Raw 2: The Diary of Grete Müller (2014) (Germany)

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Sole survivor of the last outing into the cursed woods haunted by the Devil, Ivana, is still haunted by the events years ago when her friends perished in the haunted woods. She has set up cameras all over her apartment to capture the supernatural occurrences which plague her even now. She posts all of it online for her followers. She’s also obsessive about the woods and the mystery behind the lack of investigation into the deaths of multiple people in the same patch of woods she managed to survive. She’s contacted by Annika, an actress who claims she released the viral video of the couple being attacked in the woods which brought Ivana and her two friends to the area in the first place, and she requests to meet up with Ivana. A TV station also reaches out to her because they want to do a documentary on the original feature (the first documentary being a popular hit after its release) but the catch is they want to shoot at the location where the awfulness went down. Ivana agrees to go along with it when it’s presented as a way to get her truth out there (the press has labeled her a liar and called Raw: The Curse of Grete Müller fake) but she also insists she gets a say over the final report before it airs. The actress turns up claiming that the original footage that sparked the documentary was from her demo reel and is upset they used it without permission for their horror film. Ivana insists her experience was not a work of fiction but Annika is sure she’s full of shit. Annika is working along with a program called Legend Busters to publicly expose and embarrass Ivana and Legend Busters has lied to Ivana about allowing her to tell the truth. But, as we can see from Ivana’s home video cameras, that devilish goat-man is hanging around and this trip into the woods is going to end badly for the lying television production, the vindictive actress and the lone survivor of the last excursion. One of the crew goes missing, the group doesn’t leave in time to avoid nightfall despite Ivana’s protests and history repeats itself but this time more than a couple folks are just asking to be murdered by the claws of whatever the hell calls the woods home. What it lacks in the original’s atmosphere, it makes up with a better plot and an interesting continuity for Ivana as she deals with survivor’s guilt and the bullshit of a public that’s looking to ruin her. She may have just been a barely etched out character placed in a ridiculous situation the first time out, but this time you’re actually rooting for her. It also lets things go a little bit further off the rails when the preternatural shit hits the fan and fleshes the threat out a bit. So, it does exactly what it should be doing as a sequel. I know I said I’d wait to check out the sequels but Tubi giveth so I taketh. I don’t recall a diary showing up anywhere.