Dom Robinson reviews
976 Evil II: The Astral Factor
Call if you dare!
Distributed by
Digital Entertainment
- Cert:
- Cat.no: DED 6076
- Running time: 87 minutes
- Year: 1991
- Pressing: 1999
- Region(s): 2 (UK PAL)
- Chapters: 8 plus extras
- Sound: Linear PCM Stereo
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: None
- Fullscreen: 4:3
- 16:9-enhanced: No
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 5
- Price: £15.99
- Extras : Scene index, Photo Gallery
Director:
(976 Evil 2, Body Chemistry 3 & 4, Munchie Strikes Back, The Pandora Project, Sins of Desire)
Producer:
Screenplay:
Brian Helgeland and Rhet Topham
Music:
Thomas Chase and Steve Rucker
Cast:
Spike: Patrick O'Bryan (976 Evil 1 & 2, Angels with Dirty Faces, Some Like It Hot)
Mr. Grubeck: René Assa (976 Evil 2)
Robin: Debbie James (976 Evil 2, Over the Edge)
976 Evil 2
signifies that it must be time for more phone-philandering madness with that creepy-voiced
bloke again.
Here, Robin (Debbie James, who according to Videolog starred in Die Hard 2 the
year before but I don't remember her and the IMDB doesn't list her either.)
is visited by an astral spirit (how inconvenient) - school principal Mr. Grubeck (René
Assa) - and she gets to witness all the murders
that he commits, but how to tell the cops? Ooh, that's going to be a tough one so she has
to enlist Spike's (Patrick O'Bryan) help to conquer the bad guy and saved the world
again.
However, if all the victims turn out to be anything as ditzy as the first girl who just
screams and waits for a fake stalactite on a stage to fall and strike through her heart,
then they all deserve to die and be put out of our misery!
"Ok, now I'm gonna do a rabbit."
Again, a basic 4:3 print with even worse quality than last time as there are plenty of
dropouts in the print. The average bitrate is a better 6.48Mb/s and occasionally
peaks over 8Mb/s.
The sound is plain stereo, with dialogue a bit on the muffled side sometimes.
"Ok, so I lied about promising
never to light my farts again!"
Extras :
Chapters :
Just a mere 8 chapters over the 87-minute running time which isn't nearly enough.
Languages & Subtitles :
English in stereo with no subtitles.
Photo gallery :
10 simple stills from the film, 3 of which appear in this review.
Fine to look at once, but not something you'll go back to.
Menu :
The main menu has a subtle animation of a blurry arm dripping with blood from the first
victim.
"Please let me out.
I can make a sequel that WILL work this time!"
976 Evil 2 is an equally-pointless film to sit through but it's less of a chore
if you FFWD through to the murders, of which there aren't that many, although the
man-meets-lorry death is a cool one to pause.
There are a couple of moments which raise the score slightly above that of the first.
Firstly, who else should there be to run an out-of-town book store named "Lucifer's"
other than Brigitte Nielsen. Secondly is a scene when one of Robin's friends ends
up appearing in
It's a Wonderful Life
, in which
