NOT KNOWING WHERE SHE LIVED ONLY added more fear about what she could do to us. My friends and I were afraid of her to the point if we saw her walking on the sidewalk towards us, we would cross the street to the other side to avoid making eye contact with her. She would be spotted around the neighborhood, always pulling a shopping cart behind her that usually had a bag or two in it. I never saw her around my elementary school, but I would see her sometimes walking down my street which always scared me. If I was alone, I would run back inside our home; if a couple of friends were with me, we would hide and watch as she made her way down the street. Her gray hair was usually piled high on top of her head, always covered with some type of hat. Even with keeping my distance away from her, I could see that her eyeballs looked too big for their sockets; they always looked like they were about to fall out, which only added an extra level of creepiness to her. There were a few large moles on her face and neck that were dark, giving the appearance of attached leeches that were sucking the blood out of her skin. Another distinctive feature was her short, bowed legs. She looked like she could easily roll off her legs.      THE FIRST TIME I SAW HER, I did not immediately think she was a terror. To a very young me, she looked quite different from other women, but I did not have any opinion about her. It was the older kids of the neighborhood who told me and my friends to stay away from her because she was a mean witch. Being as young as we were, we believed them and started to follow their lead. I remember one winter when I was walking home from school, I saw a couple of older boys hiding behind a parked car. The woman was walking across the street from them and as she passed them the boys stood up, threw snowballs at her then ran down the alley away from her. I did not know what to do; however, I was grateful that I was ahead of her; so, she knew the snowballs did not come from me. Based on what I was told, I was afraid she might kidnap and torture me. The entire time I lived in the neighborhood, every kid knew about her. It was not until my high school reunion where I found out she was a friend’s grandmother. How in the world did such a story about her come to fruition? I had to wonder if it got started the same way as the story did in this horror thriller.      THOUGH A POOR AREA OF CHICAGO was recently gentrified, there still was lingering a story about a horrific event and what was created from it. No one in the neighborhood was safe. With Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (The Matrix Resurrections, The Trial of the Chicago 7) as Anthony McCoy, Teyonah Parris (If Beale Street Could Talk, Dear White People) as Brianna Cartwright, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett (The Kid Who Would be King, Misfits-TV) as Troy Cartwright, Colman Domingo (Selma, Lincoln) as William Burke and Kyle Kaminsky (DriverX) as Grady Greenburg; this sequel presented a fresh, new approach to the franchise. I thought the filming and the style of the film was a great contrast to the story line. Due to the years that have passed, I did not have a good memory of the original film; so, I am not sure if I missed any inside story/event in this movie. There were several scenes of blood, but they were brief and not in too much detail, which I appreciated. I enjoyed the suspense aspect with its steady buildup. Based on the things I saw in this film; I much prefer sticking to my old neighborhood than a re-gentrified one, like the one depicted in this picture.

3 stars