(1992)
Dir - David Schmoeller
Overall: MEH
Charles Band and David Schmoeller are back at it with Netherworld; a New Orleans set supernatural yarn that was allegedly to be a European production with other personnel attached before the project was put on hold long enough to switch back across the Atlantic. Boasting the usual combination of adequate atmosphere and straight-to-video schlock, the potential is held back due to such a presentation which becomes subtly dopey despite its best intentions. Characters speak in cliches, several actors chew the scenery, Band's screenplay becomes increasingly convoluted, the pacing meanders, not a single scene is without its synth musical accompaniment, and it all takes itself just serious enough to be tonally inconsistent. Visually it is not without some charm though, channeling Phantasm through a Southern Gothic lens and the special effects work by Mark Shostrom is better than one would expect from the meager budget. Plus Edgar Winter randomly shows up during a fever dream montage, wailing away on the sax in the film's mysterious brothel where voodoo practitioners trap the souls of villainous individuals inside of birds because why would they not?
(1993)
Dir - Fred Walton
Overall: GOOD
Fourteen years after the theatrical release of When a Stranger Calls, writer/director Fred Walton plus actors Carol Kane and Charles Dunning team up again for the Showtime sequel When a Stranger Calls Back. A sense of déjà vu permeates the opening scene where Jill Schoelen's babysitter undergoes an eerily similar traumatic event, (in a carbon copy of the same house no less), to the one that Kane faced in the original, except instead of being an exact retread, the details are more bizarre and unsettling. Unlike the previous film though, this one has more tricks up its sleeve outside of the first sequence. Kane and Dunning's characters return to show emotional support for Schoelen as well as to track down her alleged stalker who apparently has advanced ventriloquist abilities. Sluggish to a point and not without its share of plot inconsistencies, the performances are top-to-bottom committed and Walton maintains a serious tone that disguises the movie's shortcomings. He also shows an expert knack for delivering the suspense and concocting surprises that sound goofy on paper yet again also work due to the campless presentation. Horror sequels are generally unnecessary and struggle to deliver just enough of the same thing to bring the initial fans on board while simultaneously being unique enough to warrant their existence in the first place, but this effort here surpasses expectations and is superior to its comparatively more flawed predecessor.
(1994)
Dir - Brian Trenchard-Smith
Overall: MEH
Super Soakers full of holy water, a pair of tits that turns into hands, a zombie demon playing basketball with his own head, sexy dancing set to Morbid Angel's "Rapture", a nun who performs kung-fu with a pair of rosaries, a tube of lipstick that crawls out, fornicates with, and then possesses a woman; the relentlessly stupid Night of the Demons 2 runs a slight variation of the first film's presence into the ground for those who need something to laugh at. Australian director Brian Trenchard-Smith steps in for Kevin S. Tenney, pitting another crop of unlikable horny douchebags against the forces of scenery-chewing evil and he keeps the tone rooted in a level of schlock that the material deserves. The plotting is slap-dash and lazy with its details, pulling hilarious excuses out of its sleeve for more mayhem to unfold; mayhem that is thankfully over-the-top enough to warrant some deserving chuckles. If not for the uneventful first half and so many characters behaving like parodies of the worst kind of one-note assholes in 80s slasher movies, this could be seen as a more agreeably campy watch. Flaws in all though, it works when it works and delivers nonsensical, blasphemous, sleazy, and gory set pieces better than others of its kind, including its 1988 predecessor.
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