The original “Fright Night” was a 1985 vampire movie and generally regarded as a classic of the sub-genre. Not the biggest vampire film of the 80’s, but it was well liked and relatively successful. A sequel was inevitable. Due to other commitments original director Tom Holland was not able to return and so Tommy Lee Wallace stepped in. Tommy became a go-to guy for horror sequels, directing “Halloween 3”, writing “Amityville 2” and later going on to direct the sequel to John Carpenter’s “Vampires”. His biggest success though would be the original “IT”, filmed as a TV mini-series and staring Tim Curry as “Pennywise”. Roddy McDowall and William Ragsdale reprise their roles as Peter Vincent and Charley Brewster.
Three years after the events of the first film, Charley is recovering in a mental health facility. He has come to believe and accept that there were no vampires. He now believes what he experienced was a combination of group hypnosis and trauma. Vincent meanwhile has returned to hosting his show, but is wary of the Vampire threat. As Charley attempts to return to a normal life, with his new girlfriend “Alex” (Traci Lind), he is unsettled by the arrival of a new group of people to town. Especially one strangely alluring female Regine (Julie Carmen). Old suspicions return and it appears once again he and Vincent must face off against a vampire menace. This time though, it’s personal.
The Vampire Bites Back
As sequel ideas go, this is pretty reasonable. We have a direct link to the first film, a switch in the antagonist to being female. Due to this change we also see Charley as a victim of vampire seduction. The film tries to play up the sexiness of this, but doesn’t really nail that part. The film also tackles the implications of the events of the first film. Ultimately though, the way it tackles this is designed to give you as much of a reset button as possible. So the movie ends up largely a rehash of the original film. There’s just about enough original here to get away with it as a sequel, but it won’t stand on it’s own.
The movie does feature a great synthesizer based score, courtesy of Brad Fiedel (Most famous for “The Terminator”). It also features decent cinematography and effects. It’s worth noting this movie had a substantially lower budget than the original so keeping the monster effects above the bar of “reasonable” was going to be a challenge. They mostly succeed, aided somewhat by this being a horror comedy. Speaking of that though, the comedy aspects are erratic. Like the movie isn’t always sure if it is a horror comedy or not. One specific vampire seems to be the main comedy relief, but he doesn’t really feature enough to make that work.
Conclusion
This is a pretty average sequel. The cast and acting are reasonable. Ragsdale and McDowall slip back into their roles with ease, but I wouldn’t call either outstanding. The cinematography is reasonable, the music is fairly good. There’s nothing terrible here, but it is largely a lesser rehash of the first film but with a female antagonist. This does make a difference and it’s just about enough to justify it’s existence. The plot is straight forward, but ticks all the boxes it set out to. The horror effects are solid, especially for a horror comedy. The comedy side is a little lacking and too reliant on one character in a film that seems to have too many characters anyway.
A third movie was originally planned for this series. Those plans were scrapped after the murder of Live Entertainment chairman Jose Menendez by his own sons. That tragedy also resulted in this movie facing minimal distribution, resulting in box office failure. While only an average movie it deserved better. This fell about where my expectations for a sequel would land. Were this a stand alone movie I’d probably give it a 5.5/10, but as a sequel I can just about justify a 6/10. Recommended, if you’ve seen the original. If you haven’t, then I recommend the original instead (It’s notably better).
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