“Sarah Palin is Back”
Sequels in this genre are usually a disappointment, especially when the title character has been quite thoroughly and convincingly destroyed at the end of the first movie.
Even assuming there’s a plausible stem-cell cloning or Twin-Sister-Seeking-Revenge gimmick to explain Sarah’s “resurrection,” this film—like its 2008 predecessor—bears the thankless burden of milking midnight chills from a low-budget retread of Fred Thompson’s Attack of the 50-Foot Wingnut franchise. Where Thompson’s eerily-reanimated TV politician embodied echoes of Angus Scrimm’s rigored afterworldliness and genuinely menacing presence in the Phantasm series, Sarah is only ever unintentionally and awkwardly threatening, like Godzilla with an inner-ear problem.
Aside from dating-age teenagers and career GOP politicos, Hockey Mom II is unlikely to evoke shrieks of terror from anyone other than the backers who financed this ill-starred celluloid campaign re-launch that literally Stinks-on-Ice.