PLOT: On a quest to recover the scattered pieces of a medallion capable of ending demonic control over Earth, demon hunter Taryn Barker must travel through time to change the past and save the future.
REVIEW: A decade ago, director Zoe Kavanagh made her feature debut with an independent action horror film called Taryn Barker: Demon Hunter, which blended elements of Underworld, The Evil Dead, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer to tell the story of a young Irish woman (played by Niamh Hogan) who was recruited into a life of fighting against the forces of evil after her younger sister was murdered. It was an interesting, entertaining movie and a cool, promising start for Kavanagh’s directing career. It’s been a long wait, but Kavanagh has finally returned with her second feature – and she has brought Taryn Barker / Niamh Hogan along with her!
Kavanagh has made a steady stream of short films in the years between her two features, and Hogan has also continued working in the entertainment industry, racking up both acting and stunt credits, working on the likes of The Marine 6, Vikings, Viking: Valhalla, and more. The years of extra experience really shine through for both of them: Hogan delivers a great performance as her seasoned-yet-irreverent demon hunter character (inspired by the likes of Ash Williams and Jack Burton), while Kavanagh has made a film that’s a step up from her debut feature in every category. The story is better, the pace is quicker, the action has improved, and an increase in budget has also enabled her to bring more impressive special effects to the screen.
Taryn Barker is a demon hunter, but this sequel widens the scope and has her facing off with a variety of threats. There are demonic creatures, but the opening sequence features vampires, genre icon Lisa Wilcox (of A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 and 5) gets to chew some scenery and give a really fun performance as a “time witch,” and there’s even an undead slasher who stalks a campground in the 1980s! Given that Friday the 13th is my favorite franchise, is it any wonder that I enjoyed Time 2 Kill more than its predecessor when it uses time travel magic to drop Taryn into a slasher-haunted campground in the ‘80s?
Demon Hunter: Time 2 Kill was partially filmed in Ireland, as the first movie was, but this time the production crew also came over to the United States (Kentucky, to be exact) because Kavanagh felt that a summer camp slasher needed to be filmed in the U.S. After an evil higher-up (who she communicates with through holograms reminiscent of Star Wars movies) orders her to stop Taryn’s relentless search for a powerful medallion, time witch Elysia Cronika (Wilcox) zaps Taryn – and some hapless youngsters – back to the late ‘80s, just in time for them to become prey for an undead slasher named Lucien Krull (Lar Mclachlan) at a place called Camp Beaver. (Where Lucien worked as the groundskeeper, until he joined a cult and started killing campers.)
Although we do have people getting killed at a camp, the movie is a bit too fast and wild to really lean into the camp slasher vibe for very long, and – aside from Angel Nichole Bradford as Deborah, who sort of becomes Taryn’s protégé along the way – the camper characters don’t make much of an impression (except the unlikeable ones). But the action is plentiful, and I appreciate that any camp slasher elements made it into the movie at all. That’s not what I expected from a Taryn Barker sequel.
This all builds up to a really fun, time-hopping conclusion. In the end, I was very glad that Kavanagh and Hogan had decided to bring Taryn Barker back after all this time, and I’m left hoping that this isn’t the last we’ll see the demon hunter. In the meantime, I hope we’ll see another Kavanagh movie much sooner than the decade wait we had to endure between the two Demon Hunter movies, whether her next feature has Taryn Barker in it or not.
And if you’re wondering, I don’t think watching Taryn Barker: Demon Hunter first is a requirement for enjoying Demon Hunter: Time 2 Kill. The first movie gives Taryn’s back story and the set-up for her situation, but new viewers should be able to dive right into this sequel without any issues.
Demon Hunter: Time 2 Kill is available on VOD, Blu-ray, and DVD.
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