As much as I loved 100 Monsters, Spook Warfare almost disappointed me as much. It feels like a bit of a goofy film, and I get that this is the point of the series, the same way Godzilla went from a dark film to ‘who is he fighting this time?’

It starts out promisingly enough, a couple of treasure hunters unwittingly awake a long dormant Babylonian vampiric demon, and it takes flight, heading for Japan. Blood and terror seem to be on the docket, as the demon kills and takes the form of a local lord and begins to assert his power.

His observed by and comes into confrontation with Kappa (Gen Koruki), a water imp, who lives in a pond on the lord’s land. Kappa is beaten and flees to confer with his fellow monsters about what to about the demon, fearing it will give Japanese Monsters a bad name.

Meanwhile, the lord’s daughter, Chie (Akane Kawaski) and a samurai who cares for her, Shinhachiro (Yoshihiko Aoyama) try to figure out what is going on, and stop the vampire themselves.

The film brings back all the monsters we saw in the first film, including the one-legged fan with the over-sized tongue, and the long-necked women. In addition we get a new character, a two-faced woman, one face beautiful, and the other on the back-side of her head, incredibly hideous.

The film moves fast and quick, with a 79-minute runtime, and walks a fine line between solid effects work, and some questionable narrative and editing choices. It just didn’t catch my interest as much as the first one. There’s some fun stuff, but it’s just not as engaging as the previous film.

Now I’m not sure what to hope for the third film, Along with Ghosts.

That being said, I do like the character designs, and man, there could have been something to this one. It was fun, but wasn’t all it could have been. To be clear, I didn’t hate this one, but after how much I loved the first film, this one didn’t resonate with me as much as I wish it had.

I do like the way the film is executed, and its production design, it’s playful, just not everything it could have been. It could have leaned more into the humor and scares but instead plays it straight and simple without nuance, almost like a monsters united, or monster Avengers.

I am really intrigued by this genre, and will be curious to see what else it holds. Let’s see how Along with Ghosts goes…