2018 Halloween Double Feature : “The Blackwell Ghost 2”

If at first you at least partially succeed — then keep going! That seems to be the modus operandi of micro-budget horror filmmakers from Nigel Bach to Ryan Callaway to — shit, everyone in the game, right? You don’t have that much money you need to earn back from these things because they didn’t cost that much to make, obviously, but if you get a few months’ rent or mortgage payments in the can every time you put one out, then why not keep on keeping on?

Turner Clay is no exception, and since he probably recouped whatever “investment” of time and money that went into 2017’s The Blackwell Ghost, plus a little something extra for the effort, there was literally no reason for him not to go back to the well in 2018 and crank out The Blackwell Ghost 2. Amazon Prime picked up the first one, so why couldn’t they be counted on to do the same again? Such a presumption is right, of course — but none of that answers the one question that you, dear reader, are presumably here to find out about, namely : is this movie any good?

As is the case with its progenitor, the answer to that isn’t so much an unqualified “yes” as it is a “sure, what the hell?,” chiefly because it does the same things all over again and gets right what the first flick got right while also getting wrong what the first flick got wrong. It’s nominally more ambitious, which is both welcome and, frankly, to be expected, but it treads decidedly familiar ground : Clay went and made another one of his horror cheapies (a real movie, as it turns out, titled Raccoon Valley) after “surviving” his time in the Blackwell house, but he hasn’t been able to get the “experience” out of his head, so when he receives a mysterious package containing an old record and a photo of Ruth Blackwell with a young girl, he’s eager to meet the sender, who turns out to be — drumroll, please — the little girl in the picture all done growed up, who in due course allows him access to a storage facility filled with other Blackwell paraphernalia, the most intriguing item of which is a schematic of the house marked with a purportedly ominous “X” that Clay believes to be an indication of where something — or maybe even someone — is buried. Time to grab wife Terri (once again played by Terri Czapleski) and go back up to Pennsylvania even though they never leave Louisville!

Things aren’t as easy for our “mockumentarians” this time out given that the owner of the property, with whom they have a friendly rapport, is selling the place (good luck with that), but he’s willing to give Clay the keys to the joynt for three nights, and during that time another series of vaguely creepy events takes place that convinces our man and his lady love that, yeah, this house really is haunted, but aside from a bunch of conspicuous plugs for Raccoon Valley, it’s largely just more furniture moving on its own, record players turning on by themselves, footsteps in the dark, etc. The pacin’,s better, though, with events actually moving along at a fairly nice clip once they get to the house, and Clay himself is as charismatic and likable and self-deprecating as ever, so watching a slightly-amped-up version of what we’ve already seen before is certainly no chore, and often even quite fun. In other words, he’s getting better at making these things as he goes, and that’s something he should, and hopefully does, take a reasonable amount of pride in.

That being said, actual scares are still conspicuous by their absence in this second film, the run-time still feels padded (and it is just a bit longer than the first), and originality is still an item nowhere to be found on the menu. This is an agreeable enough “found footage” paranormal yarn, but it’s certainly miles away from being essential viewing and I can’t really see how it would hold much, if any, appeal to someone not already well-versed in, maybe even reasonably committed to, this particular sub-genre of homemade cinema.

And yet — for those of us (like myself), who do fit into that particular (and, yeah, particularly narrow) “fan classification,” this is a darn good time. The Blackwell Ghost 2 may be more a refined extension of the previous entry in this “franchise” than it is a “sequel” per se, but that’s okay, and Clay’s continuing development as a writer/director, as well as his genuinely engaging on-screen persona as an actor, means that there’s reason enough to not only give this flick a shot, but to look forward to The Blackwell Ghost 3 if (okay, fair enough, when) such a thing happens, as well. I’ll certainly be ready and waiting to watch, and subsequently review, it when it does.