Horror fan 4
Definitely not as good as the first movie but it wasn't terrible.
Tim Treakle
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
05/06/24
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Audience Member
"Every time you hear a bell, a zombie takes a soul to hell." Apparently, a horrorscope phone line is Satan's method of communication with the earthly realm. Those who accept the help of the fortune-teller on the other end of the line are soon possessed to kill. One such victim is the local college dean who is also a bit of a creep asshole. A biker and a co-ed (Debbie James, damn she was HOT!) team up to stop the killings. While the plot certainly doesn't make sense, there is some funny dialogue and cool scenes such as when the mounted animal head starts talking so he machneguns the shit out of it, or the car scene with the entire "(You're) Pushin' Too Hard" by the psychedelic/proto-punk band The Seeds, or when "It's Wonderful Life" morphs into "The Night of the Living Dead", or the big rig exclusion, etc. Not as good as the first, but worth a view if just for the hilarious ending.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/02/23
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Audience Member
A series of killings on a university campus are linked to the dean. Patrick O'Bryan from the first movie comes o the campus and joins up with a student to fight the evil phone service that is giving the dean his power. This is miles away from a good movie, but it's somehow not as dreadful as it could be. Jim Wynorski directed it in that nether region between his early half decent films ("Chopping Mall", "Not of This Earth") and the sea of garbage he churned out from the late 90's on. It has a few problems. If you were going to bring an actor back from the first film, bottomless charisma void O'Bryan would not be my first choice. The idea of the evil phone line is just not incorporated very well at all. Basically, the phone rings at people, they answer, a recorded message starts and they hang up. Scary stuff, huh? So why isn't it total garbage? A few sparks of creativity show up amongst the dreck ... like a character getting sucked into a world that literally blends the end of "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Night of the Living Dead". Brigitte Nielsen shows up to collect a pay cheque.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/01/23
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"Out Of The Darkness & Into The Light, Comes Your Horoscope In This Dark & Stormy Night"
***
A Funny Horror Movie That Brings That Good Nostalgia Feeling To Me... It Always Makes Me Laugh When The Main Character Answers The Phone To Hear...
"Out Of The Darkness & Into The Light, Comes Your Horoscope In This Dark & Stormy Night."
& Replies With...
GIVE IT A REST YOU - -!
~
For Just A B Grade Horror Movie I Enjoyed This Movie But I Admit It IS Not For Everyone. I Give This Film A C + (Common)
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
01/12/23
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Sometimes, particularly when it comes to horror movies, you can dig up an old random title and it will pleasantly surprise you. I'm talking about obscure horror films that aren't likely to be found on Dvd. The only way to get these is to go to a garage sale, dig through bins hauled out of a basement and buy it for a dollar. You pop that sucker in your dusty ol' VCR and you hope that it's going to be if not good, at least original / interesting to watch. Often, the movies really aren't anything special or memorable and seeing them is mostly just for bragging rights. That's the case when it comes to "976-EVIL 2", probably one of the most ridiculous titles I've ever heard. This is going to be a bit of a biased review because I've never seen the first one, but here's what I can piece together: There's this demonic phone line that you can call to get your "horrorscope"; people think it's just a harmless joke but that's hardly the case. Each call is like a Faustian contract. You get something good in exchange for a sliver of your soul. Eventually, you become evil incarnate and roam the world killing innocent teenagers for kicks. When the second film begins, what appear to be some survivors from the previous film are bumped off by a killer that survived the climax of the previous story. The murderer turns out to be Professor Grubeck (Rene Assa), the dean of the town's college. Grubeck has been calling the evil phone line constantly since he discovered it and has developed a number of supernatural powers. He wants a pretty student, Robin (Debbie James) to fall in love with him but luckily, the hero of the previous film, Spike (Patrick O'Bryan) can sense that the evil has risen again and comes back to his home town to take care of it once and for all.
So we've got ourselves a fairly ridiculous premise here. It doesn't help that the acting isn't particularly good and the makeup and effects are pretty iffy too. Grubeck has the power of astral projection. Basically when he goes to sleep his soul emerges from his body and can walk around and manipulate objects but can't be harmed. Because his soul is all corrupted and stuff it looks like a rotting corpse but the makeup isn't very good at all. In fact the makeup is inconsistent from scene to scene and at the very end of the movie Grubeck's physical body is just as deformed as his astral self, which makes no sense. Additionally, some elements of the film go absolutely nowhere, like a scene where Spike visits an occult store to get more information on astral projection. He goes in there and talks to the scantily clad shopkeeper and for a while, it sounds like she's taken a liking to him. He doesn't have any money to pay for the book that he needs so she tells him that they can probably work something out... and then the scene just cuts off. We never see her character again; the scene is never mentioned by any of the characters, but Spike has gotten the information that he needs to beat the villain.... There are also some big plot holes towards the end of the movie. One where a character must have been sitting in a spot for hours, just waiting for the right time to ambush another person and another where Spike pulls a fantastic power out of thin air. It's such a Deus Ex Machina that I was left scratching my head for a while wondering if I had missed a key scene (perhaps one where the sexy shopkeep gave him powers as a reward for his bedroom performance? If so I've been robbed!)
It's one of those movies where occult things happen and people get murdered left and right but all of the authorities are running around uselessly like chickens with their heads cut off. Meanwhile Spike and Robin fall instantly in love and manage to figure out everything by themselves. For everything that's bad here, and there are many bad things, there is a moment that's so good it makes the movie worth seeing. Anyone who's seen and rated this movie will mention it so I won't go into too much detail (partially because if it's the only good part of the movie I don't want to spoil it). Let's just say it's got something to do with "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Night of the Living Dead", a scene where those two black and white movies cross over into something you've got to see to believe. It's a scene of true genius. Yes, it's a bad movie but for that one scene and for the fact that you will have the ability to make people's jaws drop once you explain to them the plot of "976-Evil 2", I'll give it a recommendation while admitting it's pretty much junk. A few weeks after viewing this film, I actually saw it available on Dvd. You can now find it in an 8-pack along with 7 other horror movies which I'm sure are all gold! With that, you can now find this movie pretty easily and give it a single watch and if you're a fan "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Night of the Living Dead" you'll at least get some kind of kick out of it. Don't mistake my mild enthusiasm though, this is a bad movie. (On VHS, October 23, 2013)
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/08/23
Full Review
Audience Member
The plot doesn't make a lot of sense, and it doesn't have much of the same feeling as the first film. The characters are dull, the story doesn't really go anywhere, and the ending is unsatisfactory.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/02/23
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