Whereas Betsy Russell (co-star of 71.43% of the Saw films) makes an improvement over Donna Wilkes in pure sex appeal, Avenging Angel makes a massively disappointing sequel compared to its 1984 big sis. This is all the more baffling when one considers that director and co-writer Robert Vincent O’Neill remains in those roles; therefore, blame cannot be ascribed to a case of franchise takeover.

A year after the original Angel, the honor student by day has given up being a Hollywood hooker by night. Having slept with “hundreds of men,” Molly (Russell) now opts for running the 100-yard dash as a track star at college. Inspired by her L.A.-cop guardian, Lt. Andrews (Dark Night of the Scarecrow’s Robert E. Lyons, replacing Cliff Gorman), she is studying to be a lawyer. But when the police lieutenant is murdered in the line of duty in Chinatown, Molly teases her hair, whores up and drags out her Angel alter ego to get answers … and revenge. Forget it, Molly; it’s Chinatown.

There is nothing wrong with pursuing that setup. There is something very wrong with following our heroine’s intensely personal tragedy with about 20 minutes of screwball comedy, as Angel and friends try to bust ol’ pal Kit Carson (returning Rory Calhoun, Motel Hell) out of the sanitarium in which he clearly belongs. With dopey music and all, the prolonged sequence feels like a deliberate stalling tactic to reach feature-length as O’Neill attempts to navigate between the emotional tones of oil and water. Neither works.

As a result, Avenging Angel hastily becomes a sad parody of itself, one franchise entry earlier than the standard. This is best exemplified in saddling Angel’s lesbian former landlord (Susan Tyrrell, Forbidden Zone) with an infant that is not hers, and then involving that child in a hysterically edited climax that sends the tearful tot plummeting from a rooftop at half-speed. Photographed in extreme close-up so we don’t see the hands of whoever is holding him, the baby falls upright, then upside down, then upright again before — spoiler — being caught by Kit. Wouldn’t a true piece of ’80s sleaze give the old man a curious case of the butterfingers?

What, too dark? —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

A few things I legitimately do not understand about the Canadian indie thriller Death Do Us Part:
• whether the scenes I scoffed at were supposed to elicit that response;
• if its real-life married leads — who also share credit as the film’s writers, producers and executive producers — realize they made every character patently odious;
• and how someone simultaneously can be a producer and an executive producer.

Those real-life married leads portray an about-to-be-wedded couple: the seriously uptight Kennedy (Julia Benson, née Anderson, Chupacabra vs. the Alamo) and, purely from a sexual standpoint, the seriously lucky Ryan (Peter Benson, Dead Rising: Watchtower). With each bringing one bestie and one family member, they rent a lake house overnight for a joint-gender stag party.

The six immediately are put off by the dead birds coating the porch, not to mention the creepy caretaker (Dave Collette, Intercessor: Another Rock ’n’ Roll Nightmare); viewers are more apt to be put off by the snobbish and/or self-indulgent behavior of the sextet, especially Ryan’s perpetual frat buddy, Chet (Kyle Cassie, Lost Boys: The Tribe), who near-exclusively says things like this for the movie’s entirety: “Chicks: If they didn’t have tits, we’d throw rocks at ’em.” (Unfortunately, on-the-set glimpses of Cassie on the DVD’s making-of featurette suggest he’s not far removed from his character.)

You’ll want to hurl objects toward the bunch, regardless of organs. Chet’s asshole embodiment aside, Kennedy is a cold-hearted bitch, while Ryan is a contemptible cad who happens to be having an affair with his fiancée’s sister (Christine Chatelain, Final Destination), this trip included! He takes her from behind against a tree while on an afternoon excursion through the woods; unbeknownst to them, their animalistic act is witnessed by Kennedy’s clingy, needy BFF (Emilie Ullerup, Leprechaun: Origins), who also manages to observe Ryan scuffle with his ex-con cousin (Benjamin Ayres, Dead Before Dawn) over some so-far-secret criminal shenanigans.

For their own reasons, they’re all hateful — and I typically quite admire Ullerup’s and Lady Benson’s work — so it comes as a relief when someone gets around to axing them up. The film could be classified as a slasher (albeit a rather tame one) or a mystery (albeit an easily solved one) if feature-debuting director Nicholas Humphries grasped the material in order to guide it either way. As is, Death Do Us Part is merely a bunch of dot-to-dot clichés of the peeps-in-peril thriller, complete with the elbow-nudging “C’mon, it’s one night! What’s the worst that can happen?” You know the kind: no power, no phone, no car ignition, no imagination … and no need to subject yourself to this one. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.