The Cheap-Arse Film Review #26- "BLOODRAYNE 2: DELIVERANCE."

NAME: BLOODRAYNE 2: DELIVERANCE

RATING: 18

RELEASED: 2008

WRITTEN BY: CHRISTOPHER DONALDSON & NEIL EVERY, FROM A STORY BY MASAJI TAKEI

DIRECTED BY: UWE BOLL

STARRING: NATASSIA MALTHE, ZACK WARD, MICHAEL PARE

GENRE: ACTION HORROR

BOUGHT FROM: A RECORD FAIR

PRICE £1.00

I love direct-to-video sequels to films that had theatrical releases, especially when I had no idea they existed in the first place, as was the case with "Home Alone 4," which I reviewed over Christmas. Did you know, for example, that there's a "Cruel Intentions 3?" I didn't. I knew there was a second one, but I didn't have a clue a third one existed until I found it in a charity shop recently (sadly too expensive to pick up. Seriously, £2.50 for "Cruel Intention 3?" I know it's for Cancer and all, but come on...). Even better, remember that movie from the early ninties, "The Cutting Edge?" The one that starred DB Sweeney as a hockey player that gets injured and becomes a figure skater? Well, that has two fucking sequels. No, I'm not lying, go to IMDb if you don't believe me. they were released in 2006 and 2008 respectively, well over a decade since the original came out. What could possibly have been the thought process behind that? What could have made somebody think, after all that time, the world needed another installment in that particular saga? So yeah, I hope to one day review all those, as I have "Home Alone 4," and as I am this. This one is a little bit different to most DTV follow-ups, though. With most diminishing returns, they lose absolutely everything people associated with the first one, from budget to cast to director. Here, whilst almost the entire original cast (including Sir Ben Kingsley, who is currently in his cycle of starrng in good movies in an attempt to make us forget he was in "Thunderbirds" and "The Love Guru") have seen sense and run for the hills, the original movie's director has stuck around.

And scarily, that man is Uwe Boll.

You don't need me to tell you who Uwe Boll is, if you like movies enough to give what I do a second look, you already know. You also don't need me to tell you that he's not a popular filmmaker, and has a, shall we say, combative relationship with his critics. There's also the long-standing theory that he makes the kind of films he does as an elaborate money-making scam. I don't really understand it myself, so I won't try explaining it here, and it should be easily-findable if you've never been exposed to it, written by people much smarter than me. However, if what these people say is true, then believe it or not, I'm not going to be that fast going after him with the pichforks and torches, because perhaps moreso than anyone else on The Internet, this writer respects your hustle, sir.

However, admiring a decent scam and enjoying the fruits of said scam are two very different things. Put delicately, his movies aren't very good. But again, I feel the need to say this... I actually think he's improving as a filmmaker. Now, before you start yelling at me, sit down and think about what I'm saying, and what he's improved from. Let's look at his most famous (though not his first, as some people seem to believe) film, "House of the Dead." I fucking hate that movie, and I'm not alone. It's on a very short list of films I've seen that don't have a single redeeming feature, and no, it's not even "so bad it's good." People throw that term around so much these days I don't think they know what it means anymore. Then we move onto "Alone in the Dark," which is pretty terrible too, although unlike the last one there are a few things to praise. For a start, whereas "House..." looked like a bad student film in all areas of production, this at least looked like a real movie. Sure, the stunts were wonky and the CGI looked nasty, but at least I got the sense that somebody cared. "So bad it's good" lovers were treated every time Tara Reed tried to act rather than stand around looking pretty (remember when she could do that? Poor Tara). And the ending was surprisingly good, like it'd been cut off another, better film and edited it onto this one. Skipping the first "Bloodrayne," which I've not seen, up next is the snappily-titled "In the Name of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale." I wouldn't even call this one bad, if I'm honest. It's breathtakingly unoriginal, and the cinematography makes it look like somebody smeared shit all over the camera lense, but it's not a bad film, just a boring one, save for a couple of actually-quite-exciting fight scenes. And finally, "Postal," which isn't the last film he's made (he churns them out, I'll give him that), but is so far the last one I've had any exposure to. I've not seen the whole thing, but I've seen clips, and those... were funny. On purpose. I can't say for sure until I've sat down and watched it from beginning-to-end, but there's a good chance that this kind of film, the zany, gonzo, politically incorrect comedy, may be the type he's actually good at, the kind of stories he understands how to tell. Either that or he's just getting better as a director, possibly against his own will. I mean, if you do something consistantly for long enough, you're going to get better at it without even realising, aren't you? So I'm interested to see what I make of this one, as it came out the same year as "Postal" did and could make-or-break my whole theory.

The credits are nothing special, just Old West-style font over pictures of Frontiersmen doing Frontier things. Following a lush establishing shot of a forest and some snowy mountains, we meet Pyles (snigger...) played by Chris Coppola. No, not that Chris Coppola, the man responsible for "Creature." Don't feel too bad if you made that mistake, I did too, although I couldn't reconcile the pictures I've seen of Christopher Coppola with the man on my television. Let's just say they don't look alike and move one, I'm not opening that particular can of worms, especially due to the fact that I'm one of those worms. He's a reporter from the big city sent to the town of Deliverance to bring back stories of gunfights and crime, but sadly for him he seems to have been sent to the most boring new development in The West, with The Mayor (Michael Robinson) telling him how unexciting things are there, the only noteworthy thing being the new railway that will soon run through there, opening them up to outsiders. You can just see the disappointment on Pyle's face. You normally only see this kind of longing for bloodshed on the faces of newscasters. Then, we're whisked to a shack to meet a man, his wife and their two children, the father is unhappy, he and his wife have a conversation about how times are hard, and then suddenly A NOISE OUTSIDE! Alright, here we go, some excitement. The guy's all, "The fuckin' bear's back," he grabs his shotgun, goes outside and... we stay in the cabin with the wife and kids. Um, okay. Maybe we'll cut outside in a bit. then this strange hissing sound can be heard, and the man's wife decides to go outside to check on her husband. At this point I was torn between wanting to scream, "DON'T GO OUTSIDE YOU STUPID WOMAN! THE WIND IS HISSING AT YOU!" and egging her on because we might follow her. Only we don't, we stay with the kids, who get so scared they hide under the bed. No, don't go under the bed! Go outside! I want to know what's going on outside! Eventually what was outside comes inside, that being Billy the Kid (Zack Ward), who this movie has recast as an evil, centuries-old Vampire with an East European accent. He walks around the place a bit, then sits down at the table the family had just been eating at, his back to the boys. He starts talking to them, asking them if they miss they're parents already, and they they'll be with them soon. Then two seemingly-disinterested henchmen just casually stroll in, drag (or more accurately, gently help up) the boys out from under the bed, as they put up almost no struggle,and take them outside, as Billy sits at the table hissing, blood round his chops. I have to applaude the filmmakers for the previous scene, I really do. They took what is an inherently awesome concept (VAMPIRE COWBOYS!) and introduced it in boring, unexciting way. That takes a special level of anti-talent, to take something like that and totally suck the cool out of it. Well done. To be fair, they make a better impression the second time we see them, which is the next day when they take over the entire town of Deliverance, kidnap more children, then Billy goes toe-to-toe with the The Sheriff (John Novak), taking four bullets in the chest and biting him on the neck. See? That was bad-arse, that's what I want with a film featuring Vampire Cowboys. He then makes the Mayor his bitch just by looking at him, gets invited to stay at his house, and brings Pyles with him so he can "bare witness to the greatest story ever told." "The Lord of the Rings?" (CONFESSION: I had "The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women" here right up until just before I published this thing, then chickened out at the last moment)

It's after this, 15 minutes into this movie, that we finally meet the films hero and star, Rayne, played by Natassia Malthe, replacing Kristanna Loken. I recognised this woman the second I saw her on the box (which considering the amount of airbrushing going on was really impressive), but I couldn't place her. So off to IMDb I went to peruse he previous roles, and I've got tell you, the movies she's been in. When I think the best one on the list is "40 Days & 40 Nights," you're in trouble. There's was also a disturbing theme of her settling for Uwe Boll's leftovers, as she's also been in "Alone in the Dark 2" (which Boll didn't direct, but rather was replaced by two people, which amuses me because as it stands right now that film has a 4.4 quality rating, whereas the first one is at 2.2, meaning the doubling of directors also doubled the quality). Then I found the movie I'd seen her in before, and I felt like laughing and crying at the same time- she was one of Jennifer Love Hewitt's friends in "The Social Climber." This movie. The gift that keeps on giving. I suppose she's not too bad here, but she's not really asked to do much beyond scowl and deliver the occasional quick comeback. She also looks great in a cowboy hat.

Her destination is the shack the got attacked earlier, and as you'd expect, finding her friends dead and their children missing doesn't really sit well with her. As she grieves over the bodies, a man sneaks up behind her, and at knife-point tells her this was the work of Billy the Kid, that he's a "creature of the night." This man is played by Michael Pare, and as far as I can tell he's the lone cast member from the original movie returning for this one. He's not playing the same character as he did their though. His character isn't named in this scene, and as far as I can tell it's not mentioned until right at the very end, where it's casually thrown out that he's Pat Garret. Yes, that Pat Garret, recast as a demon hunter. This movie could have been so fucking cool.

He tells her that the children have probably been taken to Deliverance, which is where Rayne heads off to next. She arrives at nightfall, and instead of the quite little town we saw before, it's now buzzing with life, especially the bar, which has a new air of menace about it, mostly down to one man, Flintlock Hogan (Mike Dopud), one of Billy's Vampire goons, as he harasses waitresses, tells stories of killing men, even shooting a pint glass out of Pyles' hand (which he loves, as he seems to all of this). He's got a dirty mouth on him too, even going so far as to call Rayne the "C" word. It's his use of the word "cocksucker," or variations thereof, that made my ears prick up (no pun intended). He uses it three times, and by the last one I couldn't help think to myself, "Okay, I get it, you've seen "Deadwood." Well done." The funny thing is, as anybody who's seen Charlie Brooker's excellent show "Screenwipe" could tell you, the foul language in that show was a stylistic choice made by the creative team, done to replace the milder period curses that would more likely be used with modern one in order to help the audience connect with the earthiness and anarky of those times. So, not only have the writers ripped off a product of higher quality than they could ever hope to create, but in doing so they've managed to make their movie even less authentic without even realising it, probably.

Flintlock and Rayne have a confrontation after he flirts with her in his own distinctive style (sexual assault), and we discover they have a history, which begs the question of why he didn't recognise her the second she walked in. Rather than kill him though, she briefly give him a stay of execution and even plays Poker with him and boys (one of whom is an Irishman so stereotypical that he may as well be three feet tall and wearing green). Of course the game turns nasty when she whups them all, and soon things are taken outside to be settled with bullets, the cocky Flintlock saying he's not afraid of Rayne, as since they last met he's fought, amongst other things, "Chinamen and Ninjas." VAMPIRE COWBOYS VERSUS NINJAS! THIS MOVIE I WANT TO SEE! Sadly I'm currently stuck with this one. Despite his tough talk, she dispatches with him and his friends rather quickly, using bullets treated with garlic and Holy Water. This angers The Sheriff, who since we last saw him has been Vampirized, and he has Rayne arrested and announces she'll be hung before the night is out. She decides this is bullshit and tries to escape, taking out two of his deputies, the music swells heroically... and then the Sheriff hits her on the head with his gun, knocking her out. Well, that was embarrassing.

Whilst in the jailhouse, she meets Muller (Brendan Fletcher), who had also come to town looking to take out Billy, and also like her is a Brimstone, as disinguished by his necklace. It's never explained what being a Brimstone is or entails, which frustrated the hell out of me. I know I just got done savaging "Camp Blood 2" for having too many flashback and exposition scenes, but there's got to be a happy medium between always filling us in on past history all the time, and totally ignoring it. There has to be. They talk for a while, and figure out Billy's plan, that when the railroad is finished he'll have a constant stream of people coming in to turn and thus build up his army, keeping the town as normal as possible between then and now by having his people only feed on the children he's kidnapped. It's an interesting plan, but there are holes in it, the main one being the idea of feeding on the children. There are loads of Vampires walking around at this point, and as far as I can tell they only have something like seven or eight kids stashed away (minus one for the little girl Billy later eats, in a scene that actually managed to shock me, because I didn't think they'd have the guts to show him killing a child), so they would surely run out long before the railroad would be finished, and then what?

Then Muller dies by being hung. Again, this shocked me, because I didnt think they'd go to all the trouble of introducing a new character who had important information and ambiguous ties to our heroine's backstory, and then kill him off roughly ten minutes later, but that's exactly what happens, and I can't decide if this is good or bad. It's something, that's for sure. So the time comes for Rayne to hang, but as everybody's busy faffing around, she slips out of her cuffs, does some damage, before diving into the water, which Vampires can't cross (even though they're not supposed to be able to enter people's homes uninvited, and they regularly break that rule throughout this thing), taking bullets as she does so, and having to be pulled out of the water by Garret. The next day, after we're treated to a shot of two Native Americans in a canoe for no apparent reason, was see Rayne lying on the ground by the river being tended to by Garret. We then finally get some backstory on her, that she's half-Vampire, a Dhampir, and that the only thing that can heal her wounds quickly is blood. Taking one for the team, Garret then cuts his arm and les the blood drip into her mouth, which gets her all excited to the point that he has to beat her away and tell her off like a bad puppy. And what does she say to him after he pretty much saves her life. "You could've used a cup." There's gratitude for you.

With Rayne on the mend, they decide the best way to save the town is to assemble a crew of people themselves. and by "crew," I mean two other people. The first is known simply as The Preacher (Michael Eklund), a sleazy, vaguely camp man they find in a church giving a fire-and-brimstone sermon, warning of the dangers of things like "the moist, warm lips between a virgin's thighs," before encouraging his flock to give all their money to him so that he may save them, which they all do, with the exception of Rayne and Garret, who just put his folded-up wanted poster in there. They then say they won't turn him in if he agrees to help them fight Vampires and... he agrees. Just like that. Even the characters are surprised. The next person they recruit is Slime Bag Franson (Michael Teigen)(how many Michaels are there in this thing?)(I just went and counted- four. Five if you count Mike Dopud), who they find in a whorehouse. Rayne works her magic on him this time around, pretending to be a hooker and dancing around, with him liking what he sees so much he exclams, "I don't know where to start, the top or the bottom!" I often have the same dilemma. This is the only scene where Malthe gets to exhibit a positive facial expression, and man does she make the most of it. It's like she's so sick of frowning all the time that she's genuinely happy to do something else. She's adorable, frankly. It doesn't last long though, as she mounts him and shoves her gun in his mouth (sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, folks) and gets him to agree to help them pretty much through fear of death. He then asks if they're still going to fuck. I like this guy.

With the gang all together, the prepare themselves by all becoming honourary Brimstone members (although Garret may have been one all along, as this is the first scene we see him wearing the Brimstone necklace, and he doesn't need to be given it by Rayne like the other two do. Again, this is never explained). And by having Preacher bless the water to turn it into Holy Water so they can coat their bullets with it. I couldn't make up my mind whether or not Preacher actually was a man of God. At first it seemed like he was only running a scheme, as he curses and kills, and he even nails a hocker at the whorehouse. But here he is doing this for them. So I guess he really is a Preacher just a bad one. And you have to wnder how much weight the words of a man who's Holy in name only actually carries. So anyway, the head back to town, where everybody else is still too scared to do anything (with good reason, if you ask me), and all Hell breaks loose. Well, sort of. This is easily the most action-packed section of the film, but even here things just feel a bit flat and unexciting, which isn't helped by the constant use of slooooooow moooooootion. Boll has a tendancy to fall in love with certain tricks and special effects, and he was really into slowing down time when he made this one. At least there's no Bullet Time. Preacher and Slime Bag die within minutes, it's worth pointing out, so they were worth bringing in. I like how useless all the heroes are in this thing- The Sheriff gets bit, Rayne gets knocked out and shot, her new friend from the prison cell gets hung, and now these two. Even the cowardly Mayor gets shot the second he grows a pair. These are really people worth rooting for. There's one good bit, where Rayne bursts into the room where the kids are being held, only to find them all hanging from nooses rigged to a trap that sprang to life the second she opened the door, forcing here to stay where she is holding the rope in order to stop them all dying. It's quite ingenius really, and one of the kids actually does die because of it, and is then fed on by Billy, as he attempts to goad Rayne into letting go of the rope and joining him. It's spoilt however by how long it goes (over five bloody minutes!), and in the end all she does is jump and cut all the ropes with her blade. Couldn't she have done that right at the start, before the boy died and Billy had a chance to feel up on her?

The fight between the two is now on, and it's quite an intense showdown, but like everything else, it goes on too long and is plagued with slooooooow moooooootion. The end is at least cool, with Garret cutting Billy down with A GATLING GUN and Rayne sticking a stake in him. The surviving kids return to their families, and the next day, Rayne leaves to travel to Tombstone to help Wyatt Earp deal with The Clinton Gang (who are also Vampires in this awesome, awesome universe), leaving the town in the hands of Garret and Pyles, who is inexplicably the new Sheriff. The movies last line? "Newton, life is like a penis- when it's hard you get screwed, when it's soft you can't beat it." Actually that's not the last line, the last line is Pyles saying, "I gotta right that down!" So have I?

So, does this movie aide me in my theory that Boll improves with every movie he makes? Well... yes and no. It's better than "House of the Dead" and "Alone in the Dark," I don't think saying that would get me into too much trouble. But it still falls foul of the sins that blighted "In the Name of The King," that being terminal dullness, and here you don't have the big name actors to distract you or the occasional fun fight to break things up. The acting is either hammy or vacant, the script outright drops the ball several times with regards to logic (how come tere were any humans left in the town? Why didn't Billy have them all changed?), and don't even get me started on the presentation. Actually, do- the film has some of the most distracting, shakey camera work I've ever seen. You know when you can tell this is happening intentionally, that the director wanted it that way stylistically, so as to give the film a kinetic energy? Well, that wasn't what they were going for here, I'm sure of it, it's just a case of the guy holding the damn thing couldn't stop twitching. Maybe he was bervous, and if that's the case I hope he never works on a big picture, otherwise he may cause an Earthquake.

FINAL VERDICT

BINNED!

No, I haven't emptied my bin since the last time. It was only three days ago. STop shaking your head at me, you're not my Mother.

Until next week (thankfully), I'm The Cheap-Arse Film Critic, and where the hell are you from? Krypton?

(PS- First Killer Film review up here. Y'know, just incase you want to read it. Again, for some of you.)

The Cheap-Arse Film Review #25- "CAMP BLOOD 2."

NAME:CAMP BLOOD 2

RATING: 18

RELEASED: 2000

WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY: BRAD SYKES

STARRING: JENNIFER RITCHKOFF, GARRETT CLANCY, MISSY HANSEN

GENRE: HORROR SLASHER

BOUGHT FROM: POUNDLAND

PRICE: EVERY RATIONAL IMPULSE I'VE EVER HAD

I've seen alot of bad movies in my life. It's just the law oF averages, when you see as many as I do a year, you come to terms with the fact that not all of them are going to be masterpieces. Sometimes I'll even go to see a bad movie intentionally, such as last January when me and my regular cinema buddy (hello Dean)(why did I just say hello to you? You've told me point-blank that you never read these) went to see "AVP2: Requium." We were under no illusions, we knew we were about to see a bad movie, but as he put it, "Sometimes you have to see something bad to remind yourself what good is." As it turned out, that movie was even worse than either of us anticipated and inspired me to write up a quick review and send it to some of my friends in an attempt to keep them from even considering watching it.

The worst movie I've ever seen goes by the name "Feardotcom." Oh where to start when talking about this one? Well, firstly the plot is about as obvious a rip-off of the "Ringu" movies as you're ever going to see, with the killer video replaced by a kiler website. Then there's everything else. Literally. Everything else. There is nothing good to say about this film. The script is moronic, the acting is atrocious (and in the case of Stephen Rea, provided by somebody who should have known better)(YOU WERE IN "THE CRYING GAME!"). Set design and cinematography combined to give the whole thing a look I affectionately refer to as "Se7en: The Animated Series." And to top it all off, there's one massive medical inaccuracy in there that anybody who knows me knew was always going to get my goat. I don't feel like going into it here, just thinking about it is bringing my blood to a boil. I just wanted to put all that down so you could see what I judge all the bad movie against. If we're going to measure things on a percentage scale, I've probably seen more bad ones since I started this project than I have at any other time in my life. But in terms of actual quality, yeah, films like "Cheerleader Massacre" and "The Social Climber" were bad, but they're not in the same league "Feardotcom." They don't even play the same sport.

To date there has been only one movie that came in any way close to challenging that giant. It failed, but it at least found a home in my top five worst movies of all time, which even "The Social Climber" couldn't do. That movie was "Camp Blood," and the only reason it didn't take the number one spot is because it was clearly made with no money by people who didn't have a clue what they were doing, and I felt like showing a little mercy. Infact, I recently reread that review, and "merciful" is a good way to describe it, because even though I gave it a bad write-up, I could have gone on for hours savagely ripping it a new one. I think it's because I was still really new to this at that time and, I dunno, I felt bad about shitting on somebody else's work. I'm over that now, don't worry, and I'd actually like to go back and give it the going over it deserves. But it's too late, I've thrown it away, and I'm not buying it again. So I suppose it's sequel will have to pay for its sins.

Even before I'd put the bloody thing in my machine, my heart sank whilst reading the back of the box, seeing the running time listed at 90 minutes. "Oh sweet Jesus," I thought, "it's longer than the last one. Nearly twenty fucking minutes longer." Thankfully, when I finally fired it up, I noticed two things- 1) the main menu was far easier to navigate than it was on the first one (I COULD SEE WHAT I WAS SELECTING!), and 2) once the film started I was informed that it actually only lasted 73 minutes, which was a pleasent surprise if nothing else.

This installment begins almost identically to the last one, with two people, a male and a female, completely unrelated to the plot, walking through a forest. Sadly unlike the last time they're not birdwatchers, but rather just a boyfriend and girlfriend out on a stroll. The dude complains that he's hungry, so they sit down at the side of the trail. He has a drink ("Lemon and Lime! That's my favourite!") and before long he's telling her that where they are right now has a gory history, that it's known an Camp Blood, due to the fact that woman went crazy here last year and killed nine people and NO NO NO NO NO!!!! THAT IS NOT WHY IT'S CALLED CAMP BLOOD!!!! IT WAS CALLED CAMP BLOOD BEFORE THOSE MURDERS HAPPENED, BECAUSE OF A KILLING THAT TOOK PLACE YEARS PREVIOUSLY!!!! HOW CAN SOMEBODY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SCRIPTS TO BOTH MOVIES SCREW UP THE HISTORY OF HIS OWN FILMS SO BADLY?!?! Oh God, I'm less than a minute-and-a-half into this and already it's got me yelling at the screen.

Deep breath.

Okay, maybe I flew off the handle needlessly there, maybe the script only had him mention this at all so he could set the practical joke he was about to attempt (more on this in a minute) into some kind of context, but I'm less willing to cut this film any slack because the first one regularly made a complete hash of it's own continuity, and this just seems like more of the same. Anyway, after telling her about the horrors that occurred there, he excuses himself to take a leak. At least thats what he tells her, the truth being he has a clown mask in his bag and intends to put it on and scare the shit out of her. As jokes go, I can appreciate this one. Sadly, he doen't get the chance to extract any fun out of it, as when he gets back to where she's sitting somebody has already got to her and slashed her throat. He looks at her in horror, slowly removing his mask.He then touches her, as if to say, "Are you okay?" only to have her body slump to the side, which made me laugh. He's then killed when the unseen attacker runs him through from behind with his knife. This is worth talking about because they had this exact same effect in the last movie, and when I was talking about the very few things there that I thought deserved some praise, I singled that effect out as looking decent for what they could afford. Here though it looks silly, as they linger on the wound and him grabbing at the knife too long, so we get a good long look at just how fake the torso is in the close-up scenes. So yes, the filmmakers actually managed to screw up something they got right the first time around. The mask the guy was wearing gets trampled on by an unidentified pair of feet, the the camera pans slowly to the left and we see the original mask the killer wore lying on the ground. The Clown From Slipknot has returned!

Following the credits (which happen over footage filmed with the mask pulled over the lense in a lame attempt to make this look and feel all first-person), we're reunited from the sole returning, um, star from the first movie, that being Tricia (Jennifer Ritchkoff). She too is walking through the forest, as dry ice swirls around her. She looks confused and upset (get used to this, it's her default facial expression) and appears to be looking for something, eventually finding the Clown mask just lying in her path. She approaches it, reaches over to pick it up, only for A HAND TO COME OUT OF THE GROUND AND GRAB HER WRIST! She pulls away screaming (which she's really good at, it should be mentioned), and then... something comes out of the ground. I think it's supposed to be a zombie, but it doesn't look like one. It looks more the the Djinn from the "Wishmaster" movies. God what I wouldn't give to be watching one of those right now. Anyway, whatever this is, it picks up the mask, puts it on, and then runs after Tricia, knife in hand. She eventually comes to a dead end, that being a cliff, and turns around to see The Clown From Slipknot s nowhere to be found. Okay, killer popping up behind her in three, two, one... THERE HE IS! She gets grabbed, screames and...

... back in the room! Or rather the nut house. I didn't really go into much detail about the first film's ending, mostly because I was bloody sick of the thing by that point, but the gist of it is, Tricia was accused of performing the killing herself and locked up in the funny farm, which would seem to be where she still is. Her doctor hears the screaming and comes to check on her, before telling her she has a visitor. She thinks it's "another shrink," but as it turns out, it's a movie director. He goes by the name Worth Milligan (Garrett Clancy), and he's come to Tricia and the whole hospital with a very outlandish request- he wants her to come to Hollywood and help him make his movie in a Technical Advisor role, which he's basing on the tragedy the year before. Yes, this movie is going META OUTTA NOWHERE by having the main plot based around a group of people essentially remaking the first film. Which is exactly how it's presented, as the script we hear people reading from is word-for-word perfect with actual scenes from part one. It's never explained how Worth would know all of this in such fine detail without having been there himself, but to be honest I was just pleased the film didn't use this as an excuse to go down the sub-"Scream" road and be all knowing and wink-wink nudge-nudge.

Tricia is reluctant to go along with this plan, asking what's in it for her, his answer being that she could finally get her story out there and have people believe it. When she questions why anybody should believe what she says just because it's now a movie, Worth wheels out, "Two words- BLAIR. WITCH." (wow, this movie just time-stamped itself...). She still doesn't seem convinced, and he becomes more-and-more crazed in his attempts to convince her, at one point telling her she's bigger than Manson (I assume he meant Charlie and not Marilyn), and then telling her he can get her out of there under his supervision, prompting the doctor to step in and tell him he can't, and even if he tries he'll oppose him. THEN WHY DID YOU JUST SIT THERE AND LET HIM SAY ALL THAT THEN?! Surely there's something unethical and a bit dangerous in letting somebody get your patient's hopes up like that, especially when they're believed to have committed brutal crimes. Any doctor worth his salt would have heard the first few words of this pitch and told the guy to fuck off.

Tricia is then lead back to her room, where she has a flashback to the events of the last movie. This goes on forever as we're shown what feels like almost whole scenes from beginning to end, but interestingly there seems to be a theme to them, that they all end with somebody telling Tricia she's nuts for believing The Clown From Slipknot exists. It would seem from this that they were trying to plant the seed that maybe Tricia is crazy and that she did really kill all those people last year, which I would be fine with and might even have found an interesting twist... were it not for the fact that we've already seen The Clown From Slipknot kill two people whilst Tricia is still locked up, thus making it impossible for her to be the killer. This movie. Anyway, she has a change of heart and asks to speak to Worth again, and before you know it, we're in LA (as identified by a far-off shot of the HOLLYWOOD sign and some footage of LA traffic)!

Worth is going ahead with his movie, holding auditions with actresses in order to fill out his cast, an act he and his cameraman Shemp (the superbly-named Ken X) are carrying out when we catch up with them. The scene is an exact duplicate of one from the first movie, and it's acted terribly, but here's what baked my brain- the scene they're recreating was bad the first time around as well, but there it was supposed to be good, whereas here it's terrible on purpous, so does this mean that this scene is technically speaking an improvement on the first one, just because it's being carried out the way it was intended to be? Is anybody following me here?

Wow, Melenie Griffith just appeared on my television selling some kind of Pilates equipment. That was a nice little distraction. Anyway, back to the movie.

Finally, Tricia shows up with her doctor. I was pleased to see him there, because I was afraid she'd just show up on her own even though it's believed she's some kind of violent murderess. At least this way she has some supervision, I thought. Then Worth asks the doctor if he'd like something to drink, and he replies, "I won't be staying, I'm just dropping Tricia off." HE JUST DROPPING HER OFF! HE SAID ALL THAT STUFF ABOUT TRYING TO KEEP HER LOCKED UP, AND NOW HE'S JUST RELEASING HER BACK INTO THE WILD WITHOUT ANY SUPERVISION! Dear God, they're not even trying. So she's there, and already she gets freaked out by Shemp fooling around in the Clown mask. This dude, it should be mentioned, is a total charicature, an alcoholic who makes everybody feel uncomfortable from the first time they meet him until he... well, we'll get to that later. The film obviously wants us to think he's the killer, which is why I discounted him instantly. I had my money on Worth at this point, for what it's, um, worth. After the doc is gone (and not seen again), the first thing Worth has Tricia do is go through pictures of actors and choose who she thinks would be perfect for Steve. Of course, being asked to pick an actor that looks just like her dead boyfriend doesn't have a completely positive effect on Tricia's mental wellbeing, and as she's doing this she has another flashback, begins to freak out and says she needs some fresh air, practically running out of the room.

It outside on the balcony that she meets Adrienne (Missy Hansen), an actress who says she's come to audition for a role in the movie. They exchange some banal pleasentaries, and by the time this scene had finished I'd decided she's the killer. It all just felt so random and pointless that the only reason for it to exist was for it to later be revealed to have had more importance than anybody realised. So, she turns up to audition, only to be too late, as the last role has been handed out to a really old, haggard-looking woman in a zebra-print top. Don't worry sweetie, happens to us all. So of course the next thing that must happen in the Zebra Lady has to die, and sure enough the next scene starts in her kitchen, with her talking on the phone and chopping up a banana with a very big knife. I don't know wy she's doing this. Maybe she's going to make herself a banana sandwich. I could go for a banana sandwich right about now. We then cut to her bathroom, where she's getting ready to step into the shower, allowing the director to show us he's improved in how he shoots nude scenes by coaxing her out of the bottom half of her clothing, too (also, helloooooo obvious breast implant scars). In between these scenes, the camera work goes all first-person again, showing somebody sneaking into her house, getting as far as her kitchen, before seemingly being scared off by her phone ringing. She gets out of the shower, answers the phone to find nobody's on the other end of the line, drops her towel (of course), bends over to pick it up, and OH MY GOD THE CLOWN FROM SLIPKNOT IS STANDING RIGHT BEHIND HER! Even though she walked into the room in such a way that she'd be looking directly into the kitchen, and there didn't appear to be anywhere for him to hide. So he kills her, choking her a little bit, then stabbing her with the knife she was using to chop up that banana. I wish it wasn't so late, I really fancy that sandwich now.

It now the next day, and Tricia shows up at Worth's office to meet the rest of the cast- there's Lance (Mark Overholt), a cocky wannabe ladies man who's playing Steve, Vanessa (Jane Johnson), the initially prim-and-proper object of Lance's affections who's playing Tricia, and Todd (Timothy Patrick), the only person who seems a little bit put out at the thought of being around Tricia, playing Jay. They're one cast member missing due to the fact that she's dead, and Tricia uses this chance to try and get Adrienne in the picture. Worth says sure, and hands her a pile of actresses photos, saying if she can find her amongst those, call the attached number and get her down there that second. Tricia runds off to another room and starts going through the pictures, finding hers and calling her. All seems to be going well, until The Clown From Slipknot shows up and starts chasing Tricia around the building, drawing the attention of the others. This turns out to be a red herring, as it's really that weirdo Shemp behind the mask, who falls to the floor giggling when he's discovered. Somehow this gets smoothed out, and the next time we see Tricia she's in a car with Worth and Shemp, driving to the camp, where Worth mentions that they're really going to be staying at for the entire shoot. This is the straw that breaks the camel's back for her, and she puts her foot down, saying she's not staying there. Like the bastard that he is, Worth says that's and that he'll have Shemp drive Tricia back to the insitution if that's more to her liking, which is enough to bring her back onside. From here the movie grinds to a hault for a bit as the next few scenes consist of then filming a scene that ends with Shemp drunkenly assulting Vanessa during the filming (which I think is supposed to get a laugh, because y'know, alcohol-induced man-on-woman violence is a riot),and then a scene around a campfire where we get another fucking flashback scene, this one narrated by Tricia as she explains the events of the last film to everybody. How much more screen-time are we going to get dedicated to this? Did the people behind this really think there was a chance that they might have a few viewers out there that hadn't seen the first one?

There is one mild piece of liveliness in between all this when we're introduced to Patrick (Patrick Thomas, here working under the name Courtney Burr), who's supposed to be an assistant or something. He's a fat, annoying piece of shit, who I couldn't decide was supposed to be a stoner or just suffering from some kind of mental instability, as he yo-yo'd from being stupid-but-friendly one minute to threatening to punch out the entire cast and crew the next. His stay in this film is a short one though, as he's sent off to get food for everybody (where they want him to do this in the middle of a forest, I've no idea), and he decides to slack off and smoke a joint, where he's discovered by The Clown From Slipknot. Thinking this is Shemp, he offers him a toke and ends up GETTING HIS FUCKING HAND CUT OFF, WITH BLOOD SPRAYING EVERYWHERE AS IT NOW LAYS ONTHE FLOOR STILL CLUTCHING THE DOOBIE! Okay, that... that was great, there's no other word for it.

More deaths follow, and in traditional slasher fashion, the occur after a boinking, when Lance finds himself in a tent alone with Vanessa and she reveals herself to be something of a sex fiend when she starts peeling his shirt off. He's also not what he appears to be, as he ends up cumming within seconds of her climbing on top of him and being branded "all talk." So she kicks him out of her tent, where he's hacked to death, and she soon meets a sticky end when she has a knith thrusted into her muth and out the back of her head. Believe it or not, I'm going to offer the movie a little bit more praise here- when I covered the first one, I made note of the fact that, for a slasher, there wasn't much slashing going on, and we ended up with the hilariously lopsided situation where the movie had less the twenty minutes to kill off most of the main cast. Here, there have at least been killings, and they've not all happened at the same time, they've been scattered around a little bit. So, yeah, pacing. Seemingly the only thing Brad Sykes learnt in between his first movie and this one.

The remaining five wake up the next morning to find Lance and Vanessa gone without a trace, which I don't buy, because I refuse to believe there was no blood or anything to be found. There's some more freaking out, with Todd (not unreasonably) suggesting that Tricia might be behind this. She flies into a rage, and following this the project is abandonned, with Worth the only person remaining at the camp site, where he too meets his end at the hands of The Clown From Slipknot when he gets the top of his head carved open. Tricia returns, feeling bad about leaving him, only to find that he... gone without a trace. Okay, this is getting stupid now. Where's the fucking blood? I saw a large puddle of it collect around Worth's head. You're telling me that was dealt with in this amount of time? Bullshit. From here the kills come thick and fast, with Todd getting his throat slit in a stream, and Shemp, after drunkenly trying to rape Tricia, getting his eyes plucked out byhis own broken booze bottle. Tricia herself is the attacked, but rather than geting killed, she's just knocked out, waking up surrounded by the dead bodies of the people she was working with. Well, almost all of them.

Yep, as I expected, Adrienne turns out to be the killer, her reason being that she's the sister of Harris, the killer from the first movie, and refuses to believe Tricia's story. Show reveals her plan (which isn't worth going into here), and how she only originally planned to kill Tricia, but when she killed Zebra Girl, the thrill of the first kill proved addictive and she...

... wait... that was her first kill? The woman from the audition, she was the first person she killed? That's what she's saying? THEN WHO KILLED THE TWO FUCKING PEOPLE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE?! WHO?! WHO?! WHO?! WHO?! WHO?! WHOOOOOOOOOOOO?!?!?!

FUCK!

THIS!

MOVIE!!!!

I'm done with it. Tricia kills her by setting fire to her then hacking her with her own knife. Adrienne then gives her the clown mask in the most casual manner possible under the circumstances, then the movie ends.

As much as I freaked out at the end there, to be fair, this is an improvement on the first "Camp Blood." But that's like saying, when the bomb isaboutto drop, blowing your own brains out would be an improvement on having to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. This is an appalling movie and the people behind it's making should be ashamed of themselves, frankly.

FINAL VERDICT

BINNED!

Thankfully there is no "Camp Blood 3." However, I recently (like, 30 seconds ago) discovered that Brad Sykes is still making movies, is most recent being "Plaguers" in 2008.

I think this could be the beginning of an absolutely horrendous friendship.

Until Wednesday, I'm The Cheap-Arse Film Critic, and I'm every nightmare you ever had, I'm your worst dream come true, I'm everything you were ever afraid of.