Poland’s first slasher sequel Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight 2 is available on streaming services, but just how gory and scary is the horror-comedy? Released in 2020, Poland’s first slasher movie Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight surprised horror fans by becoming one of Netflix’s most-streamed titles during the month of its release. An extremely bloody throwback to the gory backwoods slashers of the ‘80s, Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight also boasted a comedic edge that ensured the horror kept its tongue planted in cheek throughout its brisk runtime.
Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight’s outsized popularity has resulted in a sequel for the slasher, prompting fans to wonder whether the new outing will match the original movie’s levels of onscreen gore. Luckily, fans of the series can rest easy. Where Netflix’s recent Night Teeth offered little gore and fewer scares, Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight 2 takes a different approach to the horror genre. Although light on tension and terror, Poland's new holiday scare is extremely heavy on gruesome, over-the-top gore.
The slasher sequel is stomach-churning-ly explicit from start to finish, even though little of Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight 2’s violence is intended to truly terrify viewers. With numerous instances of intestines being ripped out, limbs being severed, and heads being torn off, there is no denying that director Bartosz M. Kowalski—who is back after helming the original as well—has created an incredibly gory addition to the slasher franchise. A female character has their entire face ripped off on-screen before getting their head stomped on in graphic detail, while another is stabbed in the eye with a knife. That’s even more gore than Netflix’s bleak, brutal No One Gets Out Alive, so it may surprise viewers unfamiliar with the franchise to discover that, despite all the grotesque violence, Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight 2 is not a scary horror movie.
The plentiful violence is more goofy than disturbing and owes a creative debt to Troma studios, Peter Jackson’s early movies Braindead and Bad Taste, and director Adam Green’s Hatchet series. While there is a lot of killing and dismemberment, it is mostly in service of tasteless laughs and the few sequences that attempt to build genuine tension aren’t particularly effective. However, there’s no denying that Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight 2 is perfectly able to disgust viewers, if not terrify them. While fellow 2021 slasher Halloween Kills features a huge body count, that more self-serious Hollywood horror doesn't come close to being as truly disgusting as Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight 2’s more graphic scenes.
As implied by the presence of a full-frontal mutant sex scene, Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight 2 is more concerned about making viewers laugh or cringe in disgust than the slasher sequel is in leaving horror fans unable to sleep. As a result, the Polish release makes for a welcome reprieve from the recent glut of overly serious, socially-conscious horror efforts, even if the film can’t quite nail the trick of James Wan’s Malignant by managing to be both laughably silly and surprisingly scary at the same time. The intense gore ensures Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight 2 will not be for everyone, but for fans of gonzo gross-out horror, the slasher sequel is a funny, gruesome endurance test that won’t scare anyone too much.