Obviously not learning his lesson from "The Gate", the young man from the first movie again opens a gateway to another dimension. This time he uses the power to get wishes, but the demons don't give you wishes for free, you know? (Obviously, he hadn't seen "Filthy McNasty" at this point.) While I would have liked to see Stephen Dorff return for this sequel (his absence is poorly explained), at least we are treated to Louis Tripp, who is just as geeky as ever (though no longer sporting the Angry Dwarfs jacket or rocking out to Sacrifyx). As I say in my introduction, he thinks that opening a gateway is a good idea... and brings along three people for the ride. A hot chick by early 1990s standards (Pamela Adlon) and two greasers.
Some aspects of this film were really fun and I enjoyed it a lot. The demon (or "minion" to use their term) getting high and causing a serious car incident was nice, and the idea of wishes turning to feces gives a whole new twist to the idea of "wishes in one hand, poo in the other". I really liked the visual of a minion in the jar -- where can I get a pickled minion? And if the stop-motion technology is this advanced in 1992, where was it for "Basket Case"? (Granted, that was much earlier, but how hard could it be?)
What I didn't like about the movie was how forced it seemed, how dull most of it was, and the fact that a fair amount of the plot just doesn't make any sense. Tripp knows how to conjure demons and how to send them back, but waits for the right climactic moment to do so instead of finishing the job right away (not unlike how James Bond's villains don't shoot him when they have the chance). For example, he creates a box that has to be thrown into a pit (like the ring that must be thrown into Mount Doom) but just waits until after his girlfriend is almost sacrificed to Satan. Why? The end is also really cheesy (but I won't say what it is, you'll have to rent this one from Netflix).
Despite my feeling this is a shadow of the original, it was still entertaining and I would have gladly welcomed a third film. There's a certain mythology about this series that I enjoyed, and I would rather sit through something like this than a film of a similar idea that just has no sense of itself. While this movie is not a comedy, clearly the crew wanted to have fun and it shows.
If you really liked the original, this is worth a view. Unlike other sequels, this has the same director and star, so the continuity is very decent (how many sequels spin off from the original intent -- "Leprechaun" comes to mind). If you thought the first one was "just alright", I'm willing to bet this will greatly disappoint you. But hey, a bad 1980s or early 1990s film is still better than the average film today, in my opinion.
