Rating:*1/2 out of ****
Herbert West ends up going to jail for his re-animation crimes,13 years pass,West gets himself a new work partner,Dr.Howard Phillips,who wants to work with West(although his sister was killed by one of his re-animated experiments,which was one of the reasons West went to jail),they begin making new re-agents serums and,of course,the a-hole warden,thinks their up to something they shouldn't be.Slap in a female reporter who Howard falls for and vice versa and she has secrets of her own.Also throw in prison inmates who have a grudge against West and all this leads to a bloody climax.
WARNING! SPOILERS!!SPOILERS!! IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THIS MOVIE,DO NOT READ THIS REVIEW!!
Something told me this was going to be bad,when they decided to keep West in jail for the whole entire movie,when they also hired a first timer to pen the script for the movie and worst of all when they kicked Bruce Abbott out of the series in order to draw a more youthful audience into the series by hiring Jason Barry.*coughselloutcough* Plus, director Brian Yuzna's most recent efforts haven't exactly been spectacular,either,Faust,Love of the Damned,anyone?
Their's nothing inspired in the script,either.Here we get a bunch of retreads,the Phillips/female reporter/warden love triangle is a fourth-rate version of the Dan/Megan/Hill love triangle from the original, the female reporter gets killed and then gets re-animated*yawn*,the villain(the warden),gets killed, then steals West's re-animaton serum and creates his own army of the undead,just like in the original.That's just some of the stuff that's been rehashed in this movie.They basically took the plot of the original, slapped in a prison environment and put a different ending on it.
Their's tons of other problems with the script,too.West is under used to a certain degree, the movie focuses on a little too much on other prison inmates,the nurse, the awful and contrived romance between Howard and the reporter,when they should have been focusing more on him. Another disappointment.The NPE,Nano-Plasmic Energy,which supposed to control the re-animated subjects makes absolutely no sense what so ever,how come some of the corpses need it and others don't,just doesn't make any sense.Or how about Howard,who whines and screams at West how they shouldn't be doing this,but yet he still keeps helping him,at least in Bride,why Dan Cain still stuck around,was a little more believable then this.And then their's the subplot of the reporter who's doing a story on West,and wants to get more information on him,that's dropped like a pin,when she's becomes a re-animated corpse.
As long as Jeffrey Combs is alive,their's going to be franchise,he still has what it takes to be West,seeing him as West is a treat.Too bad, I can't say that about the rest of the cast,Devon Sawa wannabe Jason Barry and non-actress Elsa Pataky are both awful, couple that with Simon Andreu's campy over the top performance as the Warden,you got yourself, some really bad acting.Spanish extras are awful,too,everyone,expect for Combs and Barry,looks Latino and speaks with Spanish accents,and I'm supposed to believe this takes place in America. Yeah,right?
The atmosphere of the first two movies are gone,Yuzna's direction is on the bland side,considering his movies are always very stylish.The photography is lacking, and the gore is limited,although there is a couple of nice gory sequences,but it's always followed up by something stupid,here's an example,the jawless zombie is good,up until it's starts drinking milk out of a carton,stupid.There's all kinds of stuff like that throughout the movie.
Maybe Herbert West should have stayed dead after Bride.Because nothing we see here is original or inspired,considering how strong the first movie, and how Bride was worthy followup,I expected better.It's clear the series is dead after this sequel.
Herbert West ends up going to jail for his re-animation crimes,13 years pass,West gets himself a new work partner,Dr.Howard Phillips,who wants to work with West(although his sister was killed by one of his re-animated experiments,which was one of the reasons West went to jail),they begin making new re-agents serums and,of course,the a-hole warden,thinks their up to something they shouldn't be.Slap in a female reporter who Howard falls for and vice versa and she has secrets of her own.Also throw in prison inmates who have a grudge against West and all this leads to a bloody climax.
WARNING! SPOILERS!!SPOILERS!! IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THIS MOVIE,DO NOT READ THIS REVIEW!!
Something told me this was going to be bad,when they decided to keep West in jail for the whole entire movie,when they also hired a first timer to pen the script for the movie and worst of all when they kicked Bruce Abbott out of the series in order to draw a more youthful audience into the series by hiring Jason Barry.*coughselloutcough* Plus, director Brian Yuzna's most recent efforts haven't exactly been spectacular,either,Faust,Love of the Damned,anyone?
Their's nothing inspired in the script,either.Here we get a bunch of retreads,the Phillips/female reporter/warden love triangle is a fourth-rate version of the Dan/Megan/Hill love triangle from the original, the female reporter gets killed and then gets re-animated*yawn*,the villain(the warden),gets killed, then steals West's re-animaton serum and creates his own army of the undead,just like in the original.That's just some of the stuff that's been rehashed in this movie.They basically took the plot of the original, slapped in a prison environment and put a different ending on it.
Their's tons of other problems with the script,too.West is under used to a certain degree, the movie focuses on a little too much on other prison inmates,the nurse, the awful and contrived romance between Howard and the reporter,when they should have been focusing more on him. Another disappointment.The NPE,Nano-Plasmic Energy,which supposed to control the re-animated subjects makes absolutely no sense what so ever,how come some of the corpses need it and others don't,just doesn't make any sense.Or how about Howard,who whines and screams at West how they shouldn't be doing this,but yet he still keeps helping him,at least in Bride,why Dan Cain still stuck around,was a little more believable then this.And then their's the subplot of the reporter who's doing a story on West,and wants to get more information on him,that's dropped like a pin,when she's becomes a re-animated corpse.
As long as Jeffrey Combs is alive,their's going to be franchise,he still has what it takes to be West,seeing him as West is a treat.Too bad, I can't say that about the rest of the cast,Devon Sawa wannabe Jason Barry and non-actress Elsa Pataky are both awful, couple that with Simon Andreu's campy over the top performance as the Warden,you got yourself, some really bad acting.Spanish extras are awful,too,everyone,expect for Combs and Barry,looks Latino and speaks with Spanish accents,and I'm supposed to believe this takes place in America. Yeah,right?
The atmosphere of the first two movies are gone,Yuzna's direction is on the bland side,considering his movies are always very stylish.The photography is lacking, and the gore is limited,although there is a couple of nice gory sequences,but it's always followed up by something stupid,here's an example,the jawless zombie is good,up until it's starts drinking milk out of a carton,stupid.There's all kinds of stuff like that throughout the movie.
Maybe Herbert West should have stayed dead after Bride.Because nothing we see here is original or inspired,considering how strong the first movie, and how Bride was worthy followup,I expected better.It's clear the series is dead after this sequel.