Mason, from the first film, is the manager of the Pine View motel, and apparently an affably and decent guy. However, he is in fact also a director of snuff films. Using a pair of serial killers, he films lodgers to his hotel getting terrorized and murdered after letting said patrons discover videos of past victims that he leaves in their rooms. We see a number of these videos, and in Mason's office there are dozens more of them up on shelves. When a cop tries to rescue the main protagonists Amy and David, Mason has him killed and blames Amy and David. When David is stabbed and apparently killed, Mason, with a totally emotionless expression, simply films him. Near the end of the film, after Amy manages to kill both of the serial killers with her car, Mason flies into a rage and attempts to beat and strangle her to death himself while filming.
Mr. Smith is the Greater-Scope Villain of the duology. A sadistic serial killer who convinced the owners of a motel into producing snuff films instead of giving him to the police because it would be profitable for all of them, and also because he would get paid for killing people, Smith serves as the de facto leader of the operation despite the fact that he is always proving himself to be a dangerous loose cannon. Together, they torment a group of three people: Caleb, Jessica and Tanner. After stabbing Caleb to death for fun, Smith murders an innocent couple against the wishes of the motel manager and sends Tanner to be tortured while he could have Jessica for himself. When Jessica kills his allies and sets him on fire, Smith manages to survive and erases all of the evidence of his crimes, going to a second motel and converting it into another slaughterhouse, culminating in hundreds of murders in the span of three years.
It's Short, So It Sucks!: Subverted. It's reasonable to argue that the film could have been a bit longer with more suspenseful scenes and events. That being said, it's hard to deny the pacing was done quite well and ended fair enough.
is one of the more praised aspects of the film.