This
sequel finds our main characters Peter Vincent and Charley Brewster moving on
with their lives after their fight with Jerry Dandrige. Thinking that another
vampire encounter couldn’t possibly happen again Peter has returned to hosting
horror movies on the television. Charley is now in college and is seeing a
therapist who has convinced him that vampires aren’t real. This is with the
encouragement of his new girlfriend Alex, who knows vampires can’t be real. Clearly
Dandrige from the original movie was a serial killer and thru some sort of
group psychosis they only thought he was a vampire.
Now of
course this is a perfect time for another vampire, this time a lady, to move
into Peter’s building with the rest of her band of undead followers. It isn’t a
random encounter though since she is the sister of Dandrige and is in town to
get some revenge on the pair of vampire hunters. This leads to some interesting
stuff as at first, she passes herself off as a performance artist to fool Peter
and Charley into thinking they had overreacted. But again, the mirror in
Peter’s cigarette case gives the secret away. Unfortunately, the lady vampire, Regine,
has already been setting her plans in motion slowly turning Charley into one of
them and taking Peter’s show away from him. This leads to a big showdown where
in a reversal from the original Peter and Alex have to rescue Charley from Regine’s
grasp while battling her crew.
It is
going to be hard to not compare this movie to the original as it recycles the
characters and in many ways the plot. Right off the bat it loses some points
for not being terribly original, but still the movie has its moments. No time
is wasted in getting to the bloody bits as we already know about the world in
which these movies take place. The characters are quick to accept the existence
of the vampires and the rules on how to kill them. That void in disbelief and
eventual acceptance from the first film is partially taken up by us having
multiple vampires including one that is almost more werewolf than bloodsucker. So
basically, we get more action. This leads to some weirdness like the roller
skating undead that didn’t work for me as well as the comic relief of the incompetent
hairy vamp that keeps getting picked on for not biting his victim in the neck.
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| The new Vampire crew |
The
special effects are decent with the three vampires looking very different from
each other. Though in a nice touch they do make the various forms of Regine
look similar to her brother from the first. I notice and enjoy that kind of
attention to detail and like to point it out. The kills are also enjoyable with
exploding vampires, guts full of maggots, and of course a stake to the heart.
Though the humor is played up a bit more in the deaths than the original which
takes away from the gore somewhat.
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| The boys are back in acton! |
Whenever
you make a sequel to such a great movie it is going to be tough to live up to
it. This was mitigated by the involvement of Roddy McDowell returning as Peter
Vincent and William Ragsdale as Charley. But I do think that the switch in
directors from Tom Holland to Tommy Lee Wallace did hurt. The humor is
different here than in the first with it being more obvious which serves to
take the audience away from the horror. Also, the fact that the plot is
basically the same with the twist of Charley becoming the “damsel in distress”
as the only change. This movie feels more dated than the original with the
fashion, hairstyles, and roller-skating vampire while the original avoids that
keeping the setting a bit more vague.
Do I
recommend Fright Night Part II? I don’t think that this is nearly as good as
the first one but that is a high bar so yes, I do. If nothing else, we get to
see Roddy McDowell on screen and that alone is worth the price of admission.
© Copyright 2019 John Shatzer
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