This DTV sequel to Eli Roth's film debut sees the flesh-eating virus spread due to the incompetence of Deputy Winston. The film opens with a badly infected Paul waking up in the river where Winston dumped him at the end of the original. He stumbles up to the highway and is killed almost immediately when a passing school bus splatters him across the pavement. The end of the infection? Hell no. The river water is being used by a bottled water company, and they have a shipment heading to a nearby town's high school prom.
Director Ti West reportedly wanted this to receive an Alan Smithee credit after the studio interfered and took certain things in a different direction, though he didn't get his wish. I'm an unabashed fan of Roth's film, but this really felt nothing at all like the original. Even the Deputy Winston scenes felt a bit different in tone, the sequence where he's talking to the water company's night watchman notwithstandin. The aforementioned scene and it's climax cracked me up, but Winston's character wasn't written as amusingly as he was in the first film. Aside from seeing Winston again, the main aspect of interest here was seeing two guys (Noah Segan and Marc Senter) who played memorable psychos in two other genre titles (Deadgirl and The Lost, respectively) as rivals in this. Segan in particular seems to be playing the exact part his Deadgirl co-star played in that film.
Anyway, there didn't seem to be much continuity between the effects of the virus in the original and what we see in this one. There is some pretty nasty and over-the-top stuff, though. Most characters were over-the-top as well. I wish the film had spent more time with Lindsey Axelsson (Sandy, the prom queen). She was yummy and had one of the film's more amusing moments. She didn't even get an on screen death scene! The last ten or so minutes with the strip club feel very tacked on, but I guess that makes sense, as West said the producers did the ending their way. I also didn't like the final cartoon bit in the least, not to say that the opening cartoon segment was any great shakes itself.
If you like pure splat-stick with not much sense involved, you might enjoy this on some level. At one point, with chaos erupting around them, two teens continue making out even after they vomited blood into each other's mouths. That pretty much says it all. I would love to see the original cut, but doubt LG will release it. It took them forever to release the DC of the first.
Director Ti West reportedly wanted this to receive an Alan Smithee credit after the studio interfered and took certain things in a different direction, though he didn't get his wish. I'm an unabashed fan of Roth's film, but this really felt nothing at all like the original. Even the Deputy Winston scenes felt a bit different in tone, the sequence where he's talking to the water company's night watchman notwithstandin. The aforementioned scene and it's climax cracked me up, but Winston's character wasn't written as amusingly as he was in the first film. Aside from seeing Winston again, the main aspect of interest here was seeing two guys (Noah Segan and Marc Senter) who played memorable psychos in two other genre titles (Deadgirl and The Lost, respectively) as rivals in this. Segan in particular seems to be playing the exact part his Deadgirl co-star played in that film.
Anyway, there didn't seem to be much continuity between the effects of the virus in the original and what we see in this one. There is some pretty nasty and over-the-top stuff, though. Most characters were over-the-top as well. I wish the film had spent more time with Lindsey Axelsson (Sandy, the prom queen). She was yummy and had one of the film's more amusing moments. She didn't even get an on screen death scene! The last ten or so minutes with the strip club feel very tacked on, but I guess that makes sense, as West said the producers did the ending their way. I also didn't like the final cartoon bit in the least, not to say that the opening cartoon segment was any great shakes itself.
If you like pure splat-stick with not much sense involved, you might enjoy this on some level. At one point, with chaos erupting around them, two teens continue making out even after they vomited blood into each other's mouths. That pretty much says it all. I would love to see the original cut, but doubt LG will release it. It took them forever to release the DC of the first.