The H.P. Lovecraft marathon continues with this sequel
to The Unnamable. I must warn you that you should read the original review here
before this one as I wrote this one expecting you the reader to have checked
out the first review.
Howard and Randolph are back in this sequel that picks
up right at the end of the first movie. Randolph sneaks the Necronomicon to his
dorm room while the police are tending to the injured and collecting the
bodies. He realizes the importance of his find and takes it to Professor Warren
(the always awesome John Rhys-Davies) and together they go back to the house to
find the creature which was trapped by the spell that Randolph cast in the
finale of the original movie. Now remember that the creature was the daughter of
the sorcerer from the first movie. Well they find it and manage to separate the
demon part from the woman that it possessed. So now the demon is on the loose
and they have a naked woman to deal with. Time for some running away from the monster!
While the first movie spends most of the time in the
old spooky house this one is much different. Most of the action takes place
back at Miskatonic University where the characters are students. What it has in
common is the brisk pacing that made the first movie such a treat to watch. The
first forty minutes are spent with Randolph figuring out the book and
recruiting help to finish the beast off. That could have been boring except for
the excellent job from Mark Kinsey Stephenson who portrays Randolph. He plays
the character with a lot of energy and it makes even the exposition fun to
watch. While he doesn’t get as many one liners like he did in the first film
the dialogue is still great. My favorite bit has a traumatized professor
droning on about how people don’t realize how hard it is to remove a knife from
a body (he is staring at a victim who had a hand rammed into his chest) because
of suction and the adhesive qualities of blood. This goes on in the background
of other dialogue for a while.
 |
| Kind of makes you want to learn Exorcism no? |
Once the action starts it gets crazy. The creature
chases our heroes back to the school. By this time Howard has joined Randolph
and the human side of the creature is in tow as well. Along the way the body
count rises to a respectable nine kills. A couple of professors die, some cops,
and several of their dorm mates. Really Randolph should feel bad about
releasing the creature because it is killing a lot of his friends! The gore is
tame with mostly after the fact shots of the claw marks on various victims. But
this is one of those movies that isn’t all about the gore. The design of the
creature is slightly different from the first movie and it gets a lot more
screen time. For an actress in a rubber suit it holds up well.
Here we have a sequel that I enjoyed as much as the
original. That is very unusual as normally there is a drop off the second time
around. I’d recommend a double feature of the first movie and this one. You
can’t go wrong.
©
Copyright 2017 John Shatzer
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