Villmark 2

Nothing to do with Villmark 1 !! They barely managed to make a small and quite insignificant connection to it, but that's all, just so they can take advantage of the name and get some attention.

If you read the plot, you'll realize you know the movie, you've seen it before, many times and this right here brings nothing new. It's a horror movie in an old building, apparently abandoned but not quite, where people start to get missing or even...dead!

And this is all. From head to toes, nothing more than what so many other similar productions brought on screen so many times before. Can't believe I was excited to see this. Anyway, the movie itself, as a stand alone is still a weak production in my opinion. I will not recommend it.

Cheers!

There is a lot this film has going for it; it looks great, the setting is really creepy and it uses some good techniques to makes some of the situations the characters go through legitimately terrifying.

This is also where it falls down however as while the situations are clever and put you in the place of the character to where you wonder what you would do, you never really care about the characters themselves. We know next to nothing about them and they don't really stand out, so while we can replace ourselves with them in these scary situations, you could also replace them with any other character and it wouldn't make a difference. What's more it never really feels like there is much at stake, also it starts off by being really precise about what the people are there to do and how much time they have to do it in and then most of this is forgotten.

Overall this film could have been really good with a little more depth to the writing and a little more time spent getting to know the characters, but it is still worth a watch for the situations and setting alone.

I was lucky enough to catch an outdoor screening of this in the Norwegian woods. Sadly, despite the name of the movie, it's not really much about the woods this time around.

In this movie a crew of people are doing tests and gathering samples of an old asylum/hospital that is to be torn down. The big building is in the middle of nowhere, as it was built for avoiding the spread of tuberculosis. The janitor who has been in charge of the place is a bit difficult to work with, and therein starts the movie's conflict.

I actually liked the way that it tied into the first Villmark movie. It's only indirectly, but it's enough so that you get a bit extra from this movie if you have seen the first one. On the surface there's the fact that the hospital uses the lake from the first movie as its water supply, and that the janitor in this movie appears also in Villmark. But they also refer a bit to the WW2-history that is mentioned in the first movie.

The make up (or SFX?) in this movie were also quite nice, though I won't go into further details because of spoilers.

Now, did I like this movie? No. It does a lot of things correctly, like the setting and the make up, as mentioned. However, unlike the first movie, you barley get to know any of the characters, so when things start happening, you don't really care. There are some jump scare, but the movie doesn't really manage to build much tension. An emotional bond with the character's would have helped immensely, but the movie's attempt to give you brief glimpses into who these guys are, fails miserably. There's also a lot of poor/strange decisions (like in many horror movies).

I hated the ending of the previous film, but this movie's ending is actually alright.

I gave this film a two, and considering the photography, lighting and set design/location are all pure tens, that speaks volumes for the rest of this film.

The script and editing is on the level of something you'd expect from a kindergarten child, the acting is horrendous most of the time and the entire film is completely disjointed. The plot, where there is one, suffers from lack of logic, and the characters behave in a way no human ever would.

It has everything you'd expect from the worst of Jean Rollin, except the humor and playfulness. It's just not good.

I'd love to edit this film down to about five-six minutes and use that footage for a music video, but the film as it is is just junk.

The music incidentally is distracting as all hell.

FYI if you can't suspend disbelief for an hour or two (as evident in the low ratings), don't bother watching horror movies. This was very well done. The pace is perfect. It keeps you guessing just enough, but not so much that you lose interest 30 minutes in. It's like, Is everyone seeing ghosts? Or going insane? Is it hallucinations? Is that person up to something? I dunno if I trust her. Wtf is that?? Who is that supposed to be! It's good enough I didn't catch myself perusing memes during it. For one, abandoned insane asylum? Yea alright. Two, gorgeous scenes and a beautiful giant building falling apart? Uh, ya. In the absolute middle of nowhere mountain forest with an old bomb siren and creepy caretaker? I'm in. Cliché, maybe. But again, relax and pretend you're in for the ride and not to pick it apart. Maybe it's been done a bunch before, but that's because it works. There are locations, people and situations that are just inherently scary. Look past it and enjoy yourself.