Bare Wench 2: Book of Babes (4 Stars)

In October of 1998, four sorority sisters disappeared in the woods near Bareassville, Delaware while shooting a documentary. A week later their footage was found.

A year later their footage was used to pad out Part 2.

That's funny. But Jim Wynorski is being unfair on himself. The "padding out" is only a three-minute recap of the final scenes of the first film. It's not out of place, in my opinion, since it sets the stage for the sequel. It's just as appropriate as the "what happened previously" segments at the beginning of television episodes. This at least gives us a glimpse of Julie K. Smith, who doesn't appear in the film after the recap is over.

This film takes place a year after the first expedition to find the Bare Wench. The only person who returned alive was Lunk. Nikki, one of the four girls in the original expedition, has a twin sister called Nicky. Nikki and Nicky? That must have been a confusing family. Nicky has assembled a team of girls to return to the mountain to search for her sister, once more taking Lunk along as a guide.

This film is good, but it doesn't live up to the quality of the first film. The jokes from the original film are repeated, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but in some cases you would only recognise them as jokes if you had watched the first film. Jim Wynorski unnecessarily adds elements that parody "Scream" and "I know what you did last summer".

In my review of the first film I forgot to mention that Andy Sidaris appeared in the opening scenes playing the role of Dick Bigdickian. He returns once more in this film. In the first film he was a poor man living in a small apartment, but now he's living in a luxury mansion and is able to fund the new expedition. He says that he has become a millionaire through his web site, www.barewenchproject.com. No, the site doesn't really exist, I already checked. Seeing Andy as an actor makes me happy. The last film he directed was "Return to Savage Beach" in 1998. The Bare Wench Project films were made from 2000 to 2002. They were a good reason for him to return from retirement.

I get the impression that the film was rushed. It doesn't pay the same attention to detail as the first film. In the first film the camera was always held by one of the team, either Nikki, Toni or Lunk. In this film the camera is usually held by Nicky, but in some scenes, especially towards the end, we see the whole team in the picture, so we have to ask who is holding the camera.

Sadly, this film is also out of print, and only available at collector prices. I'm glad I bought it when it was new. It might not be a classic like the first film, but it's still worth watching.