Hong yi xiao nu hai 2

Oct 17

A-Z Horror Movie of the Day..."The Haunted 2" (aka The Tag Along 2 - NR - 2017 - Taiwan)...Still had good creeps!

Sub-Genre: Paranormal/Ghost My Score: 6.0

Cast=4 Acting=7 Plot=6 Ending=6 Story=5 Scare=5 Jump=6 F/X=7 Creep=9 Twist=5

When a teenage daughter disappears, she is told that her daughter was last seen with the spirit of a girl in red. Peril ensues as she tries to unravel the mystery and save her daughter before it's too late.

"The five thunder spell will protect you from evil spirits." The what now? Well I still can't say much about the story...it was even more disjointed than the first. The creeps were still solid, though. It was starting to remind me of those fantasy style Kung-Fu movies...only there was no fighting. I can only recommend it as a follow up to the first...I had both on one DVD so it was easy.

Trying to find her missing daughter, a woman joins a rescue team when she's spotted being lead away by a mysterious figure in red heading into the local woods to find her and discovers a strange connection to a local legend involving the deadly figure forcing her to protect her daughter.

For the most part, this was a decent enough if still highly flawed sequel. One of the most enjoyable aspects of the film is the localized build-up of the central storyline involving the mysterious girl ghost. With the stories they tell featuring the girl leading people away through hypnotism and other mind tricks, the need for the red cloak at all times and the general behavior she exhibits when capturing them allows for the spirit here to have a great central feeling and helps to build a wholly chilling central character in the process. As well, the ghostly action here is quite fun and manages to get some startling encounters. The opening encounter in the woods gets this off to a great start and a surprisingly shocking sequence at the home of a fellow mystic that may hold the keys to solving the mystery she faces has some great work here featuring the ghost emerging from odd places to attack and generates some tense moments. There's also the rather fun scenes of the demon child running loose in the woods which invokes some rather creepy imagery of the supernatural beings performing their unearthly tricks. Seeing them turn into the demonic creatures and begin chasing them through the alternate dimensions battling the spirits of the unborn children. These here are what manage to hold this one up overall. However, there are several problems with the film. The main issue at hand here is the wholly disjointed and chaotic storyline that makes little to no sense at all. The idea of exploring the legend of the ghost girl in red is to have an idea of the motivations and practice that goes into what they're targeting and who's at risk, yet this one seems to ramble on more about the history of the locals' interactions with her rather than give out any kind of concrete example of what the ghost is accomplishing or after. Likewise, the idea of dragging the survivor from the first film into this unrelated film serves no use when she doesn't do anything in a catatonic state for the majority of the film and doesn't even serve the function of filling in the backstory work that she did in that one which would've been the perfect opportunity to have her there. The film's other big problem is a wholly overlong running time that doesn't do this one any favors. There are so many beats in here that aren't necessary at all, from a confusing side story involving a local tracker that acts like a tiger crawling on all fours or a series of encounters she has with the mystic woman who has her own tragic backstory that ties into what's going on. These segments are simply excessive and force the film to run on far longer than it really should giving us storyline points that aren't related to the film at all and causes the film to run through its ghosts scenes in truly perfunctory and expected manners to make up for the time lost to these situations. These are what really harm the film overall.

Rated Unrated/R: Violence and Language.

This is ok if you can get past the absurd tigar possession, and the fact the mom doesn't even mention the pregnancy to the boy that is responsible. I enjoyed the first Tagalong, but as usual the sequel was ridiculous. It also spoils part one's happier ending. I wouldn't recommend this one to anyone. However, the actors did a decent job, as usual for Korean movies. Maybe some people will enjoy this movie , it just wasn't for me. Usually I can't find anything critical to say about Korean movies, but this one just got lost in the moment. It's just my opinion, so maybe it appeals to a younger crowd, and it's me missing something idk.

The Haunted 2, also known as The Tag-Along 2, is the sequel to the successful Taiwanese horror movie released two years before this film. This movie revolves around the complicated relationship of a busy, nervous and severe single mother and social worker with her stubborn, proud and pregnant teenage daughter who mysteriously disappears in the mountains. Along with the father of the unborn child, a mother with a sinister past who overprotects her daughter and the young woman who survived the terrifying events in the first film, the desperate mother tries to save her daughter by confronting the vengeful ghost of a deceased little girl.

This movie is a decent sequel. It gives us some interesting background information about the vengeful spirit and also provides information what happened to the characters of the first movie. The new characters are fairly unique and viewers will care about their fates. The movie has a sinister vibe from start to finish. The locations consisting of abandoned amusement parks, creepy hospitals and foggy forests in the mountains are very efficient. The film has a few scary scenes but also convincingly ventures into the drama genre.

However, this film can't keep up with the very good predecessor. The film has a few lengths in the middle section. The special effects are more used than in the first movie which wasn't a great choice since they look cheaply made. The weirdest thing is however the teenage daughter's boyfriend who is at times the host of a mysterious god known as the Master Tiger. When possessed, this unusual characters is shown wandering, sniffing and roaring around like an animal. Those scenes may be connected to Taiwanese culture but they look unintentionally humorous or even ridiculous.

If you have watched and liked the predecessor, you may as well give this film a try. It's less intense at times and includes a few awkward ideas but it's still very atmospheric and highly entertaining. It's not a great but still a good horror movie that can be recommended to genre fans around the world.

Tag-Along 2 continues the story of the first movie: after events of the first movie world acknowledged that on the mountain there is the spirit of a child girl. This movie will follow how this spirit has been originated. Not big changes were made: the child will hunt down always people with remorse, but this time the focus is on women that had undesired pregnancies that became almost aborts. I don't know why, but it seems that writers are obsessed with aborts. I mean, they should have come up with something different this time, instead they basically recycled ideas.

Compared to the previous movies, that at least did not use so much the jump scare technique, this time the director decided to go full blast and he used way much more. I hate jump scares. There was a small improvement on CGI, but it is still very bad and 3D model movements are visibly fake.