8MM 2: Perversions fatales

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

David (Johnathon Schaech) and Tish (Lori Heuring) are a couple in Budapest, on business commitments and staying at a luxury hotel. One night, they meet an attractive woman at a nightclub and invite her back to their place, where they end up in a threesome. All is well, until David receives some negatives in the mail and he and Tish end up being blackmailed. But when some people involved in the deception are found murdered, things get messy and they are forced to enter the seedy underground world of pornography and hardcore bondage to track down the woman who may hold the key to everything.

Whereas the original film dealt with the concept of snuff films, this straight to DVD sequel deals with the more wholesome (!!!) theme of threesomes and sleazy sex. It plays like a porn film, a cheap piece of titillation with plenty of hot T/A action going on. If this sounds like your idea of a good film, you'll probably like it, but you'd probably be more at home in a porn shop than a video store.

This tries to copy the original film's dark and voyeuristic feel, but while it does a pretty good job of this, it still can't hold up to that of the original's. It has an apathetic story, with a dodgy narrative flow. And compared to Cage, Schaech comes across as interminably wooden.

Better than I thought it'd be, I suppose, and better than your average one of these DVD direct sequels that seem to be coming out a lot these days, but really, haven't we seen enough? **

I adored 8MM (1999) it's one of those few movies I've ever given a 10/10, incredible stuff. That's one of the reasons I held off watching this, I mean seriously how could that film have a sequel?

Well it for the most part doesn't. This is one of those mindless cashgrabs like the two Cruel Intentions sequels or the three Wild Things sequels. All of those however had some form of connection to the original movie (If only by theme), this doesn't.

It tells the story of a wealthy couple who find themselves blackmailed over a sex tape. A bit of a cat and mouse who-dunnit begins and it's about as exciting as an underwhelming fart.

Why did someone think it was a good idea to call this 8MM 2? It has nothing to do with the first movie, they don't even follow the same themes. This is just a braindead lifeless uninspired thriller that quite frankly bored me.

The only similarity is the seedy underground angle, 8MM did it subtly whereas this mind numbing "Sequel" shoves boobs in your face and calls itself art.

The film does have a few notable cast members, but if you're here to see Julie "Darla" Benz, Zita "Underworld" Görög or film and television veteran Bruce Davison then simply don't bother as they're barely on screen.

This movie simply shouldn't exist, it's offensive to the original and contributes nothing to it's legacy or cinema as a whole.

The Good:

No, nope, nopers

The Bad:

Shouldn't exist

Has nothing to do with the first movie or even 8mm film

Wasted cast

An all round mess

After seeing the movie in a class of mine and having a talk with the filmmaker, I found out exactly why the film bombed the way it did. The creators of the movie had no intention to call the film "8MM 2." Originally, the film was called "The Velvet Side of Hell" but was changed at the last minute by Sony Pictures to 8MM 2 without letting the filmmakers have any say in the matter. By doing that, it screwed them out of theatrical releases and doomed it to a straight to video release with minimal advertising.

Again, this is from the filmmaker's mouths, not mine, so I really can't say what is truth, and what is hype.

If you look at the film as "Velvet Side of Hell," it isn't THAT bad. It isn't great, but it is not god awful. It would basically just be a B-movie that likes to show boobs. But as a sequel to "8MM," the film fails terribly.

Why was this film made? What were the creators of this thinking?!?! The first 8MM film at least had a plot that made sense and was potentially interesting. The first film was about the snuff film industry. This sequel is about... hold on... the porno industry!! Yes, as if the snuff film industry, an industry in which people are supposedly killed on film for entertainment, were at all in the same league with the adult film industry, an industry in which people film other people engaging in unstimulated sex acts and situations for eroticism. The idea alone should warn you about how poorly conceived the idea for this film alone is. It isn't helped by a lack of plot, character, acting, direction, script, logic, theme, or even sound design. This is a remarkably boring film that never once held my attention. Literally nothing works. Why would a mystery thriller film about the porno industry involving assassination and betrayal work anyway? I don't have much of an interest in adult films, but I certainly have watched them before. Why would somebody make a film about the evils of it and that they would make it in a sequel to a film about snuff movies? I don't even know if there is an industry involved in snuff film making, but I hope it doesn't. The idea of a snuff film alone is horrific and only people who are truly sick and bad would be a part of it. I don't think that the adult film industry revolves around murder and torture. I'm pretty sure that a lot of people make pornographic films for good intentions rather than to hurt and kill people. It is never okay to hurt another human being. The adult film industry isn't about hurting people. It's about creating films that are, to me, a diversion and a waste of time. What is this film trying to say? It doesn't work.

This is a beautifully filmed suspense drama showcasing some of the splendid scenery of Budapest. However, it's also a barely credible tale of a rich and over-educated couple who live in Hungary and are in the midst of planning their high society wedding. When the couple is blackmailed as a result of engaging in the three-way tryst, the full degree of their ineptitude becomes the focus of the story.

And that's where the film's credibility becomes strained-no one is that criminally stupid! Not even if you have a wealthy dad who's also the American ambassador, and who has "bailed you out of trouble" your whole life, as is the case with the female lead. It's challenging to think that a diplomatic lawyer and his oh-so-gracious bride to be lack the basic street smarts needed to extricate themselves from the unknown blackmailer's scheme. What they actually do is jump through all the hoops demanded of them. At every juncture of the film, the pair "strategizes" on how to turn the tables on the unknown blackmailer; and with each ill-conceived strategy, they only succeed in getting deeper and deeper into despair.

Toward the last part of this annoyingly naive cat-and-mouse plot, the husband is taken hostage when he finally agrees to pay the blackmailer. By that point, most viewers will probably have guessed what the answer to the mystery is.

The acting by Jonathan Schaech, Bruce Davison, Julie Benz, and others is adequately convincing. And though Lori Heuring's acting is also on point, her character of the witless and superficial girlfriend lacked literary believability. Screenplay writer Robert Sullivan and author Dylan Tarason concocted a worthwhile plot, but unfortunately populated it with simple-minded and un-relatable protagonists.