icking up immediately after the events of the previous film, gore-drenched young woman Grace Elizabeth Le Domas – nee MacCaulley (Samara Weaving) – lurches out of a burning mansion, nursing countless wounds and contending with severe marital trauma. She just survived a peculiar initiation ritual with the in-laws from hell (perhaps literally), like in “Meet the Parents” but with a bloodthirsty, supernatural twist. And, quite cleverly, as Grace slips in and out of consciousness, the film employs a flashback gimmick to catch audiences up on her fight to the death against her new husband Alex and the rest of the Le Domas clan.

A short time later, in a hospital in Connecticut, this sole survivor is understandably under suspicion of arson and murder. The authorities have token sympathy for what she experienced, which matches the disappointment and disapproval of her estranged sister Faith (Kathryn Newton), who reluctantly arrives only because she was still listed as an emergency contact. Unfortunately for Faith, she’s about to be dragged into another iteration of the deadly Hide-and-Seek game alongside her sibling, as an added pawn for the incomparably powerful Danforth family (headed by Chester [David Cronenberg, a natural in any macabre role] and his ambitious offspring Titus [Shawn Hatosy] and Ursula [Sarah Michelle Gellar]) to maintain control of their devil-worshipping council. “You are so going to jail.”

Feeling a bit like a John Wick movie or its recent knock-off “The Killer’s Game,” early sequences feature families from China, Spain, New Jersey, and England flying in to a straggling lodge and its golf course to participate in a plot that effectively rehashes the one from before (itself a people-hunting yarn that has been seen in countless prior pictures). Strangely, it’s not doubly exciting or doubly surprising, since the satanic stuff has already been exposed and the dual protagonists are once again suspiciously capable of both fighting back and enduring a great deal of bodily damage. Weaving and Newton are amusing to watch, generating an ample serving of sisterly bonding and teamwork, but the increase in silliness makes their plight even less believable than before. It’s actually notable – in a bad way – that the serial-killer-type stalking going on has achieved higher levels of frivolousness and comedy. “This can’t be happening again!”

Despite the inattention to rules seen in the original, this sequel sets out a bunch of fresh ones and then mostly follows them – with unlikely adherence forced by otherworldly hands (and explained by a quietly minacious lawyer played by Elijah Wood). It’s just as unsporting, however, carrying on with a plot that meanders with the alternation of unwelcome repetition (like pointy objects penetrating flesh) and acceptable callbacks (such as Grace re-donning her carnage-sodden wedding dress), boasting slimmer chances yet heroic outcomes. Sadly, with its overlong runtime, the pacing suffers markedly, opting to include so much stalling that viewers will surely be shaking their fists at the screen; characters are written to be outrageously inept, or lucky, or immune to blood-loss, or prone to inaction and lengthy expositions at inconvenient moments, or simply unwilling to kill one another when it would be wisest (made more ridiculous when changes of heart a couple of scenes later suggest that moral dilemmas were always wafer-thin).

It also stretches the limits of belief when the two leads are continually stabbed and beaten and tossed about to the point that they’re virtually unable to stand, only to then engage in subsequent, vigorous, physical battles mere seconds later. Sustained head injuries never seem to slow anyone down. At least there’s still some fun to be had in the revenge fantasy scenes, where irredeemably wicked villains meet brutal reprisals, carried out with a dash of humor and a glob of insincerity.

– Mike Massie