A Killer Birthday Party
Ah, birthdays. A time for cake, laughter, and—if you’re really lucky—being hunted through a morgue by a seven-foot-tall religious psychopath wielding surgical tools. See No Evil 2 reminds us that no party is complete without a WWE superstar resurrected from the dead. Directed by Jen and Sylvia Soska, the delightfully twisted twins behind American Mary, this direct-to-video sequel to the 2006 slasher film gives Jacob Goodnight (played with all the subtlety of a freight train by Glenn “Kane” Jacobs) a new lease on life and a fresh pile of corpses to stack.
It’s a film that takes place in a morgue, stars the Soska Sisters, and features Kane impaling people with embalming equipment—so really, it’s less a movie and more a mood.
The Plot: Dead Man Walking (Again)
The story picks up right where the first film left off, with Jacob Goodnight’s body being carted off to the city morgue. You’d think after being impaled, shot, and dropped down a shaft, the man might finally call it quits, but no—Jacob apparently took his resurrection cues from The Undertaker and decided death was just another work shift.
Our heroine, Amy (Danielle Harris, horror royalty from Halloween 4 and Hatchet II), works at the morgue and is stuck doing the night shift on her birthday. Her friends, being the considerate types, decide to surprise her by throwing a birthday bash surrounded by corpses. Because nothing says “party” like cake next to cadavers.
Amy’s coworkers include Seth (Kaj-Erik Eriksen), a sweet but awkward guy with a crush on her, and Holden (Michael Eklund), their creepily calm boss who seems way too enthusiastic about refrigerating bodies. When Amy’s friends—her brother Will, ditzy Kayla, and the goth goddess Tamara (Katharine Isabelle)—show up with booze and bad decisions, things spiral into the kind of chaos only slasher movies and office Christmas parties can provide.
Then, of course, Jacob wakes up.
One minute he’s lying on a slab, the next he’s butchering people and accessorizing with a burn victim’s mask and surgical instruments like he’s in an episode of Project Runway: Homicide Edition.
From there, See No Evil 2 goes full throttle into its morgue massacre, cutting the power, the lights, and anyone who crosses Jacob’s path. It’s fast, mean, and strangely fun—like an adult version of Operation, except every mistake involves evisceration.
Kane as Jacob Goodnight: WWE’s Most Devout Serial Killer
Kane returns as Jacob Goodnight, a killer so large he makes Michael Myers look like he should be shopping in the children’s section. Kane plays Jacob with the physical menace of a wrecking ball and the emotional depth of one too.
His weapon of choice? Whatever’s lying around the morgue. Scalpel, bone saw, embalming tube—it’s all fair game. His mother may have taught him that sin leads to eternal damnation, but she clearly never mentioned proper sterilization techniques.
What’s refreshing here is that Kane seems to be having a blast. He moves like a tank on a mission from God, grunting biblical nonsense and impaling sinners with gleeful purpose. When he bellows “Why would God help you?” at one of his victims, it’s less a theological query and more a threat best answered with “I’m sorry, I’ll stop breathing now.”
The Cast: A Morgue Full of Misfits
The real treat in See No Evil 2 isn’t the carnage—it’s the cast.
-
Danielle Harris brings the same fierce energy she’s had since Halloween. She’s tough, practical, and spends the film running around in morgue scrubs that look like they were designed by Hot Topic. She’s the kind of final girl who’s more likely to stab the killer with a bone saw than trip while screaming.
-
Katharine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps, American Mary) steals every scene she’s in as Tamara, a girl so turned on by serial killers that she literally tries to have sex next to one. It’s that kind of character choice that makes you think, “Finally, someone in a horror movie with hobbies.”
-
Chelan Simmons plays Kayla, the perky blonde who could out-scream a foghorn, while Greyston Holt is the overprotective brother Will, whose main contribution is dying spectacularly.
-
And then there’s Michael Eklund as Holden, a man who looks like he sleeps in the morgue freezers for fun. He’s so unnervingly calm that you start wondering if he’s the real danger—until Jacob Goodnight shows up and makes that question moot.
It’s a cast that knows exactly what kind of movie they’re in, and they play it straight-faced but with a twinkle of camp that makes the body count oddly charming.
The Soska Sisters: Twisted, Talented, and Totally in on the Joke
Jen and Sylvia Soska direct See No Evil 2 with the same gory elegance they brought to American Mary. They clearly adore horror and have an uncanny ability to make the grotesque beautiful—like a Hallmark card made out of human skin.
The sisters lean hard into atmosphere, filling the morgue with flickering lights, stainless steel corridors, and enough embalming fluid to drown a small town. The lighting is moody, the kills are inventive, and the pacing never lags.
Best of all, the Soskas bring a sly sense of humor to the proceedings. There’s an almost romantic undertone to the bloodshed, as if they’re whispering to the audience, “Isn’t this all deliciously ridiculous?” It is.
Death by Design: The Kills
Let’s be honest—nobody watches See No Evil 2 for the plot. You come for the kills, and the film does not disappoint.
Jacob Goodnight treats the morgue like his own personal art gallery. He strangles Kayla in the bathroom, skewers Carter during sex (safe word: “Jesus!”), and impales Will in a scene so gruesome it could double as a PSA against birthdays.
The pièce de résistance comes when Jacob is finally stabbed with an embalming nozzle and pumped full of chemicals until his veins look like glow sticks. It’s grotesque, it’s beautiful, and it’s exactly the kind of poetic justice only the Soska Sisters could make look stylish.
The Humor: Gallows Giggles
Despite all the bloodletting, See No Evil 2 is surprisingly funny. Not in a wink-at-the-camera way, but in the kind of darkly sardonic humor that horror fans live for.
Tamara’s morbid fascination with serial killers? Hilarious. The party in the morgue? A stroke of genius. The scene where Kane puts on a burn victim’s mask like he’s prepping for a haunted Tinder date? Iconic.
Even the deaths have a grim playfulness to them. The Soskas treat every impalement like a punchline, and somehow, it works. The film understands that slasher movies aren’t just about fear—they’re about spectacle, absurdity, and the strange joy of watching chaos unfold with a side of cake.
The Ending: Seeing Is Believing
In true horror fashion, just when you think it’s over, Jacob Goodnight rises again—because apparently embalming fluid just makes him stronger. After gouging out poor Seth’s eyes (irony noted), Jacob delivers his final line: “I see it now.”
It’s a clever little joke, because no, he doesn’t see. And neither do we, really. But that’s part of the charm.
The closing montage pans lovingly over the corpses of everyone who didn’t make it, like a twisted yearbook: Tamara—Most Likely to Make Out Next to a Corpse. Will—Best Brother Until He Was Impaled. Amy—Gone but Never Forgotten, Except by the Sequels That Never Came.
Final Verdict
⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ — Four embalmed hearts out of five.
See No Evil 2 is the rare horror sequel that improves on the original. It’s slick, gory, darkly funny, and self-aware enough to know it’s trash—but it’s premium trash, the kind you display proudly on your shelf between Hatchet II and Maniac Cop.
Kane proves once again that he’s the slasher we never knew we needed, and the Soska Sisters prove they can make even a morgue look sexy.
So dim the lights, pour yourself a drink, and remember: when the Soskas invite you to a birthday party in a morgue… RSVP “yes.” Because death has never been this fun.
