The Not-So-Terrible Twos (DVD)

When a horror movie is even moderately successful — OK, even when it's a flop — you can bet your bottom dollar there's going to be a follow up that promises "more of the same" but of course with "new twists."

Navigating through a stew of cinematic swill whose pattern of inevitable diminishing returns need more than just a government-sanctioned bailout (House of the Dead 2, Boogeyman 2, The Grudge 2), I usually come into these with my expectations so low as to be six-feet under before I even hit the play button on my remote.

Maybe that's why I'm so pleased to report that I enjoyed these direct-to-disk sequels more than the first ones. This is not to say that they're necessarily better than the originals, but with one's appetite already suppressed it's actually easier to swallow the second bite. …which makes for the perfect shamelessly bad segue to our first flick, Feast 2.

Feast 2: Sloppy Seconds

Just in case you didn't get enough blood, bile, vomit, venom, semen and sloughed skin in the first Feast (2005), Sloppy Seconds piles them on, ladle-like, onto your battered tin plate so high it drips over the sides.

Done much in the same style as its predecessor (freeze-frames, black and white frenzy flashbacks, kooky captions, double-takes, slo-mo, et ce), it helps that many from the original cast and crew return: director John Gulager works well with screenwriting team Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, while joyously flaunting nepotism and favoritism (his wife, brother, nephew and dad star in the film, as do several returnees from Feast). I hasten to add that each and every one of these folks are terrific actors and well-deserving of their second-servings.

I love how almost all the characters who were brutally killed by the ravenous aliens in the first movie spring back to life (and here's the kicker: they're not zombies or alien-clones… they're simply revived, kind of like one of those old Perils Of Pauline serials wherein the hero could not possibly have survived last week's cliffhanger, but there he is next week, miraculously living to fight another day!).

The unrated DVD is absolutely disgusting, gushing every possible bodily fluid you can imagine, and then variations of some you didn't even know — or want to know — existed. Normally I'm not down with the gross-out of scatological humor, but Gulager does it with such joyously over-the-top verve, even I couldn't help but laugh, splat after spurt.

Pulse 2: Afterlife

As the sultan of sequels, writer/director Joel Soisson's work is pretty universally reviled in the horror community; but the dude keeps on getting work, so somebody up there (or down there) must like him. While I'll admit he's no del Toro, there is something about his sense of visual composition, style and mood that I dig. I even liked those two Prophecy sequels he did back to back in 2005, which went direct to disk and were pretty much panned by everyone. I thought his screenplay for Hellraiser: Hellworld (also 2005) was inspired, and given its limitations, it was a good excuse to party with Pinhead again.

The interesting thing about Soisson is that he tends to write a lot of spec scripts which are then mangled to fit into the world of existing franchises… and it shows. I'm almost certain that the screenplay for Pulse 2 was never meant to be a Pulse story per se (then again, Soisson is a credited producer on the first, theatrical movie, so I could be wrong). So, if you're looking for more impossibly good looking 20-something computer geeks running around with red tape, possessed cell phones, and ghosts jumping out of washer/dryer combos, you will be disappointed.

Afterlife follows the horrible haunting of adults, and to be honest there's a lot more emotional brooding than ectoplasmic boo-ing going on here. The story focuses on an estranged husband (Jamie Bamber of "Battlestar Galactica" fame) and wife (Georgina Rylance) who must join forces with his bitchy mistress, played by an often-nude Boti Bliss, in order to find their young daughter (Karley Scott Collins), who's been snatched away into a "dead zone" that's worse that Sprint and AT&T put together.

To be blunt, aside from the cool visuals, Afterlife is deadly-dull. But there are two bright spots that make it worth the price of a rental: Soisson's friend, John Gulager (see Feast 2, above!) has a totally jaw-dropping death scene toward the beginning of the film, and at the very end there is a perfect payoff which will reward you for sitting (or intermittently fast-forwarding) through the whole affair.

Rest Stop 2: Don't Look Back

There's no rest for the wicked, as the beloved "motor home family" and "the driver" are back for more roadside bloodletting in Raw Feed's quickie follow-up to its first quite-popular, made-for-DVD movie.

Moving into second gear, Don't Look Back also uses the road trip formula, this time following the concerned friends and family of Nicole (Jaimie Alexander / Julie Mond) and Jess (Joey Mendicino), who went missing in the first film. At the wheel are shoulda-been GQ model Tom (Richard Tillman), final-girl candidate Marilyn (Jessie Ward) and the goofy best bud, Jared (Graham Norris).

Following the missing's roadmap of mayhem, they of course encounter the same old dead man's curves, but with a new director, the results are actually impressive. (The original's helmer John Shiban took a backseat as just the writer this time, letting Shawn Papazian face the slings and arrows of sequelitis).

Adding genre icon Steve Railsback to the mix was inspired, as is the casting of relative unknown Norris, who makes so much more of his role than what was written. Hopefully, we'll be seeing a lot more of him in the years to come.

The desaturated colors and burnt out highlights bring to mind a Bergman film, while the eye-opening scenes torture and terror are more along the lines of Saw of Hostel. All in all, Don't Look Back is actually worth looking forward to.

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