They are nowhere to b seen in WT1 even when the cannibals are searching fior the humans and they scower like the whole forest yet never come across them and as the two films don't take that much time apart and ma & pa are old enough to be around during part 1, hve a family and home etc ?
shareThey were on a family vacation to DisneyWorld at the time.
The real answer is that the writers hadn't thought of them yet, but if you want to include them in the continuity of the first film, they were probably just off doing their own thing somewhere else in the vast wilderness. Saw-tooth, One-eye, and three-finger all probably thought that they could handle things by themselves.
Do you have any idea how embarrassing it would have been if they had gone to Ma and Pa for assistance. No doubt Ma and Pa would never let them forget it, and the three of them would become the laughing stocks of the backwoods cannibal community.
Well, it's looks like a big florest.
But yeah, continuity issues. I even notice that the creepy family has flashlights and the trio from the first movie use torches.