[Editor's Note: A version of this retrospective originally appeared in the September 2014 issue of Deadly Magazine.] With House II: The Second Story, the vastly underrated sequel written and directed by Ethan Wiley (who also wrote the screenplay for the original House), New World Pictures introduced audiences to a whole new world filled with unexpected frights and adventures with an Old West twist. The sequel was released in late August of 1987 and took a decidedly left turn away from the more straightforward house of horrors style seen in Steve Miner’s original film, instead favoring a tone that was much more light-hearted, fun-spirited, and far more family friendly.
For the uninitiated, House II follows a young man named Jesse (Arye Gross), who inherits a strange house from the parents who gave him up for adoption when he was just an infant. As he begins to settle into his new dwelling with the help of his girlfriend, Kate (Lar Park Lincoln), his best pal, Charlie (Jonathan Stark), and Charlie’s aspiring musician girlfriend,...
For the uninitiated, House II follows a young man named Jesse (Arye Gross), who inherits a strange house from the parents who gave him up for adoption when he was just an infant. As he begins to settle into his new dwelling with the help of his girlfriend, Kate (Lar Park Lincoln), his best pal, Charlie (Jonathan Stark), and Charlie’s aspiring musician girlfriend,...
- 7/9/2017
- by Heather Wixson
- DailyDead
[Editor's Note: A version of this retrospective originally appeared in the September 2014 issue of Deadly Magazine.] With House II: The Second Story, the vastly underrated sequel written and directed by Ethan Wiley (who also wrote the screenplay for the original House), New World Pictures introduced audiences to a whole new world filled with unexpected frights and adventures with an Old West twist. The sequel was released in late August of 1987 and took a decidedly left turn away from the more straightforward house of horrors style seen in Steve Miner’s original film, instead favoring a tone that was much more light-hearted, fun-spirited, and far more family friendly.
And while The Second Story did respectable business during its two-week theatrical run that summer and was also a profitable sequel for New World, House II isn’t a film that I feel gets nearly the love that it should. Case in point: Joshua Jackson’s character makes a comment about House II during the sequels discussion scene in Scream 2,...
And while The Second Story did respectable business during its two-week theatrical run that summer and was also a profitable sequel for New World, House II isn’t a film that I feel gets nearly the love that it should. Case in point: Joshua Jackson’s character makes a comment about House II during the sequels discussion scene in Scream 2,...
- 7/9/2017
- by Heather Wixson
- DailyDead
One of House II: The Second Story’s taglines was “It’s getting weirder!”, although if you caught Steve Miner’s original film expectations should have been high that House II would be as frenetic and chaotic. But Ethan Wiley’s sequel does nothing with the first film, instead branching off of the notion that old houses have crazy secrets and running with it into western sub-genre terrain. Because House already paved the way for Wiley do off-the-wall shit, House II takes things even further – both with the zany storyline and with the comedy, which was always apparent in the first film but much bleaker than the slapstick here.
The Second Story starts with a rainy night, with a couple trying to get their child out of a house before a cowboy-hat wearing zombie shoots them up. And then it jumps years into the future, when Jesse (Arye Gross) finally...
The Second Story starts with a rainy night, with a couple trying to get their child out of a house before a cowboy-hat wearing zombie shoots them up. And then it jumps years into the future, when Jesse (Arye Gross) finally...
- 7/8/2014
- by Ryne Barber
- The Liberal Dead
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