When I mentioned lining this up for a viewing after only recently seeing the movie that precedes it I was informed by at least one person that it was . . . something. And it sure is. Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight Part 2 is a really strange progression from the first film, but it also doesn't feel as if it's working against anything that was already put in place.
Zosia (Julia Wieniawa) is in police custody after the events of the first film. As are a pair of mutated killers. Sergeant Waldek (Andrzej Grabowski) takes her back to one of the main locations of interest to further investigate the killing spree, which is the start of everything going quite horribly wrong. There's a meteorite chunk that still holds the power to change those that come into contact with it, and it's not long until we have a new mutant killer for our main characters to deal with. Those main characters are now a young police officer named Adam (Mateusz Wieclawek) and his work partner, Wanessa (Zofia Wichlacz), as well as two hunters (Mariusz and Slawek, played by Sebastian Stankiewicz and Robert Wabich, respectively) and a frightened prostitute named Janeczka (Izabela Dabrowska).
With Bartosz M. Kowalski back in the director's chair, joined by one returning writer (Mirella Zaradkiewicz) to help him with the screenplay, this is a wild and fun ride that I have to consider superior to the first film. While some may dislike the sharp turn that this takes, it at least tries hard to reframe the standard slasher movie antics and get viewers onside with some characters who would usually be left under-developed and used in very different ways. Seeing this film has made me much more eager to check out other films by Kowalski, who I now know can work with both the familiar and the enjoyably unexpected.
Every one of the main cast members does well, even when buried under make up that is used to transform them. Wieniawa carries the baggage of her survival of the first film, allowing viewers to keep hoping for the best as it looks like everything is about to go from bad to worse for her, and Wieclawek is suitably vulnerable and unprepared for everything that ends up happening around, and to, him. Others onscreen are often shown to be less capable than they like to make out, with darkly comedic results sometimes, but they're all given just enough time and focus to make you hope that at least some of them make it to the end credits.
Managing to balance things between fun gore gags and some unexpectedly bleak exploration of identity, loneliness, and how morality is seen very differently by people looking at it from diametrically opposed viewpoints, Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight Part 2 is an impressively unique work. It doesn't get absolutely everything right, and the pacing is the main area where things could have been improved, but it's well worth a watch.
7/10
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