Like as was said in my review for 'Daddy, I'm a Zombie', being such a huge fan of animation, it does honestly pain me whenever any criticisms are made to a film or television series that are mediocre or less when talking about them. It gives me no pleasure at all, despite how my previous negative reviews for animation sound, in saying anything bad but one has to if the product in question disappoints.
'Daddy, I'm a Zombie' didn't do much for me but to me it looked like some effort was put into it, even if it was vastly overshadowed by the things that it did wrong (which was a lot). When hearing that 'Daddy, I'm a Zombie' had a sequel, my immediate reaction was "what's the point?" After seeing 'Daddy, I'm a Zombie 2' (its UK title) with an open mind, out of fairness and curiosity, it still strikes me as not just a pointless sequel to a film that didn't need one and wasn't good enough to warrant one but a very weak film on its own terms.
Not everything in 'Daddy, I'm a Zombie 2' is done terribly. Again, some of the animation is not bad, not amazing but considering that it's not high-budget stuff it could have been far worse. There are some lovely atmospheric colours that give off a strong Gothic vibe and the backgrounds clearly look like a lot of care and detail went into them.
The music is similarly bang on, it's both haunting and energetic with a nice oddball touch when needed. Appreciated its attempt at providing a message on acceptance.
However, there is a lot wrong in 'Daddy, I'm a Zombie 2'. All the first film's flaws are repeated here and amplified while even more are made on the way. The film primarily suffers from trying to include far too many elements and doesn't do anything with them. Everything here feels muddled and superficial, while also being heavy-handed and annoying. It strived to include comedy, high school topical issues, messaging and supernatural horror, failing at all four.
Simply put the script is an over-baked and also superficial mess. The high school and zombie accomplices comedy is incredibly cheesy and childish, never once ringing true or being funny (one doesn't even crack a wry smile). The high school topical issues are very ill-explored, doing nothing fresh with relevant but done to death issues and such and treating them in a way that talks down to and at the audience. The messaging is severely overworked, the acceptance moral is wasted by the shallow motivation for its inclusion, and the horror elements are both too overly-dark and too tame with the Gothic vibe even more derivative and bland than before.
With the story, there's no better news. It is very predictable and without any entertainment, educational or emotional content, but even more problematic is that it's vastly over-populated feel constantly gives the sense that there is far too much going on. The characters are generic and too black-and-white archetypes with their personalities not being anywhere near close to engaging. The voice acting is again both bland and annoying, they even found a voice actor for Gonner that most of the time one can't understand a word of what the character is saying. Characters still look stiff and robotic, even more so actually than its predecessor.
In conclusion, very weak. 3/10 Bethany Cox
