Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!
Plot Summary: Mark and Sarah must travel through time in order to find evidence of the supernatural to clear Sarah of the charge of murdering her father.
Review: This film pretty much mirrors the formula of the first one right down to the ending being the only good part while the rest is boring and stupid. However, this movie is even longer, more torturously boring, scattered funny moments, and the ending is nowhere near as entertaining. The production value is also significantly lower than the previous movie with cheap looking settings and less special effects. The story was already farfetched, but becomes even more ridiculous which takes away a bit of the fun from the first movie. The film picks up immediately where part one ended with the waxwork burning down, the zombie hand escaping, and Mark and Sarah outside. Annoyingly, the actress playing Sarah has been replaced, which I hate, although I can't blame her for not wanting to return. They conveniently get in a taxi that happens to be strolling by a burning house at like two in the morning. The hand tags along and eventually follows Sarah home where it kills her dad followed by her destroying the hand. Sarah is then charged with the murder, but she chooses to idiotically blame the killing on the zombie hand and blabs about the whole waxwork fiasco as if any sane person would believe such a claim! For some inexplicable reason, Mark believes they need to find proof of the supernatural to prove Sarah's innocence so they go to Sir Wilfred's house hoping he has some artifact or whatever. Through the magic of contrivances, Sir Wilfred has left a recording explaining how Mark can travel through time using some compass-esque device all the while there is some lame "Alice in Wonderland" allusion that doesn't quite fit the themes established. Mark and Sarah throw caution to the wind and begin this pointless time traveling journey. As with the first film, they become characters within the timelines they jump into that pays homage to famous horror movies. The difference with this entry is that they retread things already mentioned while not really having a focus as the first did with iconic villains. For example: they deal with Frankenstein again while also going into a wannabe "Alien" universe which would make no sense considering the context. I thought they spent far too much time on certain villains the first time, but this movie spends even more time in each of the universes to the point I kept debating to turn this shit off. I'm not exaggerating how boring it can get watching these cheap ass sets and effects. Well, at least they had sense enough to include Bruce Campbell in a small role! Almost none of the gags are even close to being funny either. At some point Mark and Sarah end up in the worst interpretation of medieval times I could imagine where we learn Mark is destined to be a "time warrior," or some stupid shit like that, chosen by God. Apparently, history was full of these battles and time can still be altered by the forces of evil. Meaning, even though we know evil did not consume the world during medieval times (hah that's debatable), if Mark fails to stop some sorcerer, time could potentially be altered allowing evil to win. Supposedly Mark's grandfather and Sir Wilfred were time warriors and presumably the band of heroes at the end of the first film were as well. The sorcerer plans to turn himself into the King of England or whatever, but Mark manages to unravel his plan which leads to a final battle almost as great as the first film. As Mark and the sorcerer fight, they keep jumping from horror movie to horror movie which is awesome considering they include the likes of "Godzilla," "Dawn of the Dead," and "Nosferatu." Once more, why couldn't this concept be the focus of the film rather than the boring shit we get?! Well, these scenes are fun, but it isn't as extravagant as the first film and nowhere near as creative. Once everything is resolved, there is only enough energy to send Sarah back to the present with yet another zombie hand they managed to get ahold of. Of course this clears Sarah of the murder charges because this is a stupid movie. It then ends with Sarah getting a letter from Mark 800 or so years later giving her the compass device telling her to come back to him. Uh, so what was the point in clearing her name if she's just going to spend time in the past anyway?! God this movie tests my patience. I think the main reason why this film fails is because it was trying to relive the glory of an '80s movie but it was made during the early '90s which is probably the worst era for horror films. Dear lord this movie blows, and I cannot stress enough how boring it is! You'd think they'd improve over the first one but hell no. I usually like cheesy horror movies, but you have to hold my interest. This was not interesting and it reminded me of the thousands of direct to video fuckers that flooded local rental stores in those days. Bad acting, worse effects, bad direction, not funny, and wasted its potential to satirize the many great films it touched on. If you liked the first one, perhaps you will like this, but if you disliked the first one, as I did, you will hate this.
Notable Moment: Once again, at the end when Mark is fighting through different famous movies. This was probably the premise they wrote the second movie's script around!
Final Rating: 3.5/10
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