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Debuting as the revived bestselling author machine was continuing to produce screen translations, without concern for excellence, the original film felt like a uninspired homage. Featuring a small town 70s backdrop, young performers, gifted youths and disturbing local antagonist, it was close to pastiche and, like the very worst of the author's tales, it was also clumsily packed.

Curiously the call came from within the household, as it was based on a short story from the author's offspring, over-extended into a film that was a surprise $161m hit. It was the narrative about the kidnapper, a sadistic killer of adolescents who would revel in elongating their fatal ceremony. While assault was never mentioned, there was something clearly non-heteronormative about the antagonist and the historical touchpoints/moral panics he was clearly supposed to refer to, strengthened by the actor playing him with a noticeably camp style. But the film was too vague to ever properly acknowledge this and even aside from that tension, it was too busily plotted and too high on its tiring griminess to work as anything beyond an undiscerning sleepover nightmare fuel.

Follow-up Film's Debut Amidst Studio Struggles

The follow-up debuts as former horror hit-makers the production company are in urgent requirement for success. This year they’ve struggled to make anything work, from their werewolf film to The Woman in the Yard to the adventure movie to the utter financial disappointment of M3gan 2.0, and so a great deal rides on whether the sequel can prove whether a compact tale can become a movie that can generate multiple installments. However, there's an issue …

Ghostly Evolution

The first film ended with our Final Boy Finn (the performer) defeating the antagonist, helped and guided by the ghosts of those he had killed before. This has compelled filmmaker Derrickson and his collaborator C Robert Cargill to move the franchise and its killer to a new place, converting a physical threat into a ghostly presence, a route that takes them by way of Freddy's domain with a power to travel into reality enabled through nightmares. But in contrast to the dream killer, the Grabber is clearly unimaginative and totally without wit. The mask remains successfully disturbing but the film struggles to make him as terrifying as he momentarily appeared in the first, limited by complex and typically puzzling guidelines.

Alpine Christian Camp Setting

Finn and his annoyingly foul-mouthed sister Gwen (the performer) face him once more while snowed in at a mountain religious retreat for kids, the follow-up also referencing toward Freddy’s one-time nemesis the Friday the 13th antagonist. The sister is directed there by a vision of her late mother and what might be their late tormenter’s first victims while the protagonist, continuing to handle his fury and fresh capacity for resistance, is following so he can protect her. The script is too ungainly in its forced establishment, clumsily needing to get the siblings stranded at a location that will additionally provide to backstories for both main character and enemy, providing information we weren't particularly interested in or want to know about. Additionally seeming like a more calculated move to push the movie towards the comparable faith-based viewers that turned the Conjuring franchise into huge successes, the filmmaker incorporates a spiritual aspect, with morality now more strongly connected with God and heaven while evil symbolizes the demonic and punishment, religion the final defense against a monster like this.

Overcomplicated Story

The consequence of these choices is continued over-burden a franchise that was previously close to toppling over, including superfluous difficulties to what should be a straightforward horror movie. Regularly I noticed too busy asking questions about the hows and whys of what could or couldn’t happen to become truly immersed. It's minimal work for Hawke, whose face we never really see but he possesses real screen magnetism that’s generally absent in other areas in the acting team. The location is at times atmospherically grand but the bulk of the consistently un-scary set-pieces are damaged by a gritty film stock appearance to separate sleep states from consciousness, an ineffective stylistic choice that appears overly conscious and designed to reflect the terrifying uncertainty of being in an actual nightmare.

Unpersuasive Series Justification

At just under 2 hours, the sequel, comparable to earlier failures, is a needlessly long and hugely unconvincing argument for the birth of another series. When it calls again, I advise letting it go to voicemail.

• The sequel releases in Australian cinemas on the sixteenth of October and in the US and UK on 17 October