- Directed by Leigh Janiak
- Written by Zak Olkewicz, Leigh Janiak, Phil Graziadei
- Stars Sadie Sink, Emily Rudd, Ryan Simpkins
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 49 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR2KSY1fipo
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This one has some of the present day from the first movie, but a large chunk of it flashes back to a prequel of things that took place in 1978. It’s a slasher at a summer camp kind of story. It takes a little while to get to the good stuff, but it gets going nicely. We thought it was more entertaining than the first one.
Spoilery Synopsis
We get a quick recap of the first film. We then get a news report about the carnage at the mall, hospital, and grocery store. Simon and Kate are getting the blame for all that.
We cut to C. Berman, who’s clearly very paranoid. She’s got the note the sheriff left her about it happening again. She catches Deena and Josh coming through her kitchen window. They want Berman’s help, and they’ve brought Sam to her. Berman doesn’t want them there, but eventually relents and lets them all in. She tells them the story of the summer of 1978 at the Nightwing Camp in Shadyside. Credits roll.
It’s the 70s, and a bunch of mean girls tie up Ziggy Berman and torment her. They rope her to the same tree that Sarah Fier was hanged on back in 1666. Sheila grabs a lighter and burns Ziggy on the arm, at least until Nick intervenes. Kurt is the counselor there, and he doesn’t like Ziggy much. We get a camping montage, including all the ’70s camp sexy stuff. We meet the various employees of the camp, including young Cindy Berman.
Ziggy goes to the nurse’s office and finds a book of witchcraft stuff on Nurse Lane’s desk. Nurse Lane is Ruby Lane’s mother, the girl who went crazy and killed eight people.
Cindy yells at Ziggy, her sister, about not getting kicked out of the camp. Cindy complained to Tommy about it later. Nurse Lane comes in and tells Tommy that he’s going to die tonight. She attacks him, and they’re both injured– she gets wheeled away in an ambulance. At lunchtime, Ruby Lane, Nurse Lane, and the witch are the subject of all conversations.
There’s some more Sunnyvale versus Shadyside nonsense. Everyone thinks Shadyside is cursed as the teams play capture the flag. Cindy and Tommy check out the nurse’s office and find the witchcraft book. Alice and Arnie are there as well to steal drugs. They find a map in the book to the witch’s house, and Alice wants to check it out.
Ziggy and Nick talk about Stephen King books as she mixes blood-colored paint. She knows he’s going to grow up to be the Chief of Police someday, as he’s all straight and uptight, but she’s not. He’s from Sunnyvale, and she’s from Shadyside, so that’s not gonna work.
Cindy, Tommy, Alice, and Arnie find an old cemetery, where Nurse Lane had been digging up bodies. There’s a whole cellar under one of the graves, lit candles and all. They find Tommy’s name etched in stone under all the other possessed people. Right then, Tommy grabs an axe and kills Arnie before walking back to camp.
Ziggy and Nick pull a prank on Sheila, dousing her with bugs. Meanwhile, Cindy and Alice argue in the underground tunnel they’re trapped in. They soon find a big lump of flesh that beats like a heart; it’s covered in flies. Alice gets a vision of the witch and freaks out.
Meanwhile, Tommy gets back to camp and kills a kid. Nick rings the alarm bell and calls everyone together in the cafeteria. Nick and Gary go out to find Cindy’s group, but Nick insists that Ziggy wait with the others. Ziggy remembers Sheila, locked in the room with the bugs, and runs to let her out.
Tommy kills Kurt’s girlfriend. Cindy and Alice talk about how terrible their lives are. Tommy kills all the kids in the cafeteria.
Ziggy finds Sheila in the restroom and knocks her out. She hears Cindy yelling from the tunnels under the toilet and works to get her out. That goes really badly when Tommy shows up, and Gary gets the axe.
Ziggy explains the whole thing to Nick, who doesn’t believe in the witch. When Tommy shows up with his axe, Nick gets chopped in the leg.
Ziggy gets back to the main campground just in time to watch the bus pull out with the surviving kids and leave. Ziggy throws a burlap sack over Tommy, which is where “The Halloween Killer” of the first film came from. Ziggy and Cindy double-team him with knives but don’t finish him off.
Cindy and Ziggy make up for all their arguing. Alice shows up and says she’s found the witch’s hand, which is behind all this. Sarah Fier’s hand is the key to stopping the curse. “The curse will last until body and hand unite,” says Nurse Lane’s book.
Suddenly, Ziggy bleeds on his hand and gets a vision. Meanwhile, that big pulsing glob in the tunnels forms into a human shape. Upstairs, dead Tommy gets back up. Alice gives a rousing speech just before Tommy cuts her head off. They kill him again, but then they hear Ruby singing, a killer we haven’t really seen yet in this film.
The two sisters run out to the hanging tree and start burying the hand as the killers start closing in. There’s no body where they expect it to be. They dig up a stone that says, “The witch forever lives.” Tommy kills Cindy while another killer stabs Ziggy a dozen times.
Everyone dies.
Back in the present, C. Berman talks about how Nick showed up with the two sisters’ dead bodies and revived Ziggy with CPR. Turns out, the survivor is Ziggy, not Cindy. Nick told the EMTs that she was Cindy– for reasons. No one, not even Nick, believes the story about the witch.
Adult Ziggy tells Deena and Josh that there’s no way to end the curse. Deena knows where Sarah’s body is, and Ziggy knows where the hand is… They go and dig the hand back up, and Ziggy calls Sheriff Nick.
Deena takes the hand to the woods where they found the body in the previous film. She gets a flashback to her as Sarah Fier…
Brian’s Commentary
It’s a slasher-at-camp movie, but set in the background framework laid down in the first film. This doesn’t rely on the teenage bullshit like the first one did, it gets right down to business with bloody, gory killings. Unlike most Friday the 13th films, this one kills kids, so that’s fun.
It does take a long time to get moving, but it does get there eventually. I was definitely more entertained with this than the first one, although getting the lore of the witch in dribs and drabs is way too slow.
It was better than the first one.
Kevin’s Commentary
We should all be glad this wasn’t in smell-o-vision with all the time spent in the cave under the outhouse. I wouldn’t call it great, but it was more entertaining than the first one. It seemed a little too long at times, I felt like it could have been tightened up a little here and there. We get more of the overarching story in addition to it being a self contained movie of its own. If you liked the first one, you should continue with this.
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