Video Violence Part 2 (1988)

Nice effects though.

Memorable, crazy movie

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Howard and Eli return in this satiric sequel, as hosts of a pirate public access station snuff show where they mutilate and dismember special guests(..the guest on their show in this movie believes she's test screening for a role in a splatter movie)invited and unknowingly volunteering for their own destruction. Eli and Howard provide their bloodthirsty audience with a series of violent acts to this *actress* such as scissoring through her arm using the veins as a way to give the camera the finger, extracting her eyeball, removing her thumbs, etc. The show also has commercial breaks featuring recordings of murders to other victims including the damage inflicted on a victim tied to a home-made electric chair, what happens to a pizza boy thanks to three man-hating women who decide to kill for the first time, what employees and customers of a video store do to an outsider attempting to rent some movies(..nice use of saran wrap and a blow-drier for this particular girl), a newly hired employee at a grocery mart is used by her bosses as an example for their new experimental devices such as a slice'n'dicer that chops fingers into little pieces and a blood drainer if you have a taste for something different, and a little pet monster for sale who can kill your children if you are a tired parent looking to decrease the members in your family. Sicker, more twisted(..and more tedious and outlandish)sequel from writer/director Gary Cohen stretches his premise a bit thin. The two twists at the end are amusing enough, I guess. Many of the gore gags(..like the exploding face of the victim being shocked in the hot seat)are more laughable than before, but slasher fans who liked the first film from Cohen might get a kick out of this one. I kind of found this sequel rather long-in-the-tooth, wearing out it's welcome pretty quickly. Uke and Bart Sumner, as the warped duo, are living it up again, cackling and giggling as they *torment* their new victim. Everyone in the film seem to be having a good time.

The original 'Video Violence' was a campy and trashy, yet somehow likable little horror film. I guess the filmmakers must have had some film stock left over and a bunch of actors with a few days to spare so they decided to come up with this patched together 'sequel'. I suppose they have to be given some credit; the original didn't exactly leave the door open for a sequel, and they could easily have just done something similar to the first one and slapped a '2' on the end of the title. The film is similar to the first film, but it goes off in a completely different direction; and this is both refreshing and works well. The film once again focuses on the two maniacal antagonists from the first film; Howard and Eli. Their violence has won them a lot of fans and this had lead to them getting their own TV show ("The Howard & Eli Show") in which they torture and kill people live on the air. There isn't really a plot to speak of; the film is made up of different segments all revolving around snuff films and the TV show at the centre of the movie.Staying true to the original, all the action featured in this film is very silly and trashy and the special effects haven't got any better either so the film still looks like it was made for a sum of money in double figures. While this doesn't exactly give it a lot of credibility, it does at least add to the charm. One of the few good things about the original film was its ham-fisted commentary on how film watchers love to see violence. This film once again takes that ball and runs with it but unfortunately this time it's all just too over the top and while the original wasn't very poignant, this one isn't at all. The original film also harked back to the old 'video rental' tradition with the focus being on a video store. This one doesn't have that going for it and the TV show idea isn't as good because (as far as I know) there isn't a show that is anything like this one. Still, the film is at least fun to watch and at just seventy five minutes, it doesn't drag like the original did. Fans of the original will probably enjoy this one too.

Those demented hillbilly sickos Howard and Eli are back and worse than ever. Now these two depraved degenerates have their own pirate variety show on cable television. The decidedly unwholesome program includes commercials for sick items (you just gotta love Wilber, an evil fanged teddy bear that rips out little kids' throats!), terrible groan-inducing stand-up comedy routines, snuff videos sent in by viewers, and the gleeful on-air torture of naive aspiring actress Debbie (hot busty blonde babe Elizabeth Lee Miller). The homemade snuff videos are hilariously mean-spirited hoots: a folksy retired sheriff and his darling wife fry a dangerous criminal in their basement electric chair, a trio of sexy college girls blithely butcher a hunky pizza delivery boy, the staff and patrons at a video rental outlet slaughter an out-of-town chick, and a jolly deli owner tries out his new killing instruments on an unsuspecting lady victim. Writer/director Gary P. Cohen plays the whole warped premise for uproariously tasteless and offensive pitch black humor that's often crudely amusing in an admittedly lowbrow sort of way. Uke and Burt Sumner have a grand hammy time as Howard and Eli; their unrestrained eye-rolling histrionics may not be subtle, but they are quite entertaining. Gordon Ovsiew likewise makes a nice impression as the show's sunglassed hipster geek piano player. Better still, this flick sure doesn't skimp on either the excessive cheesy splatter or tasty gratuitous distaff nudity. A terrifically tacky howler.

In the prologue, a woman enters a vampire's tomb to stake him in the heart. After she does, she withdraws the stake, with the bloody beating heart on it. She's about to lick or bite it when she says she can't - she's on a movie set. The director and crew are annoyed and stake her in the heart for real, drawing her heart out of her body.That's right, this is a black comedy about snuff films!A newscaster explains that pirate broadcasts of "The Howard & Eli Show" have been interrupting regular broadcasts. He is interrupted by one of these broadcasts. The show is a cable-access level show in which Howard and Eli tell bad jokes, show snuff films sent in by their viewers, and torture their guests. In "Wilbur," a boy gets bitten by his toy while his mother looks on, smiling. In "Electric Chair," an ex-sheriff who felt cheated by the fact he'd never witnessed an execution electrocutes someone he kidnapped. In "Pizza Boy," three friends who enjoy the Howard & Eli Show are annoyed by how only kills of women by men are shown. They decide a killing of a man by women would be nice. This segment definitely drags, with some odd slow-motion video effects of dancing. In "The Best Of" an announcer lists the scenes that will be available in Video Violence 2 (they're not available in this movie, which is actually titled Video Violence Two). As he does this, scenes of Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and Norman Bates entering a woman's shower to kill a woman are shown. Norman doesn't fare as well, since the woman that time has a handgun with her in the shower. In "The Video Studio," an out-of-town woman wants to rent three horror movies (including Funeral Home, and the first Video Violence). They'd rather show her how well their shrink-wrap machine works. In "Deli Dick's", the host displays how a certain slicer works on a woman who's come for a job.Interspersed with this, a woman has come to Howard and Eli's studio under the impression that she's auditioning for a horror movie. They tie her up and mutilate her, to their great amusement. There's a bit of a twist on this towards the end. There are also station IDs for "W.G.O.R.!... yuck!" under which other short scenes of bondage or torture appear that are fairly creepy.Finally, Howard and Eli receive a tape that appears to be from two of their victims from the first movie, that threatens that they will come to the studio and kill everyone. After the end credits a Video Violence 3 is promised, but that does not seem to have ever happened.The movie was shot with a very poor video camera, and the picture quality is fairly bad. This actually works in its favor, since it is supposed to be a pirate broadcast of homemade movies. It does manage to be fairly unpleasant.Both this and the first VV bear the grinning picture of J.R. "Bob" Dobbs and the note "Approved by Bob Dobbs - Used by permission of The Church of the SubGenius" I don't know if anyone associated with the Church was actually affiliated with the movie, but of course SubGenii do appreciate Great Badfilm.