White Noise 2

(2007)***

One day Abe Dale is having lunch with his creepy-ass son and wife in a small diner. As this trio enjoy their fast food a man walks up to them, pulls out a gun, murmurs something indecipherable, and proceeds to kill Abe’s creepy-child and wife, before killing himself. Fast-forward 3 months later to a grief-stricken Abe. Unable to handle his bereavement he decides to end his life from the largest pill bottle I’ve ever seen. Of course, as most of us in the mental health field already know, this rarely works. Abe complains of seeing auras around people and a doctor who specializes in near-death experiences explains to Abe that this is normal and this symptom will eventually fade away. However this does not happen. Over the next few days Abe starts to see auras around some people, but not all. After some terrible accidents Abe realizes that he is able to see who is marked for death. At the beginning of the film we are informed that given the sheer volume of people in NYC, every day you walk by 1.2 people who will die by the end of the day. Using his new gift for good, Abe begins to save those marked for death (e.g., pushing someone from out of the way of an out of control car, etc). This is all well and good until Abe realizes that something terrible happens to the people that he saves, which now explains why his family was gunned down.

I really wasn’t expecting to like White Noise 2, nor did I want to after the shit-fest that was the original White Noise, but damnit, I’m appalled to admit that I did! True for every good scare there’s a cheap, stupid scare, but the film works, mostly due to the interesting Ring-esque rules set up here. I found myself frustrated at times because there’s a really fun film here that is weakened by some stupid stuff that could easily be excised from the script. There’s one sequence where Abe, briefly dead, floats up into the heavens to be with his wife and child – this was so embarrassing I was watching it between my fingers. Still for the most part this is a fast-paced little mystery that must be solved before terrible things happen (isn’t that always the way?).