I went to see this movie in theaters today, and when the final scene of the movie went quiet the entire theatre was laughing and almost everybody got up to leave immediately. The gore, the effects, creepiness and general idea of the movie are good, there is A TON of potential here, but I feel it was missed. So many points of this movie came off as cliché, cheesy, predictable, and instead of being scared or on the edge of my seat I ended up laughing at the ridiculousness.
Negative, Music: The scenes where Naomi is dancing and singing feel way too long, I felt like they were promoting a pop-star's new music to me in the middle of a psych-thriller. To be fair, I'm not a fan of most pop music to begin with, but it felt like when you're watching a scary movie on cable and suddenly a colorful commercial with cheery music starts playing and you're itching for it to stop. The dancing and singing does portray Skye's job, but the scenes dragged out far too long. There was a moment when I wasn't sure if the movie was going to be a musical.
Pro, suspence, visuals and jump scares: You can tell the writers and director are well versed in horror/thriller movies. There was quite a few scares that made me jump which other newer horror movies haven't done for me. Not all of them are predictable in this movie which is a huge win. The psychological aspects of this movie are great. The nightmare inducing visuals are amazing.
Negative, predictability and plot: while the jump scares weren't all predictable, the plot unfortunately was. 10 minutes into the movie I suspected it would end with the *spoilers* main character offing herself at a concert in front of a huge crowd. The plot has a ton of potential but the only thing that shocked me was the best friend not being there but even with that I got a feeling might be the case when the mom didnt acknowledge her standing in the kitchen. The rest of the plot points felt predictable or incomplete. The first movie gave me as the viewer the suspense in the plot with the main character finding out how she could possibly stop the cycle. I had more hope in the first movie that she might stop the cycle and her descent into madness felt complete. This sequel gave me no hope for the character, it felt like I was watching a sitting duck doing almost nothing to save herself, and the descent into madness felt rushed. The plot point with the one character who was trying to help her felt rushed and incomplete. We find out at the end that the emergency care nurse who was trying to help her only appeared once more after meeting her, and the second meeting her wasn't even reality. It felt like a pointless add in and didn't make much sense. If less time was spent on the songs maybe the plot wouldn't have suffered as badly.
Negative, ridiculousness: I kept finding myself laughing, and when the movie ended I could hear I wasn't the only one, the entire theater of people were laughing. There's a line that horror can cross between being realistic enough to induce fear or disgust, and being so out of reality and weird that it's funny.
Final takeaway: I'm genuinely surprised at the amount of good reviews. I was really disappointed with the wasted potential. The effects, visuals, and general idea are amazing, but there was too many drawn out musical acts, and rushed/ incomplete plot points for this to be a good movie to me.
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