WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight 2, now streaming on Netflix.
2013's Warm Bodies was a love story about R (Nicholas Hoult), a zombie, slowly regaining his humanity. He fell for Julie (Teresa Palmer), and both tried to navigate a landscape where bloodthirsty Boneys (killer zombies) and war-mongering humans tried to kill their romance, with a major secret driving a wedge between them. Now, come Netflix's Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight 2, the Polish horror movie tries to remix this film, but it fails as it botches the emotional connection of the romance.
In Warm Bodies, R hid from Julie that he killed her boyfriend, Perry, early on. This added conflict and saw her leave him, only to try to protect him from her dad, Grigio, and the military because she realized certain zombies were becoming human again. This created a powerful dynamic where mankind had to show they weren't the monster.
Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight 2 places its own twist on this by telling the story from Zosia's perspective. After being the heroine and fighting off aliens in the first film, she's now infected and ends up feeding on Adam, a dimwitted cop and outcast, eventually turning him.
The first problem with these mutants is there's no nuance. Zosia isn't shown as a black sheep in the first movie, so she and Adam don't share that, despite her saying so. While she's a nerd, she wasn't bullied like he was, so it takes away from the foundation, which is what the misunderstood Julie and R shared.
In addition, Zosia and Adam try to kill people to sate their appetites; although, Adam isn't good at it because he still leans toward his humanity. On the other hand, R was seeking humanity, but Adam is trying to find the monster inside himself so he can lash out at society. He and Zosia then go on hunting dates and have sex, but there's not much emotional connection.
As for the conflict Adam creates, he keeps it a secret that he had a crush on a cop that abused him emotionally, Wanessa. When he fails to murder her and Zosia does it instead, they bicker about Wanessa, making Zosia feel unloved and ugly. This doesn't resonate because Adam completely forgot about Wanessa and went all in on Zosia. On top of that, had Zosia heard Adam speak about Wanessa and sensed love, audiences may have understood why she felt angry, but they don't even talk about his unrequited lust.
Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight 2 jumps the shark there and veers into predictable territory, whereas Warm Bodies had a rationale for everything R and Julie did, especially their fight over Perry. It didn't force a love triangle or muddy their severance. Last but not least, what's also under-serviced is the ending. Here, it lacks heart and soul, which audiences saw when Julie fought her dad to save R, who turned human again and got his kind to help mankind.
In Adam's case, he watches Zosia get run over by the military while he's kidnapped and experimented on. It's typical sci-fi B-movie stuff when a deeper story with her surviving and the military extracting a zombie baby would have given them a reason to fully want to devour mankind. It would have also created an intriguing horror route to follow in terms of how the military would weaponize this child. Ultimately, it's all wasted potential with Adam and Zosia, unlike R and Julie who had a complete story told that painted them as soulmates, not horny love interests looking for a frightening fling.
See how the Warm Bodies remix fails in Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight 2, now streaming on Netflix.