Bloodthirst 2: Revenge of the Chupacabra – review

Director: Jonathan Mumm

Release date: 2005

Contains spoilers

The original movie, Bloodthirst: Legend of the Chupacabra was a poor film, however, it was a poor film with heart. Over-complex for the budget and not well acted I did, however, rather enjoy it. It also had an unusual lore.

The lore in this seems to have been forgotten and/or lost. Never is the fate of the chupacabra from film number one mentioned, never is it suggested that it is an alien pet left behind (yes, that was suggested in the first film) and for some reason it no longer makes vampires. Those who are dead seem to remain dead, rather than rising as be-fanged minions of the goat sucking one. There is an exception, a twist on the entire thing that I don’t intend to spoil – I don’t think that would be fair on the film despite my reservations about it.

Charles' notebook

The film begins at a psychiatric unit and Detective Steve Andrews (Bruce Shaw) arrives to meet one of the patients. No one seems to be about, he hears a scream, sees a light flicker and is about to investigate when a patient bursts out of the room followed by two orderlies. The patient is Charles Parker (Loren Taylor), the only survivor of the previous film. They sedate him. The doctor (Hugh McChord, who played a different character in the first film) shows Andrews a journal, written by Charles, that goes on about the Chupacabras. Andrews wanted to speak to him as he felt he might know something of a kidnapping (actually a red herring fed to the police, it would seem). As the doctor and the policeman speak, Charles manages to get hold of a scalpel, kills the orderlies and escapes.

El Chupacabra

Charles gets to a barn. There is a key on a nearby tree and he seems to believe someone is locked in the building. He gets the key, unlocks the barn and the chupacabra is free. From thereon-in the chupacabra starts attacking people, be they random campers, those actually out looking for it (in the case of the barn owner, his friend and a local priest) or just folk wandering around due to the kidnapping. The kidnap victim is a young cryptozoologist, Laurie (Megan Welch) who happens to be the daughter of Andrews but the subject of a plot by several of the main characters to extract money from the company of her stepdad. It is a convoluted series of double crosses that didn’t really work that well.

Holding her breath

From her, however, we discover that the large eyes of the chupacabra make it very sensitive to light – she has been kidnapped by using a light gun that pulses a beam of light that temporarily blinds the victim and causes nausea and migraine, guess what will be used against the light sensitive chupacabra? However, despite this the chupacabra cannot see very well at night and so tracks its victims by breath, leading to a couple of Hong Kong movie moments, unfortunately without the associated comedy. The only other real lore is that this sucker flies, quite a bit.

in the light

In the last film they kept the creature out of shot as much as possible. In this it is more featured and it looks rubbish. The acting is poor and the kidnapping was a poor backdrop. I enjoyed the first film, despite its poor quality, this one wasn’t nearly as enjoyable. Thus the issues with it become more apparent than in the last movie.

2.5 out of 10

The IMDb page is here.