Film Review: House of Whores 2: The Second Cumming (2016)

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SYNOPSIS:

What do you get when you cross a sexually depraved Preacher with 2 coke snorting nymphomaniacs? Well, you get a visit from Slasho, Shago and Smasho, that’s what you get! That’s right, the Clowns are back in an all new adventure

REVIEW:

There’s one thing that most every slasher movie needs more than almost anything else, even more than creative kills or gratuitous T&A or blood-drenched teenagers. This need is nearly universal, whether we’re talking about Jason Voorhees or Freddie Krueger, Angela Baker or Victor Crowley or Peter Mountain and Crusty. What is it that nearly every slasher movie needs? A sequel! A standard 90-minute movie does not give enough time for all the blood and death and naked bits needed to satisfy the average iconic horror movie villain (or the average horror movie fan), and so we get Michael Myers returning yet again, Jason going to Manhattan, long-lost siblings, spurned lovers, and inspired sociopaths picking up the gauntlet where the previous masked murderer left it. The HM&M Films crew know what’s up, and so they brought back Slasho, Smasho, and Shago for even more depravity in House of Whores 2: The Second Cumming.

Written and directed by Tom Komisar and Daniel Murphy, co-owners of HM&M Films and creators of the House of Whores franchise (as well as the actors who play Slasho and Shago, respectively), this sequel picks up pretty much where the first film left off. Rachel (Lindsey McIntire), the final remaining survivor from part one, is strapped down to a hospital bed while Nurse Hatchet (aka Bloody Mary, aka Mixtress Demonatrix, aka Marilyn Madcox) and newcomers Naughty Nina (Vergena Fields; Deadnecks: The Awakening, The Broken Road) and the Leatherface-like Sluggo (A.C. McCray; Night of the Dolls, Time to Kill) transform her into Skanko, a blow-up doll-looking cyborg-clown that can shoot laser beams. Already this one has your undivided attention, and the killer clowns have not even killed anyone yet. This time around, after taking out a couple random victims first, they decide to go after a dirty, hypocritical preacher (is there any other kind?) known as “Daddy” (played by Craig Lemons; Fang, Blood Red Beauty), breaking into his home and terrorizing him and his young “playthings,” Mandy (Montana Skylar) and Candy (Cheyenne Summer McIntire).

It’d be tough to say that this sequel has more of a story to it than the first movie, but it is more developed this time around, as might be expected, with more details and bloody treats thrown in throughout the 60 or so minute runtime. We open not only with a Nurse Hatchet content warning (one that is far more explicit than that of the first movie), but also a commercial for the Teens With Abusive Tendencies Foundation (aka T.W.A.T.) telethon, where we first meet the preacher and his scantily-dressed arm candy. The clowns go on to attack a family birthday party (this scene has the feel of James Cullen Bressack’s Hate Crime, but on a much smaller scale), then a woman pushing her baby in a stroller, both in typical splat-stick style, where the only rule is the more depravity the better. There is also a very Video Violence 2 moment, where the clowns are acting as hosts of the House of Whores TV show, taking audience requests as they humiliate and torture a woman (adult film actress Riley Grey). Around the 40-minute mark of the film, the clowns finally break in to the preacher’s place, providing more sexualized violence, gratuitous gore, and another new character, Swallo (Frankie Vee), who brings a weapon that is honestly better seen than described.

House of Whores 2: The Second Cumming, nominated for the 2016 Horror Society Award for Best Indie Horror Film, is a step up from the original House of Whores. The gore effects are pretty great for the most part, thanks primarily to Harry McCane (see his work in Night of the Dolls, Don’t F*ck in the Woods, and Blood Moon River, among others), as well as a bit extra by Nurse Hatchet and Patrick Madcox in the Nurse Hatchet intro and intermission (which also runs through the closing credits). Just as the blood and guts are stepped up, so is the sexy side of things: not only are the Nurse Hatchet segments much more explicit than before, but there’s lots more nakedness of all kinds as well. Murphy and Komisar again employ the silent film style for a short scene, and the cartoony sound effects, canned laughter, and exaggerated farts are still as prominent as ever. Basically, this is House of Whores expanded and turned up a couple notches – not quite up to 11, but close.

If you hated House of Whores for its over-indulgences or extreme, gratuitous sex and violence, you’ll probably hate this one even more. However, if you wanted House of Whores to deliver a bit more meat to the stew, House of Whores 2 is a movie you may want to give a chance. And, of course, if you loved part one, you’ll no doubt double-love part two. This is over the top filmmaking at its finest, where every character eats up the scenery, every action is more extreme than the one before, and just when you thought you’d seen it all, it gets crazier – the unofficial definition of an exploitation film. It’s not perfect, and it’s not P.C. by any means, but it’s unapologetically an example of what HM&M Films is delivering on a regular basis.