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PLOT: Hours after Jacob Goodnight slaughtered almost a dozen young delinquents, his body is brought into the city morgue – although he's not quite dead. The hulking, one-eyed brute then proceeds to crash a morgue employee's birthday party in bloody fashion.
REVIEW: The first SEE NO EVIL is a guilty pleasure for me, let's get that out of the way. It's a cheesy, trashy, gory bit of fun; surprisingly well made for a horror film starring a wrestler with, shall we say, limited range as an actor. The movie knows what it is though, and revels in it, and that's always appreciated. The same can more or less be said for the is sequel, which comes from Jen and Sylvia Soska, the AMERICAN MARY directors who bring their appreciation for body modification in a grisly new direction here.
Though it has been almost ten years since the first film's release, SEE NO EVIL 2 takes place on the same night as the first film's massacre (luckily Kane hasn't aged a day). Appearing quite dead after having a pipe shoved in his eye and falling out of a window several stories, Jacob Goodnight is wheeled into the city morgue, along with the corpses of all those he mutilated. The dead body overload is something of a plan-wrecker for morgue employee Amy (Danielle Harris), whose birthday celebration has now been waylaid. It's a good thing she is somewhat sweet on her co-worker (Kaj-Erik Eriksen), who similarly has eyes for her although he's loathe to make the first move.
Just because there are several fresh corpses in the building doesn't mean the good times have to stop rolling; Amy's friends and brother (Greyston Holt) have the bright idea of partying at the morgue – the fact that she actually has to work and the general gross-out factor of the place be damned. It doesn't take long for the obvious case of Jacob's not really being dead is uncovered, and the big boy gets to hacking and slashing this birthday bash apart.
Not unlike the first film, SEE NO EVIL 2 skimps on plot and character development; perhaps even more so. Mostly gone are the overt religious motivations for its villain; as his now-dead evangelical mother was the main force behind his rampage in the past, Jacob's mostly just an angry monster on the loose (with an occasional mother's voice-in-the-head moment). His obsession with eyeballs has gone by the wayside too, perhaps because, having lost one of his own, he can relate to how uncomfortable a sensation that is.
SEE NO EVIL 2 is a passable slasher; it has been professionally made, it's well-directed by the Soskas and it takes less than 90 minutes to get business done; always appreciated. I must admit, it's not quite as polished as the first film, which had a surprising attention to detail in most areas, especially production design. This film's location dictates that the sets be relatively sparsely decorated, but there's no denying it's lacking that persuasively grimy/gloomy atmosphere.
What may be considered especially disappointing are the murder sequences; while the first film went gleefully over-the-top with its murders, SEE NO EVIL 2 has a more traditional approach to its fatalities. Once Jacob finds what looks like a spiked machete – have no idea what this is used for in the morgue – he sticks with it, and many of the ensuing deaths come via that blade. The movie is no less bloody than its predecessor, but it would have been a bit more fun had the deaths been more creative. As it stands, there is only one really memorable kill, but the less said about it, the better.
The Soskas have populated their movie with very likable actors, which is no doubt a plus. Danielle Harris is, naturally, right at home in a picture like this, and she brings an unusually pronounced innocence to Amy that's refreshing to see from the actress. Katherine Isabelle, reuniting with the Twisted Twins after AMERICAN MARY, gives an entertainingly hammy performance as Amy's unbridled best friend, the kind of girl who has no problem having sex next to butchered human remains. Eriksen is suitably sweet and charming as a boy-next-door type who mans up when the going gets tough. As for Glenn "Kane" Jacobs, well, what can you say. He's an imposing figure, no doubt about that, and when he throws a body down the hall or crushes someone's skull with his bare hands, you definitely buy it.
Is SEE NO EVIL 2 any kind of must-see? No. But it's an efficiently produced slice of undemanding entertainment.