Let's judge a film for the quality of the actual film, shall we? All subjectiveness around the irl drama aside, this film was surprisingly different from the first one, and a pleasantly surprising at that. Its very rare for me to gasp out loud, scream, and laugh a handful of times in one movie and for that it's worth 5 stars purely for the entertainment value.
I will say, there are a few unbelievable aspects to the reality of a murderer being set free before their 20 year prison sentence was up, but I digress. I can look over that and some other things because of the amount of shock, thriller, and mystery the rest of the movie had going for. I just did NOT expect them to take it as far as they did in some scenes that it gave me A24 vibes. At first I thought it was a whodunnit murder mystery but this film actually has a plot and plot twist after twist with some A24 twisted vibes with a lovely touch of Anna Kendrick's humor. I love the direction they took on this sequel, and I admit I didn't even know there would be a sequel since the first one wrapped up pretty with a bow. But I'm glad they took this direction! Murder, revenge, mystery, sick plot twists, what more could you ask for to be entertained? Don't let the 1 star bombs deter you from this. It was a very enjoyable and unexpected ride.