It Came From The Cineplex: Hitman: Agent 47

Welp, it looks like summer's definitely over. The days are getting shorter, the temperature's cooling, and all the big budget blockbusters are fading from the theaters, replaced by duds the studios are trying to unload. It's like the changing of the seasons!

Hitman: Agent 47 was written by Michael Finch & Skip Woods (it took two people to write this?) and directed by Aleksander Bach.

Woods previously wrote the original Hitman, Swordfish, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, The A-Team, A Good Day To Die Hard and Sabotage, which tells you everything you need to know about his career. How the hell does this man keep getting work? Blackmail photos? A contract with Satan?

Finch cowrote The November Man and Predators (which was actually a pretty good film).

Bach is a director of music videos and TV commercials. Hitman: Agent 47 is his cinematic directorial debut. Don't buy that boat just yet, Aleksander!

Was anyone out there really clamoring for another Hitman film? Someone? Anyone? I can't see how. I have a ticket stub from the original 2007 film, so I apparently saw it, but darned if I can remember a single thing about it. By all indications it was a critical and box office failure, grossing less than $40 million dollars. Why would any studio in their right mind ever want to make another?

I don't understand why Hollywood keeps trying to make movies based on video games. That trick never works! OK, so the original Mortal Kombat was pretty good, but it came out twenty years ago! It's time to throw in the video game movie towel.

So what the hell is this film? Is it a sequel, a reboot or a remake? I honestly don't care enough to try and figure it out. These "requels" seem to be the hot trend this year, as Terminator Genysis, Mad Max: Fury Road, Jurassic World and Vacation all came out this summer and fall into this category.

SPOILERS, I GUESS!

The Plot:

I'll try and be brief here to spare us all any unnecessary pain. In the far off year of 1967, Dr. Peter Litvenko headed a program that created genetically perfect assassins, which were imaginatively called Agents. These Agents had abnormally high strength, speed and agility, and were completely emotionless. Litvenko realized such a program was a mistake and disappeared, leaving behind a young daughter named Katia.

Over the years many agencies tried to replicate the Agent Program without  success. One of these agengies, Syndicate International, realizes the only way to produce their own Agents is to find Litvenko. Agent 47 (played by Rupert Friend) is assigned to prevent this from happening.

The now adult Katia is also searching the world for her father. She's approached by a man who calls himself John Smith (played by Zachary Quinto), who tells her that Agent 47 is going to kill her, and she needs his protection. 47 appears, shoots Smith in the chest and captures Katia.

Agent 47 then explains to Katia that they're both part of the same program, but that she's more advanced. He trains her (very) briefly in how to use her previously unknown abilities. They're attacked by the Syndicate, including John Smith, who's somehow still alive. Smith is apparently a Syndicate Agent, and is nigh-indestructible. They escape and flee to Singapore, where Katia's father Litvenko is in hiding.

They find Litvenko, who's now dying and needs an inhaler to breathe. He apologizes to Katia for abandoning her when she as young, and tells her that Agent 47 is her brother. The Syndicate attacks again, and Agent 47 secretly slips a special explosive inhaler into Litvenko's pocket. Litvenko is captured and taken to Syndicate International headquarters.

Smith then tortures Litvenko to force him to restart the Agent Program. Agent 47 and Katia infiltrate Syndicate Headquarters to stage a rescue. 47 manages to electrocute Smith. LeClerq, the head of Syndicate, grabs Litvenko and flies off in a helicopter. Litvenko detonates it with his handy explosive inhaler.

With the Syndicate threat eliminated, Agent 47's handler Diana calls him and tells him to complete his mission by killing Katia. He refuses, dropping the phone off the side of the building. Why, it's as if this emotionless killer has developed feelings for his sister after all! As he and Katia leave, they're confronted by Agent 48, who looks exactly like 47. Katia and Agent 47 fire their guns at him as we fade to black and the film mercifully ends.

Thoughts:

• The movie starts out with the dreaded Narrated Infodump, trying in vain to fill us in on the details of this world and explain what we're about to see. With very few exceptions, if you see one of these infodumps you should immediately gather your belongings and exit the theater in a brisk and orderly manner. 

The infodump helpfully informs us that the Agent program was started in the futuristic year of 1967. You remember the Sixties, don't you? The Beatles, the Summer Of Love, and the decade in which we mapped out the human genome? No? That didn't happen until 2003? Well, I'm sure we must have had some way to genetically alter humans back then anyway. 

So Agent 47 was apparently born in the 1960s. The movie appears to take place in the present day, but he doesn't look like he's in his fifties. Did his altered genes slow down his aging process? 

I'm assuming all this is covered in the video games, but that doesn't make it any less ridiculous.

• Agent 47 sports an identifying bar code tattoo or brand or something on the back of his neck. Need I point out that bar codes weren't invented until 1973?

• Very little of this movie makes any sense, but it takes place in some gorgeous and exotic locations, so at least you can entertain yourself by watching all the travelogue scenery.

• I'm not quite sure, but there may be a slight possibility that Audi helped finance this film. Virtually every car in the entire film is an Audi, and the camera lovingly caresses every curve of each and every beautifully lit luxury sedan.

• Once again we get a Hitman movie featuring an actor who doesn't look the least bit menacing. Take a look at the character from the video game here. Note his severe hatchet-jawed face and soulless glare. 

Now look at the actors who've been picked to play him. Timothy Olyphant played the title character in 2007's Hitman. He's a decent actor, but once he shaved his head he looked like he was about twelve years old. Note to producers— a hitman who looks like a giant baby isn't intimidating.

This time out we get Rupert Friend (whoever that is), who's way too young and looks amazingly like a bald Legolas from The Lord Of The Rings. Again, guys— wispily built, bald man-elves aren't threatening.

Surely there's a steely-eyed, bald actor somewhere in Hollywood who'd be a better fit for this part?

• Agent 47 deliberately gets captured at the US Embassy in Berlin so he can rescue Katia. Or maybe kill her, I have no idea. This "Getting Captured As Part Of A Master Plan" plot point is getting old fast. I see it over and over in action and comic book movies. Loki even did it in The Avengers!

As Agent 47 is being questioned, he tells his interrogator, "I'm not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with me." Jesus Christ! I'd have done a spit take during that scene if I could afford the movie theater's $8 soft drinks. That's one of the most famous lines from Watchmen, uttered by psychotic vigilante/anti-hero Rorschach. Did they really think they could get away with swiping one of the most famous movie quotes from the past ten years?

• The organization trying to wipe out the Agent program is called Syndicate International. That has to be the blandest, most generic name possible. Were "Amalgamated Cartel" and "Multinational Conglomerate" already taken?

• When we first see Agent John Smith, he's standing over a dead man lying in a bathtub, with a toaster floating in it. It's implied that Smith killed the man by tossing the toaster into the water, electrocuting him.

Whoops! That might have worked back in the 1960s, but these days you can't kill yourself (or your spouse) that way. We now have GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interupter) outlets to protect  against just such a thing. When these circuits detect a power surge, they trip the breaker and shut off the juice to the outlet.

• John Smith survives several point blank gunshot wounds because he has "subdermal titanium armor." That's right, he has goddamned bullet proof armor under his skin. Not only is he still somehow alive after that was implanted, but he's still the relative size of a normal human male. You know, even for a video game movie, that's pretty far-fetched. At least Wolverine just has adamantium-coated bones.

• Agent 47 captures Katia and for some reason hides her to a jet engine factory. He ties her to a chair in front of a massive jet engine, and tells her she's an Agent like him. She doesn't believe him, so in order to prove it and unlock her Agent-y potential, he activates the jet engine and leaves. She then has only seconds to somehow free herself from the chair before she's sucked into the engine and ground into a fine powder.

Um... that's kind of an extreme method of training, isn't it? What if she hadn't been able to untie herself in time? Didn't 47 kind of need her in order to find Litvenko and complete his contract?

• Agent 47's handler is Diana Burnwood, who's played by Hong Kong model, singer and actress Angelababy. Yeah, I've never heard of her either, but she's a big deal in Asia.

Angelababy LITERALLY, in every sense of the word, phones in her performance. She's only in a few brief scenes, and she and Agent 47 never once appear together. Instead she calls him on the phone, giving him orders and advice. It looks for all the world like a camera crew filmed her on the way to her next modeling gig.

Hitman: Agent 47 is an unwanted and unasked for sequel (or remake or reboot, who knows?) to a mediocre movie based on a video game. You'd have just as good a time sitting on the edge of your bed and staring at the floor. I give it a C.

He Who Must Not Be Mispronounced

In a recent tweet, ginger billionaire J.K. Rowling said that we've all been pronouncing "Voldemort" wrong for the past eighteen years. She claims the "t" is silent, so his name is really pronounced "Vol-de-more."

You know, it's a shame that Rowling didn't have some sort of platform, like, oh, I don't know, maybe a series of eight highly successful, big budget Hollywood films, that she could have used to school us in the proper pronunciation of her villain.

Ah well. Better luck next time, J.K.!

This Week In Confusing DVD Titles

I saw this DVD on a recent excursion to the video store. So many questions...

Is Lake Placid, the body of water itself, actually battling Anaconda? Or is "Lake Placid" supposed to be the alligator's name? Will Anaconda be able to swallow the shapely young swimmer while he's tightly wrapped around "Lake Placid?" Why is the shapely young swimmer casting a shadow on the sky? I'm very confused.

Say... they managed to get Yancy Butler and Robert Englund in the same film? Kudos, casting director!

It Came From The Cineplex: Vacation

Welcome once again to Flashback Summer '15! So far in this summer I've seen a Poltergeist, Mad Max, Jurassic Park, Terminator and now a Vacation film in the theater. What freakin' year is it? Enough's enough, Hollywood. Sure, recycling's good for the environment, but not so good for the cineplex.

Vacation was written and directed by Johathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley.

Goldstein and Daley previously co-wrote The Incredible Burt Wonderstone and Horrible Bosses. This is their directorial debut.

John Francis Daley is also an actor, and among other things played Sam Weir in the beloved NBC series Freaks And Geeks.

I wasn't expecting much from this film, so it surprised me when it turned out better than I anticipated. Maybe going in with low expectations helped.

So what exactly is this film? Is a sequel, a remake or a reboot? To quote Bilbo Baggins, "All of them at once, I suppose." It definitely has all the elements of a sequel, since it features characters, actors and numerous references from the first film. 

But it's also a remake, as its episodic nature follows the structure of the first film very closely. What am I talking about, it follows it exactly. Family takes a cross country road trip in a bizarre, sub par vehicle to Wally World. They encounter a series of escalating disasters along the way, and the miserable experience brings them closer together as a family. It's the exact same plot.

We've had quite a few of these remakes masquerading as sequels (requels?) this summer. Terminator Genysis, Mad Max: Fury Road and Jurassic World all followed this dubious, back-to-basics formula. It's a trend I don't particularly care for.

Vacation appears to ignore all the previous sequels, which, given their ever diminishing quality, is probably for the best. With the exception of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, the sequels were all pretty terrible.

This is the sixth film in the Vacation franchise, and the first that doesn't feature "National Lampoon" in the title. The corporation stopped lending its name to films in 2007, feeling that the less than stellar nature of many of the movies it promoted was tarnishing its brand. Ironically the very next year the CEO was forced to resign after several stock market fraud and Ponzi scheme scandals.

SPOILERS, I GUESS!

The Plot:

Regional airline pilot Rusty Griswold (played by Ed Helms) lives in Chicago with his wife Debbie (played by Christina Applegate) and his two sons. Older son James is sensitive and awkward, and is constantly being bullied by his younger, psychotic brother Kevin.

After seeing how much fun his neighbors had on their trip to Paris, Rusty decides to shake things up a bit. Instead of the usual boring vacation in Sheboygan, he'll follow in his father's footsteps and take the family on a cross country drive to Wally World. Sound familiar?

Things go wrong from the start as the only car Rusty can rent is a Tartan Prancer (the Honda of Albania), a bizarre hybrid vehicle with two gas tanks, a number of charging cords and a key fob filled with nonsensical and illogical icons. Hmm... a strange looking, low quality vehicle? Something about that seems familiar as well.

As the family passes through Tennessee, they visit Debbie's old alma mater, and Rusty learns she has a dark, sordid and drunken secret, as she was the inventor of her sorority's "chug run." She's intimidated into taking the run again, downing a pitcher of beer and immediately projectile vomiting all over the course.

On the highway, James sees a cute girl his age in a passing car and flirts with her, until Kevin tries to kill him by wrapping a plastic bag over his head. Meanwhile the family is menaced by a trucker who's seemingly stalking them, and may be trying to kill them.

The family stops in Texas to visit Rusty's sister Audrey, who's married to successful TV weatherman Stone Crandall (played by Chris Hemsworth). The visit turns disastrous when Rusty drives an ATV into one of Stone's prize steers, killing it. Visiting relatives on vacation? Again, familiar.

They move on and stop at a motel in Arizona. James meets Adena, the girl he flirted with earlier. When Kevin ruins their interlude, Adena asks why James doesn't stand up to him. James tries to explain that he's taking the high road, and it wouldn't be right to hit a younger child. Adena says he deserves it, and James realizes she's right. He knocks Kevin on his ass a few times and finally shows him who's boss.

Rusty and family then stop at the Grand Canyon to go white water rafting. They're almost killed by a suicidal guide who just found out his fiancee broke up with him. They leap from their raft minutes before it goes over a waterfall with the guide.

Back on the road, the Prancer runs out of gas in the middle of the desert and explodes (familiar!). The family wants to pack it in, and Rusty reluctantly agrees. Just then the mysterious trucker shows up. Rusty fears he's there to run him down, but the trucker reveals he's been following them to return Debbie's wedding ring, which she lost back in Missouri. He then drives them to San Francisco, where Rusty's parents Clark and Ellen (played by original Vacation stars Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo) run a bed and breakfast.

Rusty finds a marriage help book in Debbie's things, and fears she's going to leave him. She tells him that their marriage isn't over, because he refuses to give up. He decides then and there they'll make it to Wally World in LA or die trying. Clark loans them his Wagon Queen Family Truckster that he inexplicably still owns, and the family drives to Wally World.

They finally make it to Wally World and stand in line for five hours to ride the Velicoraptor, the park's star attraction. Halfway through the ride, it breaks down and they're stranded upside down.

The next day, Rusty sends the boys back home and he takes Debbie to Paris.

Thoughts:

• I wonder why they didn't cast Anthony Michael Hall as the now adult Rusty? Hall's still working, so it seems like he'd be a natural to reprise the role he originated.

Did the studio cast Ed Helms because they think he's a bigger box office draw? That seems unlikely.

It's been a long standing tradition of the franchise to cast new actors in the roles of Rusty and Audrey in each film, so I'm betting that's why they didn't go with Hall.

• Ed Helms seems to be playing his Andy Bernard character from The Office here, which he's done in every film he's ever been in.

I suppose there's nothing wrong with that; after all, plenty of actors have made a good living playing the same character over and over. The problem here is that Helms' awkward, milquetoast manner is completely wrong for Rusty. The Rusty Griswold of the original film was smart, competent and best of all, cool. He always seemed to be several steps ahead of his father Clark. Helms' version of Rusty is a completely different character.

I guess it could have been worse— Adam Sandler was briefly considered for the role. Yikes. The world dodged a bullet there!

• Do you like meta humor in your movies? Yeah, neither do I. Unfortunately Vacation features several in-your-face meta moments. 

When Rusty announces they're going to recreate the "original" vacation, the family says this new vacation seems like the same old thing. Rusty replies, "We're not redoing anything. This will be completely different. Besides, the original vacation had a boy and a girl, this one has two boys." Kevin says he's never even heard of the original vacation, to which Rusty replies, "Doesn't matter. The new vacation will stand on its own."

Note that Ed Helms does everything but turn to the camera and wink in an exaggerated manner during this exchange.

The problem with this "hilarious" little exchange is that this vacation is the same old thing. It follows the original film's structure to the letter, making Rusty look like an even bigger idiot than he already is.

The second meta moment involves Rusty leafing through a photo album and seeing pictures from the various other Vacation films, featuring the many different actors to play both he and his sister Audrey. OK, so that was mildly humorous, but it also pulled me right out of the film.

Maybe in the world of the story, Rusty and his sister were seriously injured and had to undergo extensive facial reconstructive surgery every few years?

• Christina Applegate starred in the Fox sitcom Married... With Children. Oddly enough, Married's first season opening credits included a quick shot from National Lampoon's Vacation, featuring the Wagon Queen Family Truckster driving down a Chicago highway! That's it in the center above.

• Wondering why there's no appearance by Cousin Eddie in this film? That would be due to actor Randy Quaid's numerous legal woes (including a felony burglary charge). He's currently living in exile in Canada, and will be subject to arrest if he ever reenters the U.S. Oh, Cousin Eddie. Who's emptying the sh*tter now?

• Rusty has some odd gaps in his knowledge of sexual perversions. When older son James asks him what a "rim job" is, he genuinely doesn't know, and says it's probably a term for "kissing on the lips."

Later, younger son Kevin says he saw an opening in the wall of his bathroom stall, and Rusty blurts out, "Sounds like you found yourself a glory hole!" Seems like if you were familiar with one, you'd know what the other meant as well.

• Was there a point to the whole Audrey subplot? Rusty and his family visit his sister Audrey, who now lives in Texas and seemingly has a perfect life. There are cracks in the surface though, as her husband refuses to allow her to get a job. She then disappears completely from the movie, never to be seen again. Later on, Ellen says both Audrey and her Stone are cheating on one another, a detail which seemed completely unnecessary.

Screenwriting tip, guys— if you set up a subplot, you should probably find a way to resolve it and not leave it dangling. And if you're not going to resolve it, then maybe don't include it at all.

• Wow. There's no way to say this without sounding mean, so I'm just gonna come out and say it. What the hell has Beverly D'Angelo done to herself? Her face is virtually unrecognizable. None of us want to get old, Bev, but it's time to lay off the plastic surgery.

Vacation is a reasonably decent followup, or remake, or whatever it is to National Lampoon's Vacation. It doesn't outdo the original of course, but it was better than I expected. I give it a B-.

I Hate To Say I Told You So, But...

Way back in 2011 I took a road trip to the Indianapolis Zoo. While there I visited the cheetah exhibit, and was slightly alarmed at how... accessible it looked. The cheetah was housed in a large pit, surrounded by what I considered to be a worrisomely low fence, that looked like it would be easy to leap over. Here's what I said about the cheetah exhibit back then:

Hopefully cheetahs aren't good jumpers. I got enough problems in my life without having my head bitten off by a cheetah in downtown Indianapolis.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Welp, looks like my concerns were frighteningly prescient, just a bit early. Last week the cheetah at the Indy Zoo escaped its enclosure. The Zoo was put on emergency lock down until the cheetah was found and returned to its holding area.

Zoo officials reportedly have no idea how the cheetah manged to escape, and have closed the exhibit until they can figure out how it managed the feat.

No idea, you say? Um... how about it's a goddamned cheetah, to start with? Cheetahs can jump up to fifteen feet high. You put it in a pit with a wall that was barely that height. I don't see the mystery here. 

This isn't the first time animals have escaped from the Indianapolis Zoo. In 2014, two orangutans wriggled out of their enclosure, just two months after their exhibit was opened to the public. 

And in 1994, a wallaroo named Mooky escaped a Zoo van and hopped through downtown Indy.

Jesus Christ, guys! Do any of your cages have locks on them? Do you even have cages? Is this really one of those zoos you drive through, but no one told the public, so they're walking around among all the animals?

Cages with padlocks, dudes. It ain't rocket science.

Hi-Def Revelations: The Rocketeer

Last year I finally joined the early 2000s and retired my twenty year old picture tube TV and bought a hi-def, flat screen set. Hey, don't judge. I was waiting to see if all this hi-def jazz was just a passing fad or if it was going to catch on. I ain't no early adopter!

Anyway, the past few months I've been rewatching a lot of my favorite movies in glorious 1080p resolution, and it's been, pardon the pun, eye opening. I'm seeing all kinds of things I never noticed before when I watched films in low-def, like a common peasant. 

For example, here's a high-def detail for you: Most people think the shark in Jaws was just an unconvincing fiberglass robot, but it was actually real! Who knew? At least it looked real in hi-def on my set. Maybe I need to adjust some settings. Never mind.

Another example of previously unnoticed details: Last week I rewatched the underrated 1991 superhero film The Rocketeer. If you've not seen it, drop whatever you're doing and run, don't walk to the nearest video store and rent it. OK, I suppose you could "stream" it or whatever the kids call it these days, but the point is it's a really good film and you owe it to yourself to watch it.

At one point in the film, actor/playboy Neville Sinclair (played by Timothy Dalton) takes the Rocketeer's girlfriend Jenny (played by Jennifer Connelly) to a swanky night spot called the South Seas Club.

Inside the club, they're entertained by a torch singer who belts out her rendition of Begin The Beguine. What the hell's a "beguine," I hear you ask? It's a kind of dance, similar to the foxtrot. Jeez, read the dictionary, why don't you?

Back to my point-- that torch singer is played by a young Melora Hardin, better known as Jan Levinson-Gould of The Office! I guess it makes sense, as Jan tried to squeeze in a song every chance she could on the latter seasons of the show.

Even though this film came out a good fifteen years before The Office, she looks the same here, if not a little older. Maybe it's the 1940s hairstyle making her look older than she was. 

Next on Hi-Def Revelations: I watch a Godzilla film, because I'm starting to suspect the monster may be a man in a suit.

It Came From The Cineplex: Sinister 2

Sinister 2 was written by C. Robert Cargill and Scott Derrickson, and directed by Ciaran Foy.

Cargill and Derrickson also wrote the original Sinister, which Derrickson directed. This is apparently Foy's first time directing a mainstream studio film.

Was anyone really clamoring for a Sinister sequel? I doubt it. The original film was disturbing, muddled and not the least bit scary. It combined elements of police procedurals, snuff films and even bits from The Shining into a dull and forgettable package. Plus everything was wrapped up in the end, leaving nowhere for the story to go. The only people I can imagine wanting a sequel were the studio bean counters, since the first one grossed $48 million against its $3 million budget.

One good thing the original had was Ethan Hawke, who brought a lot to the table as troubled author Elison Oswalt. Sadly he doesn't return for the sequel, as his character met an untimely demise in the first installment. Sinister 2 features a cast of virtual unknowns (to me anyway), whose acting talents vary wildly.

Sinister 2 makes the same mistake as most horror sequels, by giving us a better look at its monster. In the first film, Bughuul, the ridiculously named ancient demon, barely shows his pasty white face. He's more of an unsettling presence than a full-blown creature, and is much more effective that way. Unfortunately Sinster 2 puts him front and center on the screen, as he does everything but mug for the camera. The rules by which he operates are even more preposterous here as well. Maybe someday filmmakers will realize that less is more.

SINISTER SPOILERS AHEAD!

The Plot:

As the film opens, Courtney Collins and her twin sons Zach and Dylan are living in a rural Illinois farmhouse. They're hiding from Courtney's abusive asshole husband Clint, who wants custody of the boys. Zach is aggressive and outgoing, while Dylan is shy and introspective.

Courtney's set up a workshop in the rundown church behind the house, which was the site of a grisly, ritualistic mass murder. Dylan suffers from nightmares, and is visited every night by a posse of ghostly children, led by Milo. These ghost kids use peer pressure (seriously!) to force Dylan to watch their various snuff films. The kids are working for the improbably named Bughuul, an ancient Babylonian demon who feeds on souls, or something.

Meanwhile, Ex-Deputy So & So (yes, that's how he's listed in the credits), the only character from the first film, is investigating various Bughuul murders, and burning down houses in which he appeared. I guess even though Bughuul's survived for thousands of years, he's still susceptible to arson. So & So tracks him to the farmhouse and is about to burn it down when he realizes Courtney and her kids are living in it. Whoops!

Clint arrives at the farmhouse with several state troopers, demanding that Courtney hand over the boys. So & So realizes the troopers don't have the proper documents, and tells them to beat it. Courtney's so grateful she throws herself at So & So and invites him to stay, which was probably supposed to be cute, but comes off as awkward, uncomfortable and a little pitiful.

Zach reveals to Dylan that he can somehow also see the ghost kids, and wants to know why they're not sharing their cool movies with him. Bughuul and the kids then turn their attention to him and abandon Dylan (which I think was the plan all along).

Clint then arrives with the proper papers and takes Courtney and the kids to his home, where he starts up with the abuse again. Moving out of the haunted house fulfills the conditions of  Bughuul's complicated supernatural contract, and activates Zach, turning him into a blank-eyed sociopath. He films his family as he poisons them, and somehow manages to string them all up like scarecrows in the middle of a corn field. He sets Clint on fire and burns him alive. Oh well. He was bad, so he deserved it, right? He's about to do the same to Dylan, when So & So arrives in his car and runs over Zach. So & So cuts Courtney and Dylan down and they flee into Clint's house. Zach, who was somehow only wounded, follows them inside with a sickle.

Zach savagely tries to kill his family while still filming. So & So manages to knock Zach's camera to the floor, breaking it. This pisses off Bughuul something awful, and he absorbs Zach's life force, I think, and takes him into his ghostly army. Why he punished Zach instead of So & So, or didn't just grab Courtney or Dylan is apparently none of our business. Clint's house then catches fire as the surviving characters flee.

So & So returns to his motel room to gather his belongings, as Bughuul's face pops up onscreen, in the most gratuitously stupid "GOTCHA!" ending possible.

Thoughts:

• The first movie featured a series of blurry, unsettling snuff films. One family is hanged, one drowns in a pool, one burns while locked inside a car, etc. They were honestly hard to watch because they seemed real, as if they might have actually happened. 

In this film that sense of realism goes right out the window, as they ramp up the snuff films to eleven and beyond. They feature complicated scenarios that would have made Rube Goldberg proud, er, if he'd been a sadistic torturer. 

Oddly enough, we're supposed to believe that small kids somehow engineered and implemented all these schemes, which is ridiculous at best. In fact, many times I stopped thinking about how horrific the traps were and started wondering, "How the hell did a kid do that?" 

Take the alligator snuff film, for example. Somehow a small child hung his parents and siblings from a rope suspended over a swamp and watched the gators chomp away. How that was possible without a crew of twenty adults, a warehouse full of equipment and an on-site OSHA representative, I have no idea.

Same goes for Zach's murder scenario. First he drugged his parents and brother. Then this ten year old boy, armed with only a small sickle, expertly cleared half an acre of crops to form a makeshift arena in the middle of a corn field. Then he constructed three large, sturdy wooden crosses and planted them firmly in the ground. He then somehow hoisted everyone ten feet off the ground and hung them from these crosses. Impressive!

• Dylan begins talking to the gang of dead kids completely out of the blue. One minute he's playing with his brother, the next he's conversing with a gang of ghosts. No buildup, no clues that such a thing is possible, nothing. It's downright jarring. In fact for a minute or so I thought maybe the theater had skipped a reel.

• Courtney seems like quite a piece of work. She knows something horrific and grisly happened in the dilapidated church behind her house, but sets up a furniture restoring workshop inside it anyway.She probably stares into her bathroom mirror and whispers "Candyman" three times as well.

• I guess the fact that we're two movies into this series and "Ex Deputy So & So" hasn't been assigned a name yet is supposed to be funny? Cute? Hopelessly lame?

So & So was an interesting comic relief character in the first film, as he reacted to the supernatural shenanigans just like a normal person would-- by being scared out of his mind. Here though he's suddenly thrust into the position of Leading Man, which he just can't quite pull off. He spends the entire movie in a state of elevated fear and unease, coming off more like Scooby-Doo's Shaggy than a hero.

By the way, So & So is played by actor James Ransone, who from certain angles bears a close resemblance to the young Jim Carrey. It was downright distracting at times. It's hard to take the scares seriously when any second you expect the leading man to start talking out of his ass.

• Many modern horror movie monsters operate by ill-defined and ridiculous rules, but Bughuul are just downright absurd. An ancient demon who functions through home movies?

As near as I can tell, Bughuul waits until a family with at least two kids moves into a house he's currently haunting. He then somehow summons a trunk filled with a movie projector and a Super 8 camera inside. He also commands an army of ghostly children, who pressure one of the living kids to watch their disturbing home movies. Movies in which the kids killed their entire families in horrifying ways. Eventually the kid becomes unhinged by these films, and his family will move out of the house. That's apparently the signal for the kid to murder his own family and film it. The surviving kid is then killed or absorbed or something by Bughuul (I think) and indoctrinated into his spectral army.

At least I think that's how it works. I'm really not sure. None of it makes a lick of sense. For one thing, Bughuul is supposed to be thousands of years old. So why does he dress in a smart black turtleneck and blazer? I guess he likes to stay abreast of fashion trends. 

And why does an ancient Babylonian demon use modern technology like a movie projector? How long has Bughuul being doing this? How'd he recruit kids back in 1066? Did he show them some particularly gruesome tapestries? Or did he only start doing this once home movie equipment was invented? Is he going to buy his ghost kids a 4k digital camera soon?

• So & So gets a call from a Dr. Stromberg, who needs to speak with him about an urgent matter he can't discuss over the phone. So & So meets with Stromberg, who gives him some superfluous info about Bughuul involving a ham radio. It seems Stromberg recorded a signal off a ham radio that's supposedly one of Bughuul's victims.

The static-y signal contains an unsettling tune played on a tinkly toy piano, with a creepy child's voice speaking in Norwegian, telling her mother she can't hear Bughuul over her death screams. It's eerie and atmospheric, and believe it or not, it's based on a real thing! Well, sort of.

There are still many numbers stations operating today on shortwave frequencies, most of them holdovers from the Cold War. One of these frequencies contains what's known as the "Swedish Rhapsody," which is-- you guessed it-- a tune played on a tinkly toy piano, with a creepy child's voice. The only difference is that the real child speaks in German, not Norwegian, and she's reciting code numbers and not telling her mother to stifle while she murders her. If you're interested you can find recordings of the Swedish Rhapsody on the interwebs. It's definitely spooky.

By the way, this entire little interlude had absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the film. It could be excised completely and not harm the plotline one bit. The only reason it's there is to get So & So away from Courtney and her family for a little bit, so he can heroically return and rescue them at the last minute.

• Zach Collins is played by young actor Dartanian Sloan. Are you frakin' kidding me? Who the hell names their kid Dartanian? I hope his attention-seeking parents are proud of themselves. Germany's naming laws are looking better and better all the time.

• In Milo's snuff film, he gruesomely nails his family's wrists to the floor so they can't escape his torture. When Zach strings his family up like scarecrows, their arms and feet are simply tied to the posts. Well that was certain considerate of him! We can't be having our main characters running around with debilitating crucifixion wounds, now can we?

• I'm assuming Clint was supposed to be a terrifying, abusive figure, but he's so over the top he's practically a cartoon. I get the feeling that when Zach burns him alive, the audience is supposed to rise to their feet and cheer.

• The finale is very reminiscent of Children Of The Corn. Guys, if you're going to crib your climax from another movie, at least pick a good one.

Sinister 2 is a typical unwanted sequel to a film that was mediocre to start with. It's murky monster and his vague machinations don't help matters. I give it a C-.

Hands-On Exhibit!

From the Tapei Huashan 1914 Creative Art Center's official brochure: 

Welcome to the Tapei Huashan 1914 Creative Art Center, the world's first hands-on fine art museum! 

Why be corralled behind a velvet rope like a dull-eyed cow and stare at stuffy old paintings from a distance, when you can experience, firsthand, the texture of every brush stroke?

Go ahead, run your fingers over our delicate, fragile canvases. Don't be shy! Get your fingertips in there and really caress that crumbling, centuries-old impasto. Feel that? That's genuine antiquity you're fondling!

Yes, at the Tapei Huashan 1914 Creative Center, you'll feel art history come alive!

What's that you say? What happens if you accidentally take a tumble and shove your fist through a four hundred year old painting, such as Flowers by renowned 17th century Italian Baroque artist Paolo Porpora?

No worries! Our crack staff of experts can restore even the most severely and clumsily damaged canvas in no time flat. Why just look at that painting! It's better than brand new!

Don't forget, Saturdays are Kids Daze here at the Tapei Huashan 1914 Creative Center. Children twelve and under are encouraged to paint directly onto our canvases, and "improve" them!