Review of House II: The Second Story (1987) by Richard D — 12 Oct 2016

The horror fest would not be complete without an 80s horror movie, though, if we're being completely honest, this isn't even close to being a horror movie. At least in the conventional sense. I watched the original House and, while I didn't give it a good score, but it was a really goofy little movie.

One that I enjoyed in spite of it not necessarily being the best at combining comedy and horror. I imagine that the first film started out as a conventional horror movie and as the film was being written, they just sort of hit on the goofier aspects of the film and they thought 'you know, why don't we go with that?' And it worked, because if that movie had been just a straight-up horror flick, it might not have been as good.

The comedy gave it a silliness to it that was certainly infectious. Which brings us to the sequel. What can I even say about House 2: The Second Story? Other than the title is clever as shit. It's like they looked at the first film and how, in their minds, it was so fun to make and how it led to a cult movie that they decided to take the sequel and pretty much go insane with the goofiness.

One of the symptoms of sequelitis. There has to be more of absolutely everything. They take something that worked and turn it up to 100. And boy, does it not work in this movie. Like at all. I think they just used it to overcompensate for the fact that they really couldn't come up with a legitimately good idea for a sequel.

They were like, let's just throw whatever idea we have out there without actually bothering to come up with a reason for why everything is happening. Jesse's great-great-grandfather comes into play and so does this crystal skull that, apparently, everybody wants.

Do they tell you why everybody wants it? No, not really. Gramps says that it can make him young again, but they never actually explain how or why it would do that. I guess they don't have to explain why, since the skull being active allows Jesse and Charlie to enter different ages, like the Stone Age or an era when the Aztecs were still around.

But the how was definitely essential. They just don't. And what's even worse is the fact that the goofiness is so fucking forceful. This is the film equivalent of an attention whore, doing whatever they can to get your attention.

It, honestly, might have worked back in 1987. But in 2016, when you've seen everything under the sun, this comes off as a little weak in comparison. It just doesn't feel natural, whereas the goofy aspects of the first film did come out of nowhere, but they also fit into the context of the movie.

This one, being a sequel, doesn't have that. The acting isn't very good, but that's not the biggest problem about this, which I have already mentioned. There's some comically bad scenes, like you can see the hand of the person controlling some of the puppets.

Swords bend like plastic when pressed down against an altar in the Aztec temple. But those are some of the few moments when the film is funny, whether unintentional or not. So, yea, this is just a bad movie and I can't really find much positive to say about this in the slightest.

Humor is forceful, there's no real reason for everything that's going on and the acting is lackluster, outside of a fun John Ratzenberger appearance. Just not very good, even by cheesy 80s horror movie standards.