One year after the Christmastime murders, a new psycho Santa (Drew Marvick from Pool Party Massacre) is stalking the hallways of the storage unit facility. Sarah (Ashley Campbell), the sole survivor of last year’s terror, is still haunted by the ghost of her boyfriend (Dillon Weishuhn), who nearly sold her out to the killer Kris Kringle. She tries to put the incident in her rearview mirror, but fate has something sinister in store for her.
I had a lot of fun with the original Axemas, but it pains me to say that this one is a bit of a disappointment. The kills this time out are kind of weak, the lone exception being the fun Christmas tree impalement scene that kicks off the movie. The rest of the time, the murders are just a series of interchangeable axings, or (even worse) happen offscreen.
The first film almost played like a condensed version of a holiday slasher with only the good (or most important) parts intact. This one is slightly longer (thirty-three minutes), but even though the running time is brief, it still drags quite a bit (especially in the early scenes where Campbell is trying her hand at dating again). I think if they had edited Part One and Two back-to-back, it would’ve made for one (mostly) good (almost) feature-length movie.
The ghost subplot doesn’t really work and eats up some major screen time, but at least the filmmakers were trying this angle a few years before the Scream reboot. The best sequence is the news report scene that amusingly parodies Jaws. While this scene scores some good laughs, unfortunately, that’s about the only touch of humor this installment contains. I wish there was more of that same spirit throughout the film. Still, as Christmas-themed slasher sequels go you can do much worse than Axemas 2.
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