built out elements from the first, but I think that the tone is distracting and that child mutilation may be a bit much for some.
2.5/5
Pros.
It expands the supernatural storyline
The acting is okay
The location is interesting
Cons.
It is depressing
The tone is all over the place
The acting is just okay
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