Without meaning to sound facetious, horror is perhaps the hardest genre to mess up. While this isn't to suggest that it is at all easy to make a good genre flick, the general emotions that need to be elected from audiences of the genre - those stemming from fear - are perhaps the easiest to manipulate and exploit, particularly in a theatrical setting where audiences expectations are already primed for scaring.
So, riddle me why the genre so frequently misses? The Unnecessary sequel Don't Breathe 2 from Rodo Sayagues is one of the worst culprits in a long time.
Poorly conceptualised from the offset, the 'eight years later' set sequel seeks to humanise its antagonist in an attempt to absolve him of his criminal actions, an immediate moral red flag the film never recovers from. After stumbling so dreadfully out of the gate, what follows is a half-baked, nonsensical human transplant plot that plays out as equal parts Rambo: Last Blood, Eastenders and Jeremy Kyle, and makes about as much sense as throwing those titles together. Worse still, Fede Alvarez (director of the first time) and Sayagues' screenplay is incredibly boring, with no attempt to layer any of its other characters and, as such, fails to develop any emotional connection with anyone in the picture. On top of numerous plot holes, lapses of logic and terrible dialogue, it becomes increasingly frustrating. In fact, it's the closest I've come to walking out of a film in a long, long time.
As director, Sayagues fails to infuse any visual excitement into proceedings, with such poor lighting and dreadful colour grading that it's almost impossible to decipher anything unfolding on the screen. An infrequent splattering of gore is not enough to impress audiences who may come purely for the thrill of the genre's bloodshed, with any sense of suspense with every potential jump signalled a mile off by lacklustre sound design.
Poor filmmaking and terrible narrative decisions combine in Don't Breathe 2, making it one of the year's worst pictures to date. Both tasteless and boring, and retroactively weakening the previous title in the careless way it attempts to rationalise its antagonists' behaviour, let us hope the filmmakers don't hold their breath on me turning up for a third film.
- - - - - -
THE FOREVER PURGE
America's most scarily accurate franchise offers up its fifth instalment in the form of The Forever Purge. Releasing after a year's delay, can this franchise still work for a post-Trump America?
Despite the sirens signalling the end of the annual purge, the violence continues as "Forever Purgers" aim to extended the lawless, bloody rules that cull "undesirables" from the population and stoke the growing hostility between citizens forevermore. With Mexico and Canada opening their borders to allow non-Purgers to escape the bloodshed, two groups put their differences aside in the hope of surviving. Everado Gout directs while franchise creator James DeMonaco returns to pen what was initially conceived as the final Purge film.
While this dystopian horror franchise has never been the most sophisticated entity, it hit its stride with the second and third instalments, Anarchy and Election Year, by landing on ideas that dug to the darkest core of a nation at a time where it really began showing its teeth. And while the state of the nation continues to fracture, the filmmakers have been unable to recapture the same inspiration due to a lack of narrative and thematic creativity in moving the series forward. Everado Gout steps into the franchise for the first time as director but similarly struggles to energise a tiring franchise, without the well-staged set pieces that have propped up previous instalments.
James DeMonaco's screenplay is a mindless rehash of seen-before ideas and feels thematically blunt; while the underdog narrative continues to engage on a very basic level, it's just not particularly exciting anymore. Playing out routinely and (damningly) very predictably, it's not that this franchise has been overtaken by real events but more so that it has been unable to keep up with them - although perhaps that's unfair given the pandemic delay. When you try to expand the scope as Forever does, but you have less to fill that space with, it leads to an exercise that seems very empty by comparison.
Unfortunately, The Forever Purge is demonstrative of a franchise greatly running out of creative steam despite such promise still existing in its premise. It is as if this whole creative team needs an overhaul, freeing it of ideas it repeats and reuses film after film, if it wishes to continue much further. With my soft spot for this franchise hardening as time goes by, perhaps it's time to call an end to The Purge forever - because the thought of the series going on forever is tiring even for its biggest defenders.
- - - - -
ESCAPE ROOM: TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS
When Escape Room became a breakout hit in 2019, a sequel was a sure-bet. Operating as a "Saw for kids', the franchise offers a PG-13 alternative to the blood-heavy gore fest that inspired it.
A marked improvement over the first film, Escape Room 2's screenplay learns from the mistakes of its predecessor and gives audiences a batch of characters they can truly get behind. With greater care taken in humanising these characters, audiences are granted a stronger connection to the competitors and in turn, find greater involvement in their fight for survival. While certainly no masterwork, with some iffy dialogue and a handful of lapses in logic, the wonky ground with which the sequel was set up stabilises thanks to the four-person screenplay that makes the franchises' overarching villain feel like a greater threat.
Scaling up on scope isn't always a good thing but for Tournament of Champions, it feels right. Bigger set pieces assist in increasing the stakes and as a result, the creativity comes out a little more in the Adam Robitel-directed feature. While they do sometimes appear a little mechanical, and the rules don't always make sense or feel well-defined, there's a tension to each of the 'rooms' that again stems from how much stronger these characters are. Of course, the cast is a significant part of this: Taylor Russell continues to be the series' heart and soul of the series, while newcomers Indya Moore and Holland Roden are strong additions.
Escape Room: Tournament of Champions is a solid horror sequel that expands its scope and works at fixing the mistakes committed by its previous instalments, demonstrating both stylistic and narrative growth. In a surprise turn of events, Escape Room 2 is the strongest post-lockdown horror sequel of the year and promises a fun escape to the cinema.