Somewhere in the skeleton of this film is a great horror movie. You have the nostalgia factor and I love that Jennifer Love Hewitt had a line to say nostalgia is overrated and it’s so ironic because not even nostalgia could carry this movie to an above average rating in my opinion. The likes of Freddie Prinze Jr., Tyriq Whithers and Jonah Hauer-King kept enough of my attention to follow along, and this does feel like an old school 2000s slasher which can’t be appreciated, but that’s about all it has going for it along with a semi-decent executed twist in the third act.
The writing, my god the writing, was just atrocious. Nothing was worded in a way that you’d expect for normal human conversations and the humor was an absolute airball in every facet. They tried to make Madelyn Cline the funny ditsy blonde, and she was just a dumb blonde that they tried to put some humor through and it was just not even close to generating laughs from myself or the theatre crowd. It was roll your eyes bad just in utter shock someone wrote this as actual words they thought someone would say.
The violence was good at least, propped up dead bodies always gets a pop from me. Especially the Judah one after we thought him and the flock were behind the killings in the church scene, leading off the twist that I did enjoy at least as the film did keep me guessing on who the killer was. Stevie felt suspicious but never thought they’d bring Ray (Freddie) into it after him being one of the main protagonists from the original film. It was a pleasant reasoning that he wanted to help Stevie get revenge while also getting revenge on the town for trying to forget everything he went through, it was one of the more sound reasonings a killer could have and I appreciated that. Also, thank goodness they had Jennifer Love Hewitt say “What are you waiting for” again because it was cheesy back in 1997, cheesy now in 2025 but by God am I a sucker for that moment and lien. Nice touch using the speargun also to kill him which was the weapon of the first kill in the film and a very underrated murder weapon in my opinion.
Giving this a right down the middle 5/10 rating.
The Cinema Speakeasy Theatre Room 
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