The Stalker: Part 2

The Stalker: Part 2, directed by Jared M Reeder and Michelle Lewis, who co-wrote the script with Jimmy Ace Lewis, is a chopped-down nerve burner. Steve (Chad Ayers) and his sons, Hayden (Jimmy Ace Lewis) and Josh (J. Gaven Wilde), are still recovering from the aftermath of the first The Stalker. His wife, Wendy (Jessie Bell), is still in jail for slaying one of the attackers. Officer Harrison (Paul Van Scott) meets with Warden Stillwater (Carl Bailey) about Wendy’s case. It turns out the slain attacker was an accomplice of the sinister stalker, Marc (Sean Michael Nugent), whose body was never found.

“…Marc has not yet finished with Wendy and Steve…”

Wendy is released from prison and transferred to house arrest, much to the joy of her family. However, she’s haunted by horrifying visions and is far from okay. A reporter (Andrew Vilar) pulls up in a van outside the family’s house and tries to interview Hayden. He tells the reporter to leave their family alone and storms off. That is when Marc caves the reporter’s head in and takes the body out to the woods where he has been hiding. He hands over the reporter’s corpse to his new henchman Craig (Troy Fromin), to dissolve it in a vat of acid. Marc has not yet finished with Wendy and Steve and giggles as he plans a horrible evening for them.

Some folks get their kicks from Champagne. Other smoke methaqualone from broken beer bottle stems until they fall onto concrete floors. The Stalker: Part 2 is the cinematic equivalent of the latter. It acts faster and hits stronger than your average thriller. In the script, Lewis and Lewis remove all the unnecessary padding that gets in the way of getting to the goods. So there isn’t any toe-tapping to be found during the entire 52 minutes it plays. In the era of butt-numbing 3-hour epics, films like this with leaner, meaner runtimes glisten like diamonds. It is just like how punk rock reacted in the progressive rock era of 17-minute tracks with three-minute wonders. Trimming the fat from the traditional narrative doesn’t result in a no-frills package. Instead, it is an all-frills experience with nothing in the way.