Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Some things I liked some I did not.

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Having survived their previous encounter, the group goes out once again to document haunted houses in order to deal with the trauma only for signs of their previous tortures to show up and get drawn into another terrifying battle with the deranged psychopathsOn the whole, this was quite the decent and enjoyable follow-up. One of the better aspects of this one is the way in which this one goes for a slightly more normalized take on the haunted houses they tour. The first half of this one features them touring the different attractions, from the problem-solving experience that features an intriguing experience, the later showing in the house with all the distorted walls and decorations which has a full-on psychedelic experience and the interactive attraction with the bleeding victims has quite a lot of fun to it with the different activities featured throughout. Their experience on the hayride has some more fun to be had with the different interactions featured here, while the highlight is the scenes of them at the pub-crawl which features the walk-through of the festival to the different zombies around them and the big food-eating contest that has a fun sense about it. That is the main part of this one, where it has plenty of fun with them in the different attractions looking at the creepy settings and decorations as well as the objectives required for those different rides. The antics in the final house, where it turns out to be about the group getting trapped with the deranged settings once again manages to have an eerie air to it as it forces a repetition of the setup from last time while adding some terrifying encounters that are exceptionally graphic. While these make it work, this one has some pretty big flaws present. The most egregious effort here is the fact that this one just doesn't seem in the slightest bit interested in getting them to the main house this time as their exploits are built more on exploring the different houses which takes up a ton of time throughout here. It doesn't have much to do with them in the house at all and doesn't even introduce the tormentors until well over an hour has played out which doesn't really generate the kind of scares consistent with the pacing for much of the overall running time. That lack of interaction makes them seem far less interesting this time around as it doesn't really provide this one with the main threat this time around and tends to make it feel duller than anything as it plays more like watching home videos of people on these rides rather than anything else which is far less interesting. That also makes what happens at the end all the more confusing since none of it really matters at all and their actions toward the group make no sense as it just comes off like torture with no buildup or purpose and really defeats the purpose of their actions. That, in a sense, really lowers this one significantly.Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

The first 'The Houses October Built' blew me away back in 2014. I went in with almost zero expectations and left astonished by how good it was. Did I have my hopes up for the sequel being able to live up to that same level? No, they almost never do after all particularly in the horror genre. Did I hope for more quality than I got though? Absolutely, this was bordering on one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time. Does it detract from what the original put forward? Unfortunately yes it does in a big way.By about the 1 hour 15 minute mark I thought to myself: has anything actually happened yet? The answer was no. Sure we had seen some fun haunted houses (or hay rides apparently) and there was the weirdly edited shots of the clown masked guy following them, however this felt more like a documentary to that point than anything else. It was filler, plain and simple. It's absolutely unacceptable for a horror movie to run for an hour and 40 minutes with that little happening in the opening 75 minutes. No excuse for that whatsoever.Then the big final sequence (or the pay off if you wish to call it that) begins and I think to myself: this better bloody be worth it. Well let me assure you it wasn't. It was poorly done, predictable and thought it was a hell of a lot smarter than it actually was. The editing was also very poor in that final sequence. Possibly the best done scene in the entire film was the very final one with the sign, however that had basically nothing to do with the film, so bravo. Please stay away from this film. Not only is it terrible, there's a very good chance it will ruin the original for you too. Yuck.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀About 3 years ago when I saw the first film I was pleasantly surprised on how effective it was and since then I've seen it quite a few times. So naturally I was excited for this sequel. Sadly though, everything that made the first film appealing is lost here and in a lot of ways it plays out almost exactly the same but without all the charm. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀To start, the events of the first film are almost made totally irrelevant here and in turn begins this new tale in a rather distasteful way. The group of pals you as the viewer traveled along with from the first film somehow are less likable here thus making their journey more of a drag. And if you enjoyed seeing all the haunted house locations they visited in the first film, as I did, then in this sequel you'll get about 1 hour and 10 mins of nothing but visiting such places. Along with an escape room and a zombie race. Bad thing is though that for that amount of time there's no story developing at all really.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀For the last maybe 20 mins you'll get to see things unfold but unfortunately it's all rather goofy and uninteresting. I wanted to like this movie, I did, but honestly it really didn't let me. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

When i heard the idea for the first "film" I was blown away by it, unfortunately the movie i wrote in my head in the five minutes after seeing the trailer was better than both "films combined. The potential they had could of delivered us the best found footage film since cloverfield. To try and cash in on the same pathetic idea again is an insult to me and should be to you too. PEACE