I’ll preface by saying I was advised not to watch this film, but I did anyway. I didn’t hate it, but also didn’t find it as good and/or entertaining as the first one. For one, I didn’t realize until after watching this and doing a bit of googling, that it was supposed to be up to interpretation whether the creatures were real or not. That just makes the first one even better to me, because I hadn’t thought of it that way, and it makes me want to rewatch it. From what I remember, Sarah does spend a lot of time isolated once the attacks happen, and it makes more sense why she would wound Juno at the end and escape on her own.
This film starts with Sarah in the hospital two days after the first film, while a team searches for her friends. She conveniently doesn’t remember what happened and is forced to return to the caves. I wasn’t a fan of this. Even in the caves, she seems to be having flashbacks but doesn’t tell any of the new people anything, so they don’t know how to behave to try and survive. It would have been more interesting for her to remember everything and try to warn them not to go back, but be forced to go with them. Maybe they handcuff her and drag her along (which is so interesting because I thought this as I was watching and there is a point later where she is handcuffed.) Because them going into the caves not knowing about the creatures or the fact that they hunt by sound made it feel like a lesser retread of the first film.
They already suspect that Sarah killed her friends down there, and it doesn’t help that she suddenly (and conveniently) remembers what happened two days ago, and rather than discuss it or warn people… just attacks them and runs off. Sarah isn’t a very likable or enjoyable character for me. I didn’t like her for most of the first film, it wasn’t until she started kicking ass and got her Carrie makeover that I liked her… But this film reverts her back to the Sarah that started the first film, and that wasn’t entertaining to me.
The best part of me was the reveal that Juno was still alive… How she was still alive, I don’t know, but I was happy to see her. And her guiding the man (I’m too lazy to look up the character’s name) felt more believable to me. She was able to quickly establish not to make sounds. I assumed the final showdown would be between Sarah and Juno, but I was wrong. They encounter each other sooner than that, and have a brief fight before working together.
Sarah gets handcuffed to the solo male remaining, and that is brief because he dies within minutes of this. Then it is the final three, Sarah, Juno, and Rios. Rios seemed to be the emotional anchor of the film, so I assumed she would be the one, or at least one of the ones, to survive. I was hoping all three would survive… but that didn’t happen. Juno is killed, and Sarah and Juno have a nice emotional closure for their story. Then, much like in the first film, the creatures are coming, escape is close, and there are two left. This time though, rather than wound Rios to escape, Sarah sacrifices herself by screaming, attracting the creatures to herself, so Rios can escape.
Rios’ escape is very much like Sarah’s escape from the first film. Only, when she gets out, she is hit in the head with a shovel as she tries to dial for help, and gets dragged right back to the opening she came from… I didn’t like the ending. At all. So the man who hit her with the shovel is working with the creatures? Or allowing them to hunt? I’m not opposed to a bleak ending, but this didn’t sit right with me. How did he know anyone would escape? Was he just sitting by the entrance in case someone did… and if so, why wasn’t he closer to the entrance, as she ran a good bit away… It would have been better if she escaped and started to run, only to run into more creatures. Bleak, but more plausible to me.
All in all, a good popcorn flick, I probably won’t watch it again… but I’m excited to watch the first one again to see how it feels looking at it as if the creatures aren’t there and Sarah is just homicidal.
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