Rating: C+
Dir: Nik Kacevski
Star: Joshua Brennan, Charlotte Best, Jess Bush, Ric Herbert
a.k.a. Skinford: Chapter Two
This begins almost immediately after the end of the previous installment. It had finished off with a large gun-battle in a senior care facility – and that’s not a sentence I expected to be writing today. Jimmy Skinford (Brennan) is now on the run with unwilling immortal Zophia (Best) after the nasty series of revelations which came to pass at the end of part one. Not the least of these involved Jimmy’s father, Guy, being a kingpin in the local crime scene, and wanting his son to take over. He did not take kindly to Jimmy’s refusal, and is now among those seeking to hunt Zophia down. Meanwhile, she wants to return to the place where she gained eternal life, seeking a way out.
I would say this falls a little short of its predecessor. It suffers from middle-movie syndrome, meaning that it doesn’t have either a proper beginning or an end, leaving it imperfect as a standalone entity. The finale is particularly abrupt. Clearly, the saga is intended to continue in further installments. Sadly, to this point, there’s no sign of them appearing, and at this point, some of those involved have potentially moved on to other things. That’s certainly the case for Bush, who in flashbacks to the thirties plays Helen, the woman from whom Zophia took immortality. She’s now Nurse Chappel on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Here… not so much (top).
While that thread certainly fills in some back-story, and is well executed, it feels more like something which might have fitted better in the first installment, when we were curious about Zophia’s origins. Now, we are more interested in what’s happening in the present day than her back-story – to some degree, the latter was one of those revelations mentioned above, and adequately covered at the end of the first film. What we get here is a bonus, rather than essential knowledge. I’d prefer to have got additional development of the current situation, though this offers the same combination of excess and confusion as previously. I mean, this is a franchise where someone can get half their face blown away at point-blank range, and it only pisses them off.
The film is once again filled out with a range of supporting characters who start at unusual, and end up at batshit-crazy. I particularly liked Guy Skinford’s bodyguard. She would seem to have a backstory of her own, being loyal beyond a fault, while masquerading as a nurse in his care-home. Almost everyone we see here has potential for a spin-off, or at least deeper exploration, and it’s the inventiveness of imagination which keeps things entertaining. But when the end suddenly comes, with a punch in the face, and the credits roll, it’s almost as much of a blow to the viewer, as the character who receives it. Give me chapter three, or give me death, goddamnit.
The film will be released later in 2024 on Amazon Prime.