Deep Blue Sea 2 (2018)

I have just finished watching Deep Blue Sea 2 and I am already struggling to write this review, mainly because I have immediately forgotten everything that happened. That is not a comment that reflects my memory, even if I do have my occasional moments of forgetting where I placed my headphones that are still lodged at my ears. No, it's a comment on just how absolutely forgettable this film is. It's also quite dire, but just not in any memorable way.

You may disagree with me, I cannot even recall the general consensus at this point, but Deep Blue Sea was/is an excellent shark movie. It was Renny Harlin before he went off the boil, and he had a hell of a run, it was a decent enough cast, and it had that great idea of sharks coming in to an indoor environment.

Which makes this sequel, really just an inferior retread, all the more disappointing. They even directly lift a number of moments from the first film, all of them done far less effectively.

Danielle Savre plays Misty Calhoun, a shark expert taken along with some other people to a base in the middle of the sea that is doing some important science stuff with sharks. The experiments are continuing thanks to an amoral rich guy named Carl Durant (Michael Beach) and it's not long until things go wrong, prompting the rich guy to become more and more outright evil as he attempts to save face, and his own skin.

Director Darin Scott already has a number of features under his belt, a number of them TV movies, but you wouldn't know it from this amateurish effort. Okay, to be fair, there's a very basic degree of competence here, overshadowed by the weak script (by Erik Patterson, Hans Rodionoff, and Jessica Scott - who all clearly just watched the first film and then set out to make it worse, and cheaper), but it's nowhere near the level that it should be. I'm used to watching cheap shark films with dodgy CGI, and I have been spoiled recently with some great shark films that have excellent effects in them. This sits somewhere in the middle. Some of the FX work is decent enough but too many moments just feel rushed and lacking, especially when being displayed in the scenes that should be highlights.

I started this review by mentioning how forgettable the film is and that is emphasised by the cast, none of whom make any impression whatsoever, good or bad. Savre is left adrift, no pun intended, while Beach is given a character so one-note that you're just waiting for him to meet his obvious fate. As for everyone else? Nope. I couldn't even pick them out of a line-up right now. Which might work in their favour when they move on to future projects.

When an entire movie manages to be more wooden and boring than the performance from Saffron Burrows in Deep Blue Sea then you know that's not a good thing. This is definitely one to avoid.

2/10

Available on various streaming services, here is the DVD for American shark fans.

Boogeyman 2 (2007)

I can't, in all honesty, say that Boogeyman 2 is a GREAT horror movie. But I can easily say that it's quite a step up from the first movie. In fact, apart from one main connection, you could happily avoid the painful experience of watching the first film and just skip straight to this one.

Danielle Savre plays Laura Porter, a young woman who decides to check into the mental health facility that seemed to do so much good for her brother (Henry, played by Matt Cohen). Laura and Henry were scarred many years ago by a traumatic night that led to the loss of their parents. As Matt heads off to start rebuilding his adult life, Laura puts herself in the hands of Dr. Jessica Ryan (Renee O'Connor) and Dr. Mitchell Allen (Tobin Bell). Unfortunately, it's not long until a number of her fellow patients start dying, and in ways that seem tied to their deepest fears. Is the boogeyman real, or have one of the doctors decided to try more radical methods of treatment?

While the script by Brian Sieve is simply competent, and the direction by Jeff Betancourt is perfectly fine, Boogeyman 2 actually manages to impress with one or two moments of real nastiness. The dressing may be standard, sanitised stuff, but the death scenes here are sometimes wince-inducingly painful, which is all the more surprising considering the blandness of some other aspects of the film. The supporting characters are a mixed bad, and it's hard to care for most of them, the facility always feels like a horror movie set as opposed to a real building (like, for example, those many horror movie hospitals that never have more than one or two staff working in them at night), and the final act revelations will neither surprise nor impress full-time horror fans.

Savre is fine in the lead role, I guess, but it's the supporting cast that provides more fun for movie fans. The appearance of Bell, of course, immediately makes him a prime suspect (due to his prominent role in the Saw franchise), but O'Connor also plays up to the fact that her character could be good or evil, simply because all of the adults disbelieving younger characters with legitimate fears can be viewed as potential baddies in a movie series that has shown how far things can be affected by the fear of fear itself. Then we have Mae Whitman and Johnny Simmons as two patients, the former unable to stop her habit of cutting herself and the latter suffering from OCD relating to hygiene. They both stand out, making the film much more enjoyable than it otherwise would have been. The same, sadly, can't be said for Christine Griffith, Michael Graziadei, Lesli Margherita, or any of the others that I may have already forgotten. Cohen does okay, but he's not onscreen long enough to make much of an impression either way.

If, like me, you never thought of checking out the sequels to the awful Boogeyman then it may be worth reconsidering your stance. You're not missing out on too much if you never watch this movie, but it's an easygoing bit of entertainment if you have 90 minutes to fill and you're in the mood for something undemanding and gory.

5/10

http://www.amazon.com/Triple-Feature-Boogeyman-Barry-Watson/dp/B003UN0752/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1411851034&sr=1-1&keywords=boogeyman