The Rizen: Possession

How best to describe this film? How about confusing? Although most of it consists of two distinct groups of people walking around in the dark getting picked off by zombie-like creatures, there have been similar films that score well, but this one fails at every level. Is it science fiction or occult? A bit of both, apparently, and with more background it might have warranted damning with faint praise. Sadly, there is more background. Although it isn't entirely clear from the dialogue, this is actually a sequel. The first film is even worse.

This is a sequel - there is another Rizen this follows up on - so no pun intended. You do not really have to see the previous movie, but if you do, you will see the connection(s) ... no pun intended here either. The movie looks a lot better than the other movie. The acting is also way better overall. Script seems to be tighter too.

What is missing (if you want to call it that), is the silly humor the first movie had. The action steps it up though - and we have two stories interconnected. If you have a heart for low budget Science Fiction Horror movies - you could do far worse than this. I dug it and have to admit, with the limited budget and the location restrictions ... this is quite well done.

This movie was packed with action & lots of scares, both psychological & jump scares. I would have loved to give this movie a 10/10, but while it is an incredibly engaging film, at the end you just say "WTF"? There is no story coherence and the payoff seemed to be the ending from another movie that got mistakenly spliced into this one! When I saw the opening credits it listed Ade Edmondson, who I loved as Vivian from The Young Ones. I looked for him the entire movie and never saw him. Then upon doing an image search, I realized the both Ade, and I, have gotten really old and look nothing like our younger selves!

Technically better than the first. Though can't be watched as a stand alone. Watch The Rizen from 2017 and then watch this one. Better than your average Indie Horror. Especially when it comes to writing and acting.

Technically the movie is good. Meaning the acting, effects, sound, etc. The story on the other hand is just an incoherent confusing mess. They tried to do too much with too little time. I got the gist of the overall story and what the event was but the stuff in between was ?????