See No Evil 2

*½

Jacob Goodnight, who for all intensive purposes should not have in any way survived the previous film, somehow still clings to life only to flatline while in the ambulance as his badly injured body is being attended to by paramedics. His corpse is taken to a morgue/hospital, where a small number of young adults (friends of star Danielle Harris, who works as an assistant to potential boyfriend, Kaj-Erik Eriksen, for boss-in-a-wheelchair Michael Eklund)) are celebrating their friend’s birthday (Harris). The friends (Katherine Isabelle, Lee Majdoub, Chelan Simmons) and brother (Greyston Holt) are unaware that this night will be a downer as somehow, someway Goodnight revives (how, who knows.) and starts crashing the party. 

Cutting out the power to the entire building (yes, he can just rip apart the electrical system and not fry), equipping himself with the right kind of cutting blade (there’s a methodical weapons decision that fans of Student Bodies should get a good giggle out of), and as he seems impervious to pain or violence, just has a grand ole time slicing up bodies and snapping necks. WWE wrestler, Kane, is just this hulking behemoth who looks the part and doesn’t have to do a whole lot of emoting. He does have one moment where he stares down at Simmons, snarling and enraged, asking her why God would want her to live. Yep, right before she takes her last breath, he calls her a whore. 

There’s a little bit of brother/sister angst as Holt’s Will seems to want to control sis Amy’s (Harris) life. There’s some good chemistry between geeky Eriksen’s Seth and Harris (who just deserves better than this; I’m like a broken record here), but Goodnight ruins their chances with his rampage. He can break down wooden and metal doors with total ease (one moment has Goodnight putting his arm through a door with his blade in one try, killing a character), and even after being filled with formaldehyde it is hinted he will return for yet another sequel! This slasher sequel to See No Evil (which wasn’t exactly the kind of film that necessarily called for one) is never the least bit realistic (poor Seth is thrown around rooms, into book shelves, over tables, into lockers, etc, yet somehow endures all the suffering to possibly escape!). 

I keep hoping I’ll see Harris in better movies than this shit, but she continues to be one of the only saving graces in them. Fans of the Soska sisters’ “American Mary”, starring Isabelle, will be sorely disappointed that one of their next projects would be as indistinguishable and irrelevant as this sequel to a forgettable slasher film. 

Isabelle, who resurrected her career in “American Mary”, is just rather terrible, playing a rather wretched character. She loves all things morbid, and, believing Goodnight is dead, mockingly grinds on him while sexually teasing her beau (Majdoub)! Her hysterics are rather laughable, but does she get it good! I think Isabelle played it like this on purpose. The running mascara and trembling hands, her falling down so clumsily (oh, yeah, there’s a hell of a lot of this), and the hesitation of fear when she talks: this is every bit a “performance”. It was rather hard to watch for me, actually. 

The film has a nice look, even though I do wonder if the emergency lights are so ugly burnt orange in typical morgues. It does provide the appropriate hue for the nasty business conducted by Goodnight on the characters in the place. The resume of sequels to low budget horror/slasher is starting to accumulate for Harris. Park this bad boy right towards the bottom of it.