PLOT: A follow-up to the 2016 original film, Terrortory 2 takes us back to the haunted Maryland woods for four additional stories.
Back in 2016, I reviewed the original film, Terrortory, and I was a bit critical of it, especially towards certain technical aspects. There was promise in the film, though, so when I saw the filmmakers had made a follow-up, I was intrigued to see if they had improved. While there are some things that I would still be critical of, I think the sequel is a step forward, and I wound up enjoying this one more than the first.
Much like the original, this film is an anthology, centering around stories that take place in a haunted part of the Maryland woods commonly referred to as “The Terrortory”. The wraparound story involves an older hiker that is mapping the Terrortory and a younger man out searching for the Midnight Clown. Along the way, the mapper tells the stories that haunt the Terrortory: stories about a wishing fountain that offers more than bargained for, the return of Smiling Jack, the killer with a jack-o-lantern head, and more.
One of my biggest critiques of the first one was issues I had with the audio. Certain scenes had muddy audio and the dialogue just wouldn’t come in clearly. Unfortunately, this problem still persists at times during the second one. The audio in the wraparound, for the most part, is pretty clear, but there are a couple stories that it’s hard to hear the characters clearly, and it takes me out a bit. Another problem I had with the first was the picture quality, whether it was due to compression issues from Amazon or otherwise. Here, the picture looks pretty good. The colors can be a bit muddy in some lower light scenes, but I noticed a vast improvement over the first one.
Technical aspects aside, I think the storytelling is better in this one. I like the fact that the wraparound story relates directly to the Terrortory and it winds up linking into the other stories. I could’ve used a little bit more of the Midnight Clown, which I thought was the strongest storyline of the first film, but I thought overall, the stories in this one were all pretty solid. I appreciate that these movies work together to create their own mythology of this location. It’s a nice follow-up film for an indie horror film.
The most impressive scene is a crazy birthing scene, featuring a full grown, naked woman being… birthed, I suppose, in the first story. Otherwise there’s some gore, but nothing that actually compares to that scene.
Gore Rating: 2 out of 5
There’s nothing too frightening in this film. There’s some cool moments here; I especially liked the one that brings everything together towards the end (don’t want to spoil too much). But I wouldn’t say I was particularly scared.
Scare Rating: 1 out of 5
Slight nudity in this one. The woman that gets birthed in the first story is pretty naked, but it’s dark and she’s covered in… stuff.
Sex/Nudity Rating: 2 out of 5
OVERALL
Like the first one, tempering expectations just a bit, I enjoyed this movie for what it is. Leaps and bounds worth of improvements over the first one, both in technical aspects and storytelling. Like any anthology, some stories work better than others, but I didn’t really feel like one was particularly worse than any others.
The Main Damie 