I think it is a reasonably good thriller but also has significant flaws. The first part involving the stranger terrorizing Julia - first when she was babysitting and years later by entering her home – was quite scary. But then Julia disappeared after getting shot and the story turned back to the detective work by Jill Johnson and the old fat cop just like the original film.
The plot and setting are quite implausible. The villain was supposed to be a locksmith as well as a ventriloquist – I would say a rather unusual combination of skills. I admit that I don’t know too much about ventriloquism. But from what I remember about performances by ventriloquists, they were like the one shown in the film, with the ventriloquist “speaking” through either another person or a puppet by his side. But can ventriloquism be so effective that you appear to be speaking outside the door while you are in fact inside the house, or even upstairs doing some bad things to the children? The guy was even able to camouflage himself and hide inside a wall – so I believe he acquired some ninja skills too. Nevertheless, while it is easy to frighten people by entering their homes while they are not in, I would never taunt anyone when he is actually at home and carrying a gun! Any one doing what the villain did in the film probably won’t last very long.
The motives of the villain are not only unknown, but there are inconsistencies in what he did. After abducting the children, what made him fixated on Julia and why did he wait several years before terrorizing her again? In the film, he first shot Julia and later shot Jill Johnson too. Why did he do that? For example, if he wanted to see Julia suffer by torturing her mentally, then why did he shoot her? If he had wanted to kill these two women, there were numerous occasions he could have done so in the film. It simply made no sense.
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