Los ojos del mal 2

After the first movie came out in 2006, I took a liking to it. It was a great source of mindless violence to get lost in for 2 hours or so, which is OK, sometimes you feel like watching something mindless. Thus, I was expecting great things from this movie, or at the very least, of it to live up to it's predecessor.

However, this movie flat out disappoints in every way possible.

The predictability is crushing, the facepalm moments are plenty, and I found myself shaking my head for the majority of the movie. It is the typical 'killer knows where everybody is, all the time- and manages to beat everybody to every destination- meanwhile the characters make stupid and convenient decisions for him" scenario.

But wasn't it the same for the first movie in 06? Yes, and no. This one is orders of magnitude worse.

This movie was on my top "to watch" list, and I am sad that it did not do better than anticipated, and by the looks of the other reviews, and the rating, it didn't live up to anybody else's expectations.

...even alternative lifestyle, fetish obsessed identical twins, apparently. The Soska Twins return for their first feature since their cult rape/revenge film American Mary. Why they were tapped to do a sequel to the WWE's franchise non-starter See No Evil, why they accepted, and why the movie is even being made 8 years after the original is anybody's guess. But it exists and I was actually psyched to see it, considering American Mary was interesting and unusual enough to be memorable, I actually kind of liked the first movie, and this one stars two of the great Scream Queens of our time, Danielle Harris (Halloween franchise, Hatchet franchise) and Katharine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps franchise, Freddy vs. Jason, Hannibal the series), Suffice to say, I was sorely disappointed.

This is a lousy, slapped together sequel with nothing distinguishable about it. It occurs the night after the original movie's massacre as a pretty, young morgue attendant (Danielle Harris) is forced to work through her birthday to clean up all the bodies fanatically religious serial killer Jacob Goodnight (Kane) left in his wake before apparently being killed himself. She has his body, too. And when her friends decide to bring the party her to her, sneaking into the morgue after hours, one party goer (Katharine Isabelle), a drunken slut with a death fetish, sneaks off to check out Jacob's body.

Unfortunately, Jacob is apparently just as hard to kill as Jason Voorhees and equally good at playing possum. He wakes up, and he kills people. And that's it.

There's nothing much to See No Evil 2, the characters are poorly written, the acting is just okay, and the kills are generic, and not all that gory, nowhere near the level of the original. Danielle Harris has a fair amount of screen time, a nice switch from the glorified cameos she's been getting lately. Katharine Isabelle, on the other hand, only has a supporting role after playing the lead in American Mary and she does the sort of cheesy overacting she usually does when she knows the material she's been given is terrible.

See No Evil 2 makes a lot of mistakes. One of the more interesting part the first movie was that Kane looked like a troll made flesh, a towering, monster of a man killing people, usually by turning their own sins against them. Not so here. He wears a mask now, poor move that makes the movie more clichéd, and the kills are interchangeable and unimaginative. It's difficult predicting who will die and when, but that hardly matters because none of the characters are remotely interesting.

See No Evil 2 is so bad it not only kills the hopes for a See No Evil franchise but also seriously hurts anyone's hope that the Soska Twins will be horror's next big thing. This cheap looking, weak horror sequel is bad and was made by people that either didn't care or didn't know how to make a good movie.

See No Evil 2 (2014)

*** (out of 4)

Surprisenly good sequel to the 2008 film has a group of friend's celebrating a birthday when one of them (Danielle Harris) can't leave work. What they don't realize is that the dead body of Jacob Goodnight (Kane) has come back to life and he's seeking more victims.

SEE NO EVIL was a decent, run-of-the-mill slasher film that was pretty much entertaining due to its incredibly graphic and over-the-top gore/murders. Outside of the murders the film really wasn't all that memorable so I was shocked when a sequel followed so many years later. I was even more shocked when I learned Jen and Sylvia Soska was directing it. SEE NO EVIL 2 isn't going to be mistaken for a masterpiece but I was pleasantly surprised to see how well it turned out thanks to a rather good screenplay and the very good direction.

Whereas the first film relied on gore and violence, this one here really doesn't contain too much of that and in fact some of the death's are off camera. Instead the Soska sister tried to add some tension and suspense and I think for the most part they succeed. There are some extremely good scenes including one where the Harris character is stuck in an elevator with the "dead" body. Another highlight includes a scene where two characters are in total darkness and keep striking a match to see where they are. There's an extended chase sequence through the basement, which also manages to build up some good suspense. The atmosphere created by the Soska sisters is another major plus and stuck inside such a small location the directors are also able to build up a claustrophobic nature.

The performances are pretty much what you'd expect to see in a film like this. Harris is always fun to watch and she manages to bring you into her character and make you care for her. Kaj-Erik Eriksen also gives a good performance. Katharine Isabelle plays her typical slut character but man is she terrific here. She clearly steals the film in a rather over-the-top "kiss" that I won't spoil. Kane doesn't give what one would consider a great performance but there's no doubt that frame of his makes for an impressive killing machine. The film also manages to have some nice cinematography and a very effective music score.

The screenplay contains moments where the characters do stupid things but this is a horror movie after all. I really can't think of too many horror films where the characters are doing smart things because if they were the movies would be over fairly quickly with them all getting away and surviving. I really liked what the writers did here including a couple twists that happen in the final ten-minutes including one that even the most jaded horror fans won't see coming. SEE NO EVIL 2 isn't going down in history as one of the greatest films ever made but it's certainly an entertaining slasher.

See No Evil 2 (2014) is currently available on Tubi and picks up where the first film left off in the Mortuary where the bodies from the first film are being brought by the authorities. Unfortunately, the killer may not be as dead as he appears and he's pissed about what happened to his mom and he's ready to take it out on anyone he comes across.

This movie is codirected and co-written by Jen & Sylvia Soska (American Mary) and stars Glenn Jacobs (MacGruber), Danielle Harris (Urban Legend), Katharine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps), Chelan Simmons (Tucker and Dale vs Evil), Kaj-Erik Eriksen (The Commish) and Greyston Holt (House of Chains).

It stinks they couldn't do more with a character that had so much potential. The main character is a cross of Michael Myers and Norman Bates. His makeup and missing eye scene were great. The blood splatter and setting were also solid. Unfortunately the kill scenes themselves were mediocre and even the well setup throat slash is a let down. With a little better writing and execution, this could have been a gem. Unfortunately, this doesn't live up to its potential. I would score this a 4/10 and recommend seeing it once.

From the twisted mind of director The Soska Sisters comes a disappointing sequel that lost all the cheesy bloody fun of the first film. See No Evil 2 is such a typically mediocre horror film where victims get killed off one by one with not much of a surprise and coming from such potentially imaginative director (seeing from their previous works in American Mary and T segment from ABCs Of Death 2), it's quite a huge disappointment here. The GORES here are also really let down comparing to how much more gleefully bloody and nastier the first film was, but it's still moderately bloody nonetheless. The SCARE here is mostly jumpy one as our Jacob Goodnight here lacks the personality that can deliver the suspense and just looks pathetic instead. However, thanks to a cheesily tempting performance from Katharine Isabelle (American Mary) that's at least FUN to watch throughout the film. Other than that, See No Evil 2 has nothing new or surprising to be added to the genre and not enough gores or violence to even surpass the cheesy fun of the first film. >>C<<