After witnessing the onset death of his actress mother in a most implausible way (what movie crew would use a metal fence with their actors near electricity?), child of divorce, Jeff (Furlong), is off to live with his dad permanently and must accept the fact that his parents will never get back together. Or will they? Director Lambert makes the returned dead a bit more interesting this time by making them more intelligent and cunning. Unfortunately this was primarily used as a means to portray a lot of cheesy and cheap "shocks" and even unexplained motives for the Gus (Clancy Brown) character. Gone is the endearment and tragedy of the original; substituted with excessive gore f/x and spiteful characters. Furlong, who managed to impress in his early roles with characters who had similar family of origin problems (Terminator 2, American Heart, Brain Scan, A Home of Our Own), doesn't do much here outside of sullen glares, cuss and cry "Mom!" (literally) a number of times. Overall cheesy fun for horror fans but a flop in the character and scare departments. Hard to believe Mary Lambert, director of the first film, is responsible for this major disappointment of a sequel to the superior original. The ending suggests a setup for a sequel. I suppose we can all feel lucky this franchise remained buried after all.