I recently acquired this via the full-frame Image DVD in anticipation of the HTF Halloween challenge; I knew the film was nowhere near as well regarded as the 1977 original – but I wasn't aware that Craven only made it because he was hard-up for cash, that he later disowned the result and that the picture was even shelved for two years (by which time he had re-acquired his stature with A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET [1984] which itself developed into a franchise and, ironically, the director would also return to much later after another lean period in his career)!<br /><br />Anyway, this sequel is really quite lame as these things go (especially given that the original director is involved): apparently, there was so little plot to work with that the makers felt the need to pad out the running-time with gratuitous recollections of some of the highlights from the first entry – including an outrageous (hence, justly infamous) dream sequence by Beast, the heroic Alsatian! Similarly, the mutant cannibals this time around are relegated to just two – Michael Berryman's Pluto, who's shown to have somehow survived two separate vicious attacks by the dog(!), and yet another relative (brother to Jupiter from the first film and, thus, Pluto's uncle), dubbed "The Reaper", and who appears out of nowhere.<br /><br />The motocross-enthusiast protagonists are among the most obnoxious heroes to feature in this type of film – the kind that you don't care whether they live or die. In fact, just about the only characters to engage our interest are a blind girl and Janus Blythe's Ruby herself – who has been domesticated in the interim (at the end of the original, she had saved a baby from a fate worse than death and, as seen in an alternate ending on Anchor Bay's SE of the first film, had even joined the surviving members of the cannibals' victims). Though Robert Houston (Bobby) is also on hand, his character is conveniently put out of the way at the very beginning: he freaks out when a motor race is set to take place in the desert near where his family was attacked all those years ago and opts to stay behind – Ruby (who's even changed her name) and Beast, however, go along and, though the former's confession about her past isn't taken very seriously by her companions, both of course prove instrumental in the new victims' safe-keeping.<br /><br />Incidentally, Craven knew when he had a good thing going and, so, reproduced here two death methods from the original – Berryman himself, in fact, expires yet again at the hands of Beast (though he's met with the fate that had previously befallen his brother Mercury), while The Reaper's come-uppance is an even more elaborate and protracted stunt than Jupiter's demise in the 1977 film and which would have been more appropriate for a Road Runner cartoon! By the way, Ruby herself inexplicably vanishes from the proceedings during the last third or so!