Ebert Did It Better: Gasbag Reviews

Director William Brent Bell
Screenplay Stacey Menear
Starring Katie Holmes, Ralph Ineson, Owain Yeoman, Christopher Convery

The first time around, it was (spoiler) a nutcase living in the walls of the home. This time, who really cares? By the time we’ve even moved out to the guest house of the old mansion from the first film, the family is already tiresome. American wife (Holmes) married to a Limey husband with a putz of a kid.

The kid and mother are attacked one night while in their home in the city. Months later, the mother has gotten her shit relatively together and the boy is still making a big deal of it by communicating through writing on a note pad. The therapist recommends getting out of the city so, you know, they can move on with the plot. Why the home invasion happens is never mentioned again. Should it matter? In a better movie, perhaps.

The first thing we see in the home out in the woods is some guy wandering through the property with a gun. Not that its important, but it might have been a good question to ask the real estate lady why he’s there. Questions would be a good thing, so they don’t ask any and take the house without the tour. We’ve got a deadline, apparently.

It doesn’t take long to find the doll, Brahms, again. His face, put back together in the credits of the first film, is as perfect as an egg shell now. How did this happen? Who cares?

Soon the little boy with the bad haircut is lugging around the doll with better hair, a nice suit and even more accessory clothes for special occasions. A dog that is hanging around the hunter guy doesn’t like what is going on. What happens to the dog and its explanation in act three is stupid as hell. I can’t believe both of these films have the same writer, director and editor. There couldn’t be a better argument against any of them working again.

For her part, Katie Holmes has nothing from which to respond. Every time we think we’re seeing something, it ends up being a stupid dream of some sort. She wanders around trying to put her foot down. Her son is drawing tragic shit and spouting about “Brahms Rules” and the Limey dad is just waiting off stage until Katie screams or there is a loud noise that everyone but he witnesses.

Nothing from the first film makes sense while comparing it to the second. Is the doll some sort of demon, yeah, but not a very active one. All these families that it’s supposedly ruined and they don’t even cause a scratch to anyone important here. Don’t tell me that mean cousin is important, either. He’s only there to be the kind of kid you hope gets maimed.

There has been more ado about nothing, but waiting for almost an hour to realize you just want it to be over is a bad sign for a film that is supposed to create a mood. The mood here is dread. Where is my friend Binage? If I am going to see a crappy horror flick, he should be there with me.

(no stars out of *****)