Monster movie fans were thrilled when Ben Wheatley was confirmed as director of Meg 2: The Trench. The director of Kill List unleashed on a film in which Jason Statham battles giant prehistoric sharks? To quote the Sickos meme: “YES. .. HA HA HA ... YES!” The trailer looked promising. This could have been just what the fledgling franchise needed, especially as even Jon Turteltaub, director of the first Meg, had expressed disappointment at the first film’s lack of gore. “The number of really horrifying, disgusting and bloody deaths we had lined up that we didn’t get to do is tragic,” he told bloodydisgusting.com.
But the market knows what it wants, which in the case of The Meg was a family film with a PG or 12A rating. Additionally, it was a US-Chinese co-production, and Chinese censors don’t like gore. Well, guess what: Meg 2: The Trench is also an American-Chinese co-production aimed at family audiences, and, give or take a splash in the final reel, it’s even more bloodless than its predecessor.
