The 3rd Eye 2

After her sister's death, a woman goes to work at a friends' orphanage where she meets another teen with her abilities at seeing ghosts and spirits, which they are forced to put to use when it becomes apparent a malicious spirit is haunting the area seeking revenge and must put a stop to it.

For the most part, this was quite an entertaining sequel. A lot of what works best for the film is the reliance and focus on some rather chilling and dark shock scenes that build quite a creepy atmosphere. A fine encounter between the two in their home at the beginning gives this a jolting start alongside the idea of what happens here killing off one of the major characters, while the confrontations around the orphanage are far more chilling. The investigation into the strange note she drew in her notebook sends them on a chase through the darkened library looking for clues to its meaning, while an outright chilling double-encounter where she and another child come face-to-face with different ghosts in separate rooms features fine suspense and great shocks. Likewise, a rather chilling action scene featuring the ghost tormenting the owners of the orphanage and eventually turning its wrath on the building itself throwing furniture around, knocking pictures off the wall, or threatening to bring the entire structure down all in front of children for a big, extended sequence. This allows for a rather strong pacing keeping things interesting as the abundance of creepy ghost encounters keeps the film going. Also rather fun is the return of the supernatural elements that were present in the first entry. Introducing a new character with the same powers as her sister allows this one to keep up the idea of being able to see ghosts and spirits around them using their Third Eye powers in a new setting while still offering the chance to keep up with the familiar elements in the storyline. Returning to the themes of retribution and revenge on the family member responsible for their death by haunting their place of death much as the original did, the slowly-unraveled mystery of the haunting allows for the two to utilize their powers of foresight to see what really happened to the characters to help speed the process along. As well, the return of the psychic from the first film to assist in astral projection and return to the spirit world full of bright colors and ravenous ghosts makes for a great continuation and cohesion into the universe which is greatly appreciated. All told, these here hold the film up as being enjoyable. However, there are several major flaws in the film. The first issue is that much like the first entry, there's far too much emphasis on utilizing cliched jump-scares that are far too obvious in their setup. The first film featured way too many scenes of ghostly figures walking by quickly in the background or popping up unexpectedly and charging at a character, a trend that is repeated continuously throughout here. As well, another in the film is an annoying habit of having hands reach out from underneath beds or dressers pulling objects underneath only to disappear upon investigating the incident, which happens several times throughout the film and really wears out its welcome the more it's used. However, none of these hurt the film as much as the overlong and dragged out finale that feels like a repeat of the first one offering the return to the spirit world, overdrawn special effects work, and a last-second twist that sets up a potential third film which is unnecessary and feels like overkill by dragging out the running time ten to fifteen minutes too long by including this retreaded material. It's enough to lower the rating enough from the good elements presented beforehand.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Language and children-in-jeopardy.

Not as great as the first one but was a decent flick. It seems they used their best ideas on the first one.

But also as the first one a lot of fake scares. Boo I'm here to scare you ... now run away, because I won't hurt you (yet). If it sounds like I'm not entirely convinced with the movie, you might be onto something. But I have seen way worse horror movies and I wouldn't go nearly as far as to call this a "bad" movie (no matter the genre).

Now we get a continuation from the first 3rd eye movie, though as you can guess you can watch this without prior knowledge of the other film. Of course if you do, you will have a couple of insights and "know" the characters (it's a nice touch, but let's keep it real, paper thin). If you are into this sort of stuff, sound design and so forth - well done.

I found the sequel to be pretty weak for the most part. The beginning of the movie kills off the character Abel from the first movie for a current reason. It could have been an effective moment, but it happened pretty quickly and not that much emotion towards it. The actual plot is with Alia decided to volunteer at an orphanage to help out and meet with a girl who also has a 3rd eye. Unfortunately, the sequel feels like a rehash of the first movie with the possession, finding out a truth, and going into another dimensional later on in the movie. There's a couple of reveals that aren't anything too interesting and feel somewhat similar to the previous movies. Also, the movie lacks any atmosphere because it is mostly cheap jump scares, and the ghost appears too much to be that creepy. The climax itself feels like it's dragging on a little bit too long and has an exposition dialogue in it. And I didn't like how the movie ended.

I still love the effects and the basic plot of this like I did the first The 3rd Eye but I'm realising maybe a bit too late that Rocky Soraya seems to do the same thing across all his films. I watched this series because I adored the three part The Doll series he did but looking back at them, The 3rd Eye and now The 3rd Eye 2, it's pretty much the same plot across all five films.

The only differences really are the characters, the objects of curse and the underworlds. Whilst I have nothing against the same cast being in all the films, having majority the same cast you constantly pick from doesn't help this at the same time and I'm left pretty disappointed after enjoying the first one so much.

This would have been so well if he had changed it around just a little bit, but even the way one of the characters says 'astral projection' is the exact same as the first film in this series. I notice that Soraya did his previous series like this in a set of three and I just truly hope if he does a third one in this series, it's not the same. Sabrina in The Doll series was unique enough in it's ending to hold out, so I just hope that the same happens here if he's going down this route. The ending is open enough to suggest a third film which does look like it will be different, but I'm not holding up any hopes at the moment for this series.

It's a good film, some of the effects are a bit wonky, but other than that, it's good - except that I feel like I just watched the same film twice. For 222 minutes / 3 hours and 42 minutes of content, I feel pretty deflated. It's a shame because I really do enjoy Soraya's films but I feel like a veil just lifted from my eyes and I'm not looking forward to the other four films of his I have left to watch.

I kind of regret starting a personal challenge to start finishing all the work of directors I've watched. Here's hoping that since the last four are varied in tone and/or genre that they're different enough from each other to be a much better watch.

The ending saved this from a 4 out of 10, but not by much.