In Search of Darkness Part II: The Journey Into '80s Horror Continues

This is a documentary that I watched in parts while working. It was something that I didn't necessarily need to pay full attention to. There are greats from the film industry that are interviewed and voices in the horror community that are well respected as well. This one also does more of a deeper dive into the lesser mainstream horror as we get into what the 1980s had to offer.

For the talent that is featured, we have the likes of Nancy Allen, Tom Atkins, Doug Bradley, Clancy Brown, Lori Cardille, John Carpenter, Nick Castle, Larry Cohen, Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Sean S. Cunningham, Keith David, Joe Dante, Robert Englund, Mick Garris and Stuart Gordon. I'm still leaving people out there. They are paired up with Joe Bob Briggs aka John Bloom, Ryan Turek, Darcy the Mail Girl aka Diana Prince, Ben Scrivens, Brandon Tenold and Cecil Trachenburg. The knowledge and insight that we get is great. There was even movies covered that I hadn't heard of or seen, so they went on my list.

I'd highly recommend this if you are into horror, especially from the 1980s. I think this is fun for experts on the genre or for those that want to dig a bit deeper under the surface. I enjoyed my time here for sure. It is also well-made, that is something else I'm leaving out. The editing of clips and getting different perspectives helps.

My Rating: 8 out of 10.

This is the follow up to In Search of Darkness and it adds more great horror flick clips and interviews. It was awesome to see Nancy Allen from Dressed to Kill and Robert Englund and Robert Rusler from the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise being added to the mix of interviews. There's also excellent coverage of many great horror films that you've probably never heard of. This time around, the interviews seem more sincere and toned down which is a good thing. Definitely worth the watch. Catch it on Shudder as of July 2021.

In Search of Darkness: Part II might not offer much to the more seasoned horror fan, but it's entertaining nevertheless. It offers a nice array of talking heads to discuss a select group of popular (and not-so-popular) horror films from the 80's. The films included seem to have been selected randomly and some are discussed for a good chunk of time and some seem to only be talked about for 30 seconds. It can get a little frustrating at times, but this is a film made with a lot of enthusiasm and love and you can't fault them for something like that.

As much as I like the 80's I must say that In Search of Darkness Part 2 becomes tiresome. Sure, there are plenty of gory clips but the comments by the usual bunch of horror fans, scream queens, and Fangoria Hall of Fame alumni are not enough to sustain interest for four and a half hours! They are mostly small talk and don't provide much insight. The noble cause behind In Search of Darkness Part 2 is to focus on lesser known horror instead of the usual Freddy-Jason-MIchael Myers stuff. What we get here is more Freddy-Jason-Michael Myers stuff along with very quick presentations of lesser known titles-some of it European and Asian. Another big problem is that titles such as Hills Have Eyes 2, Poltergeist 3, Saturday the 14th (!!!) are treated like classics. The makers of the documentary seem to neglect the fact that there was a sharp decline of the quality of pictures in the second half of the decade. This decline is obvious if you examine the covers of Fangoria becoming lamer year after year. As a presentation of 80's horror the makers could have done much better. If they had focused on the good stuff and had made this a bit shorter. Those who are new in horror may find it more interesting. If you've been reading Fangoria since the 80's and have already seen Trailer Trauma 80's Horrorthon and In Search of Darkness Part 1, most of this will seem pointless.

I enjoyed this a lot I don't think I did myself any favors by watching it all in one go Jesus Christ, but I really found it to be quite an improvement over the first one, it didn't get to feel so monotonous, they noticeably seemed to put more effort into going into the hows and whys of why we love horror movies and some of what the many people were saying was quite thoughtful and even heartfelt at points. I liked how they talked about a lot of smaller movies that I love like Cellar Dweller and Dead and Buried, but it wasn't all just endless quick movie reviews, they broke it up really well by also talking about horror movie based video games and concepts for alternate versions of famous horror movies that never got made and I really enjoyed when some beloved horror actors like Nancy Ellen and Robert Englund and Linea Quigley, who is such a cool sweetheart of a lady, talked about themselves and their place in eighties horror movies and it was cool how this documentary branched out a little in how they approached talking about the genre. I liked it a lot in fact the only thing I think is really wrong with it is of course that it's obscenely longer than it perhaps needs to be, it's downright absurdly long, crazy long! There fifteen minutes of end credits!! Also I don't know what it is, as he's quite fun to listen to on his own online horror movie related show The Kill Count, but as he talks on here, James A Janisse is irritating as hell! Good program, don't know if I'd buy it or anything but definitely worth a watch for the reminiscing and interesting nostalgic anecdotes and stories that the actors reveal about the movies and the times back when, don't miss when Nancy Ellen says something very kind and sad about the late Heather O Rourke... On that cheerful note it's a good show just make sure you break it up into segments as you watch it! X.