Horror Movie Review: The Terror Within II (1991)

Released in 1989, The Terror Within is a charmingly campy monster movie that made no pretences to be anything but trash. If lumbering mutant beasts, buckets of blood, mutant rape, alien babies being born and throats being ripped open is your cup of tea then The Terror Within provides.

So, more of the same should be a winner, right?

Released two years later in 1991, The Terror Within II is Andrew Stevens’ baby. Not only reprising his role as David, but also directing the film and writing the story. Which major elements of, he just copied from the original.

Set in a post-apocalyptic future where a plague wiped out most of humanity. Some managed to survive in bunkers deep underground, but mutants now roam the Earth killing anyone they find and spreading an infectious deadly disease. For the last human colony under the Rocky Mountains, a cure must be found, but it requires gathering components on the surface.

Good thing David Pennington (Stevens) is still around, not just a scientist anymore, but a Rambo-like character with the fakest fake beard ever. While on the surface, he runs into more survivors under attack from mutants. He is able to save one, a young woman, and before you can even blink, they’ve in love and having sex.

Why is this important? Because she’s going to end up pregnant. However, David should probably have gotten a paternity test as the gestation period is very short, and back in the bunker, she gives birth to a mutant that breaks out, grows up quickly, and starts rampaging through the last remaining members of humanity. Who were already on death’s door as the mutant disease was rampaging through them.

As I’m sure you can tell, this film does a terrible job of making David look like a hero and making his relationship with this woman questionable from the start. That it has a happy ending, following the death of just about everyone, is simply hilarious. It’s just one aspect of this sequel that is poorly thought-out and there are so many.

Perhaps though, the most egregious, is that fact that it’s really dull for three quarters of its runtime, then when we finally get mutant action, it’s a complete rehash of what we experienced in the first film. Except far less creative. The first film wasn’t great, but it got away with its flaws by being a product of its time. There’s no such excuse for this sequel.