User Reviews

"Bad Ben" shocked me by how good it was, despite its derpy name and even worse trailer. With only one guy writing, producing, directing, editing, and using his own house as the setting, it was an expert minimalist found footage film that managed to make do with very little while remaining genuinely creepy and unsettling.

The next movie, the prequel, did the exact opposite, looking to ruin every aspect of the original film's mystery and intrigue by pointlessly over-explaining every little detail and filling in with an incoherent, rambling backstory featuring genuinely unlikeable characters and relying on atrocious visual effects as opposed to the very deft minimal effects usage.

This movie serves as a sequel to "Bad Ben" and probably could have/should have been the 2nd movie in the series ahead of that atrocious prequel.

The story here involves a crew of paranormal investigators doing a show based on the "Bad Ben" videos, released in-universe to a "fanbase" of millions. They discover that Tom survived the events of the first movie, and due to him sinking his life savings into the house (as he repeatedly mentions) is now broke and homeless.

The crew convinces him to reluctantly return and be interviewed about his experiences, and folks... it's a mess.

More and more, Nigel Bach's work with "Bad Ben" seems to be revealed as either a fluke or a work of genius that could only sustain itself for one film and is being forcibly dragged out. With regards to the writing/dialogue, Nigel Bach's success with "Bad Ben" was definitely a fluke.

"Bad Ben" had the main character, Tom, as a decent, rather pleasant everyman with an odd charm to him as he set about exploring the house, renovating, and dealing with the events involved, while being rather likeable and relatable at times.

Here, he is none of that. He is understandably upset with the crew for digging him up and bringing him back to the house, but for the entire rest of the film, he is just needlessly obnoxious and a rude asshole to everyone else and everything else. Some of his behavior is tepidly "explained" as being PTSD, despite it not at all being related to PTSD but just him being an asshole.

The crew itself is not as malignantly unlikeable as the young couple in the prequel, but seem to have an odd relationship with each other and an apparent lack of understanding about the world or basic social conventions. At some point they are discussing what to do when Tom gets lost, and one of them, Schmiddy, suggests leaving. Jackie is angered at the thought of abandoning Tom and asks "What is wrong with you?" and Schmiddy hysterically retorts "You know I'm dyslexic!" which not only has nothing at all to do with anything but plays absolutely no role in the film at all despite it being his defining character trait in the IMDB plot summary.

Actually, due in large part to the prequel over-explaining everything, there is little to no creepiness in any of the Ghosty events. Instead, they come across as funny. The wind-like demon growls are treated with tiresome disdain as Tom basically converses with the Demon's growls with snark and sarcasm. During an interview segment with Tom, they ask him about what his experience with the house is and his repeated response is "Bankruptcy"

Stuff that would've had us jump in surprise, like the door opening on its own or chairs sliding on their own, are hilariously casual and frequently either ignored or unnoticed by Tom in particular.

After the crew ends up disappearing in the basement, there's a very long sequence involving Tom basically wandering around the house, angrily grumbling at the Demon as it growls back at him and shuts doors around. I was laughing nonstop as he shambles about, muttering angrily to himself, starting to remove all the cameras while muttering to himself, mocking the crew and sarcastically quoting some of them, all the while slagging off with the demon ghosts like he was an angry roommate threatening to leave.

I'm pretty sure comedic wasn't what they were going for, but the comedy comes naturally in a mix of Tom's "I no longer care about all this" attitude mixed with the flat, affect-less style of filming, and bad dialogue. At one point, Tom even angrily accuses Jacqui of talking like Trump tweets, a painfully immersion-breaking moment that doesn't even make sense in context.

By the last bit of the movie, everyone is trapped in the house and Tom is wandering around with a bike helmet and a cane, ready to "fight" the demon. The demon possesses Jacqui, only for Tom to inexplicably appear, leading Bad Ben to go and fight the demon. It ends the next morning with Bad Ben trying to pull Tom back into the basement, only for Tom to somehow overpower him, going "Bad! Bad Ben!" and ordering him to go outside, before emerging from the basement naked, with a comically long "CENSORED" bar over his genitals.

Perhaps there was realization that the previous movie, the prequel, was a flailing, incoherent pile and decided to go for a wacky, comedic mess instead.

I didn't mind the original BAD BEN but the other films in the series have been duds. This sequel sees the guy from the original returning, but this time he's accompanied by a couple of irritating investigator characters who bring nothing to the story. More PARANORMAL ACTIVITY-indebted supernatural shenanigans follow, but it's all so cheap and routinely staged that the viewer will have dozed off long before the end. The lack of surveillance footage and focus on constant chit-chat is what kills this one.

NOT as serious as the first two...a bit mocking of itself almost. The acting is NOT as good. You actually hope the lead female role gets munched by some demonic force because she is a lousy actress and her scared face and her laughing face and her surprised face look exactly the same.

If you are interested in a plot that actually makes sense, skip this one. You will actually come up with the ending as a joke yourself.