|
Young man Trip buys drugs and steals some more when the seller’s back is turned. Pleased with his loot, he joins Cookie, Jack, Nelson and Gretchen driving her car, on their way for a vacation with other friends they are meeting up with. They are anticipating the fun and good time they would have. Along an empty highway, crossing a deserted oasis, however, they run out of gas and something also goes wrong with the car. They manage to dig up a little gasoline and with some tinkering, they are able to get to the only gas station visible around them. Splitting up, they look around for help, or what they could do to get out of the utterly forsaken place which is getting eerier by the minute. Things begin to happen. They are confronted by mutilated individuals: a smashed-up looking child, a man with one side of his face slashed off, a woman without the lower half of her body, and Trip without an arm. There is also the presence of a black-armored being stalking each of them. The friends begin to lose their companions, one by one.
The mystery suspense movie needs to be worked out with some attention from the viewers. How the sequences and the story events need to be put together to get at what really happened is important. However, for the young teeners who expect to be entertained by the suspense, startling sounds, the sudden presence of scary visions and movements could be sufficient. Dead People 2 has a young cast portraying high school characters in their mid teens. The actors who are not familiar manage to play their roles adequately. Visual effects (by studio K) were used throughout, like for light and lightning flashes incorporated with visions of humans, aliens, and strange creatures. Except for such instances and some real daylight, the scarier portions take place in semi-shadow and light atmosphere. Though not emphasized, the gory images of the walking-wounded are not easy to look at. In addition there is the sequence of the desperately struggling Cookie who is being dragged down into the toilet.
Whether the killings are an illusion, a real event, a hallucination caused or not by drugs, is something left for the audience to say. This is still another of those movies showing fun-seeking youngsters ending up in bloody or mysterious deaths. Although there are no excessive violence or sexual scenes, Dead People 2 is nonetheless not for children or even preteens. Parents should caution their children, however, to spend their movie money wisely; they should rather invest in films they can learn something good from, and not just in thrills-for-kicks movies that offer them no profitable lessons in life.
.
(Date Reviewed: 09 March 2007)
|
