Dead in 3 Days 2 (2008)

Why so much hype?

Very well executed

Boring

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

This one is even worse than it's already bad prequel "In 3 Tagen bist du tot". The first one was a rip-off of American teen slashers, this one is clearly a rip-off of the hugely popular and much imitated "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" from Tobe Hooper. And the title is just misleading, at least in the first one there was some connection, but here, it doesn't matter. They could it "Alphütten Massaker" or something like that, that would fit much better, and just make a "new" movie rather than do that as a sequel. So if you know "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" you kind of know what you will get, just worse, kind of boring, and set in a snowy Austrian mountain village.

"In 3 Tagen bist du tot 2" is an Austrian German-language movie from 8 years ago. The writer and director is again Andreas Prochaska and this movie here follows the story of Nina (played by Sabrina Reiter) after surviving the killer from the first film from 2 years earlier. Well.. what can I say? This film is the perfect example of what a sequel should not look like. I cannot blame them for not including most of the people from the first film as they were all dead. But I can blame them for making a film that has hardly any connection to the first apart from several references to the final shot at the hospital from the first film. This is not enough though. Not even close.Apart from that the film goes constantly for close-up shots, loud screaming and lots of violence too. I would be fairly fine with that if the story required it, but the story is barely existent here. This film is just a collection of scary moments one after the other and at the latest halfway into this film you forget there even is a story. The characters are entirely forgettable. This film is really just a despicable attempt of cashing in with the apparently pretty successful first film and still milk some more money from it. If I had not watched the first film right before and if the title had been different, this could have been very well a movie that stands on its own. At least in theory as in terms of story and characters it needs crutches to do something remotely close of standing.And what makes this even worse is that the film runs for over 110 minutes, considerably longer than the first. But the material just is not there. This was a very uninteresting and boring watch from start to finish. I am baffled by this film having a higher rating than the first. I am not a great fan of the first either, but it was way superior to this one here. At least the first has 2 or 3 pretty decent moments and a story that is not too uninteresting for the most part. This sequel here has none of the above. At least Prochaska stepped up his game considerably in recent years as "Dead in 3 Days 2" is a complete failure. Not recommended.

Even though I only watched the original "Dead in 3 days" less than two years ago, I already have few to no recollection anymore on what that movie was about. I remember a mundane and extremely rudimentary teen-slasher flick, and the only thing that made it remotely special was the fact that it was the very first Austrian-produced slasher. Needless to say my expectations for the sequel weren't set very high, but I nevertheless wanted to be there for the screening at the annual Belgian Festival of Fantastic Films because I'm always in the mood for some mindless teen-slashing entertainment. Well, the least you can say is that writer/director Andreas Prochaska attempted to do something completely different rather than to just resume the basic principles of the first movie. Instead of a formulaic slasher sequel, "Dead in 3 days 2" turned out a formulaic backwoods survival thriller. The title (which used to refer to a foreboding mobile phone message) is completely irrelevant now, only the main actress of the previous film returns, ambiance and setting are entirely different and it's plainly put just a poles apart dissimilar film! Two years after the traumatizing experience that killed most of her friends, Nina rudely wakes up one night with a voicemail message from her best friend Mona; begging Nina to come and safe her. She courageously returns to the secluded region in Tyrol but hasn't got a clue where to begin her search. The slowly unfolding trail leads to a family of savages living isolated in the snowy and picturesque mountains. The first hour of "Dead in 3 days 2" is very slow and uneventful. Prochaska clearly intends to build up suspense and mystery, but it seemingly goes nowhere; especially because everybody waits for the masked killer to pop up again. Nina's long and fruitless pursuit of her friend in peril is quite boring and derivative and I caught myself admiring the postcard-like landscapes rather than to develop sympathy for the suffering protagonist. Luckily enough the extremely violent and turbulent last half hour compensates for a whole lot! In a span of less than 15 minutes, we're suddenly treated to a series of sickening murder sequences and a few moments of genuinely nail-biting suspense. The denouement is nowhere near original – let's face it: we've pretty much had it lately with butchering inbred families of weirdos – but the concept undeniably remains exciting to look at. If you seek raw, uncompromising and nihilistic violence, the climax of this movie certainly won't disappoint. If you're looking for an innovative, intelligent and unforgettable European horror movie, look elsewhere although I have to admit the final end-twist was a pleasant surprise.

...in that sequels are always a little worse than their predecessors. "In 3 Tagen bist du tot 2" is a desperate attempt to repeat the success of part 1 by cashing in on the title. Other than a few characters returning, this movie has nothing to do with the story that it is supposedly continuing (the most glaring omission being the fact that no one in this movie ever gets a text message saying that the receiver of the message will die within the following three days).Fair enough. If they got an interesting story to tell, why not use an already popular name to sell it, right? The problem is that the story isn't very interesting at all. The first half of the movie is extremely tedious, the second one is filled with clichés. There are hardly any surprises at all. How many more times are we supposed to jump at the old trick where something terrible appears in the mirror from one shot to the next? How often do we need to see a steadicam-around-the-waist-shot à la Aronofsky?On the plus side, though, director Andreas Prochaska does get a few things right again. The cinematography is beautiful and Prochaska really knows how to elaborate on the creepiness of old cottages in the mountains, right down to the harsh sociability of a meal of speck and Schnaps or some old soccer stickers on the wall. As he did in part 1, Prochaska presents the Austrian countryside as a place where horrible crimes could take place (made all the more believable by current events such as the abduction and abuse of Natascha Kampusch or the Fritzl family).In the end, "In 3 Tagen bis du tot 2" may not be the most memorable horror movie, but it is another honorable effort at putting Austria on the horror-map. If it helps to create an interest in the genre among Austrian movie financiers, I'm all for it.