The Hospital 2 Review

Daniel Emery Taylor returns as the massively creepy Stanley from 2013’s The Hospital

The underground horror film circuit operates on a different level than mainstream movie distribution. Made by a wide range of amateur producers largely self-financing their own projects, outside the aegis of respectable entertainment, a horror film can be knocked out for less than $100,000. These movies aren’t pretty but occasionally work in spite of everything working against them. The extremely low budgets allow their producers to get away with pretty much anything they want in terms of content.

Embracing taboo material such as graphic rape scenes and snuff filmmaking, The Hospital 2 is one such movie. Playing it up with over-the-top verve, this is underground horror made strictly for its intended niche audience.

Co-directors Daniel Emery Taylor and Jim O’Rear have made a nasty celebration of carnage that gratuitously enjoys its sex and blood. If sadistic torture in low-budget pyschosplatter films sounds like your thing, don’t be put off that this movie is a sequel. The first film is recapped in the opening moments and doesn’t really play into its plot. The Hospital 2 stands by itself.

Five years after the brutal events that befell Skye and Beth inside Old Saint Leopold’s Hospital, the two women continue to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives. With news of those horrific incidents resurfacing in the press and media, the two ladies face dealing with those ugly memories all over again. The events soon become more than just memories as Skye and Beth are hurled into another desperate fight for survival.

The Hospital 2 delivers satisfaction for its dedicated niche audience

The Hospital’s main contribution to this sequel is the character of Stanley (played by co-director Daniel Emery Taylor), a hefty psychopath that enjoys torturing and murdering young women. Think an obese, creepy version of Leatherface without his mask or chainsaw. He is joined by a demented father-and-daughter team, Alan (Jim O’Rear) and Samantha (Megan Emerick). The incestuous couple run a shelter for battered women, exploiting vulnerable young women in the process to use for their streaming snuff site. You could call them the Bonnie and Clyde of snuff filmmaking. Both are pure psychopaths interested in torturing and killing their victims for pleasure.

The Hospital 2 has an amateur, unknown cast outside of actresses Betsy Rue (My Bloody Valentine) and Debbie Rochon (Tromeo and Juliet), who themselves are barely in the business. There is a range of enthusiastic performances, varying from engaging to inept. Megan Emerick steals the show as Samantha, a truly deranged woman who manages her father’s snuff streaming website. The main players are largely decent enough for this kind of underground horror fare.

Is this a horror film worth checking out? That depends on one’s tolerance for extreme filmmaking made on the ultra-cheap. The Hospital 2 delivers satisfaction for its dedicated niche audience with plenty of splatter in twisted, violent scenes. By the standards of indie horror, it succeeds with raw enthusiasm and over-the-top graphic content. This is not material made for the squeamish.

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The 119-minute movie is distributed on DVD by MVD Visual. It is featured at its apparently native 1.78:1 aspect ratio with a 2.0 Dolby Digital soundtrack. No subtitles are included. A trailer, video diary, bloopers and an extended featurette comprise the special features.