Fist Of The North Star: Ken’s Rage 2 X360 [REVIEW] | You Should Have Left The Bronx

The first Ken’s Rage sold relatively well, and it’s Koei, so we got a sequel 3 years later.

Which would be fine, until you realize what it actually implies in this case, and i don’t mean it simply being released to coincide with the series 30^th anniversary.

That is something else entirely that ultimately condemns Ken’s Rage 2, but the main issue is that you just can’t do what Dynasty Warriors does with Romance Of The Three Kingdoms, as the source material for that leaves it open to the real historical characters being reinvented or changed, on what of the many events (historical or pure fiction like the many uses of magic) focus more the narrative, while keeping focus on the essential battles and significant achievements of the warring factions, and their part in the path to the unification of China after the fall of the Han dynasty.

You can’t just re-imagine Kenshiro, his friends and foes, as they have all distinct personalities, distinct character designs, signature moves and Fist Of The North Star’s popularity never really waned in 30 and plus years, so people still are quite well aware of it. On the other hand, you could hardly justify making a sequel when the first game stopped at the end of the Raoh’s story arc.

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Alligator II – The Mutation (1991) [REVIEW] | Back To The Sewers

Another chapter in the accidental saga of Jaws rip-offs and their often interesting tales of genre producers basically kicking a young James Cameron out of the director’s chair, of people making movies about barracudas that actually just used them to trojan horse a completely different thriller plot, of alligators becoming giant in Chicago’s sewer system due to pharmaceutical experiments on dogs, and producers pestering poor Joe Dante into directing rip-offs of his own movies…

Once again we wander in the territory of “we wanna make another one and trick people into thinking it’s a sequel by slapping a number 2 and a subtitle on the title”, but i struggle to even justify this one’s existence. Sure, the first one ended with another baby gator being flushed down the same sewer, but usually you’d want to cash-in into a movie like this right away…. not 11 years later.

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Python II/Pythons 2 (2002) [REVIEW] | The Russian Connection

The snake factory always has more, because it’s easy as always to slap some roman numerals over a snake image and call a movie a sequel to another movie about killer giant snakes, regardless of continuity.

Yeah, another un, tied to the 2000’s Python more by some cast members than anything else, and by that i actually mean William Zabka is here playing one of the lead characters, and it’s still produced by Python Productions and Unified Film Organization.

Clearly it made more sense to use the name “Python” once more, since New Alcatraz bombed very bad, not that it was great, but the fact they didn’t simply title it after the main killer snake probably didn’t help at all.

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Komodo VS Cobra (2005) [REVIEW] | Reptiliarium Rejects

**A nice, grating red for the retinas.**

I wasn’t really go do a review for this one so soon, i had saved in my Amazon Prime Video list for when i would have been bored enough, or needed to do it for a special, but i noticed the “this title won’t be available after the 5^th of December 2020”, so once again i felt coerced to watch and review before its gone or back as a paid rental or tied to another paid subscription within the subscription i’m already paying for.

Heck, i didn’t even knew it was a sequel to The Curse Of The Komodo (which i happen to own, having picked up an ultra cheap DVD copy for it in a flea market some time ago), released just one year prior by the same director… “Jay Andrews”, at least according to the credits.

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Knack II [PS4] [REVIEW] | Knack Me Twice

Developed By: Japan Studio

Players: 1-2

The very existence of this game is big “?”, not only because it came out 4 years after the first Knack, bamboozling the gaming community at large, given how widely hated and reviled the first game and its titular protagonist were. Again, it’s worth remembering that the fist Knack was both a critical and a financial failure, and didn’t do worse in revenue because it was a launch title, so there wasn’t much else to play at the time on the newborne console.

In a way, i can understand why someone at Sony did ultimately greenlit this, as an underdog story for this pitiable franchise (and main characters) would have been nice, and proof you can turn thing around with a sequel; it has been done before, after all, so why can’t Knack be redeemed of his sins?

There are many reasons for that, but let’s start from the beginning, meaning the story.

(review based on a playthrough on Normal, for review purposes)

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[EXPRESSO] Brahms – The Boy II (2020) | Doll Droppings

I saw The Boy in theathers back then, quite liked it, i knew they made a sequel, by the same director, William Brent Bell, and writer, Stacey Menear, but i kinda forgot about it, until i noticed it’s available as an Amazon Prime Video exclusive, I was.. perplexed by just reading the gist.

The plot follows a young boy, Jude, and his parents, moving into a mansion in the woods to heal, as he and the mother were traumatized by a home invasion incident, and Jude finds a life-sized doll he dubs “Brahms” and becomes creepily attached to.

You could make a sequel to The Boy work, but this movie is a complete cop-out, as it systematically makes sure this is taking place in the same location, set after the events of the first movie… but also wants to be your typical “possessed/evil killer doll” movie, the complete anthesis of The Boy, and make sure you can’t deny or doubt of the doll actually being alive, giving it a backstory that – conveniently – didn’t factor in one iota in the first one.

Even worse, it’s also utter crap in itself, with some of stupidest (and bloodless) “kills” you will ever see in a movie that takes itself so serious, and disappointing, frustrating and stupid “anti-twists”. There’s no intrigue, no mistery, no atmosphere, nothing to it, the good production values and decent acting plain wasted on such dreck. Of course the ending is also a complete cop-out. Of course.

Among stand-alone horror sequels that are way better than the first one, The Boy II is the rare shitty sequel that not only it’s completely unnecessary, misses the point of the previous one, but it’s so garbage it almost retroactively taints the original one, destroying any goodwill gained with it.

Ghostbusters PS4 [REVIEW] | Bustin’ One Out

Quietly put out as a sequel to the 2016 Ghostbusters movie (the mediocre one people went on harassment campaigns for), this is a budget release through and through, but it’s Activision publishing it, so of course they sold for 60 bucks as its MRSP. Must squeeze all the money out of this licensed cash grab shit-turnip as we can before people notice or stop caring about Ghostbusters.

Or until we release a remaster of the WAAY better (flawed, but still WAY better) Ghostbusters game on PS3/X360/PC. Which just happens to be free on the Epic Store, i didn’t even plan this, but at the time of posting, it’s still given away for free on that platform/store, so i’d recommend nabbing it.

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Zoombies 2 (2019) [REVIEW] | Aardvark Undead Attack

Apparently the first one did alright from a financial standpoint, so 3 years later, we got a sequel, also directed by Glenn Miller.

And by sequel The Asylum means adding a number to the title, because despite the first one doing sequel bait at the very last second, this doesn’t follow up on the adventures of Kifo, undead silverback gorilla with a broken heart and rotting flesh, no. Guess trying to give the zombie gorilla a Frankenstein’s monster style “vengeance arc” was too much effort, so they didn’t do that.

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