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Superheroes do not exist, but if you're in a superhero movie, you do not care. The impossibility of a Spider-Man is not something MJ is worried about. In fiction, anybody can believe in a Batman, yet nobody believes in a man that turns into a bat. The impossibility of vampires is a core issue in most of these films. There's always a moment when the heroes have to overcome the friction of non-belief. Most of the time, characters think vampires are too silly to be possible. Even back to 1931's Dracula, Van Helsing has to overcome Jonathan Harker's credulity to save Mina. The Professor reflects "The strength of the vampire is that people will not believe in him." Decades of vampires as cinema icons only have made them more preposterous. 'You mean those old cornball movies with the funny accents? You really think that's what's killing people?'
Fright Night Part 2 is a direct sequel to the original Fright Night, starring the same lead character so it has its work cut out for it if it wants to be a movie where people do not believe in vampires again. Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale) killed the vampire next door only three years ago. Out of pure reverence to the tropes, Fright Night 2 decides Charley now believes Jerry Dandridge was was a serial killer cult leader... and somehow exploded when exposed to sunlight. We meet up with him having just made great strides in therapy, having been fully gaslit by his psychiatrist, Dr. Harrison (Ernie Sabella). Never mind how little this makes sense, the plot needs Charley in a vulnerable enough state of skepticism so that way when the next batch of vampires comes through, he's stupid enough for a movie to happen.
As a sequel, Fright Night 2 is a decent enough replay of the original. Most of the plot choices are the obvious move, they're the safe picks. Charley has graduated high school and now attends college. He's still friends with the recently-defictionalized vampire killer, Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowell). Only this time, vampires are moving into Peter Vincent's apartment building. Replacing an alluring male vampire we have a gorgeous intensely erotic female, Jerry's sister, Regine (Julie Carmen). Instead of Charley losing his friends to sensual darkness, his friends lose him, as Regine seduces our hero.
Also, things did not work between Charley and his the his girlfriend in the first movie, Amy, apparently. Amanda Bearse's face full of teeth might be on the poster since they rather cheaply reused Part 1's artwork, but she's not in Fright Night Part 2. Replacing her is Alex (Traci Lind), a serious psychiatry student, who impressively can read all 400 pages of Bram Stoker's Dracula novel in about three hours. This proves very helpful because she remembers a detail that vampires are weak to roses - which is a new one for me. I know Charley says he wants Alex, but considering how down bad he is for Regine, this may not be working. The one time he's really into making out, it's because Regine is resting on the car in a blue dress with a lot of cleavage, magically impressing Charley with her sexual energy.
I mean, Regine is the kind of undead babe that catches you asleep, kisses your neck, and very slowly scrapes one fang against your flesh. Nobody does foreplay better than that. She's also a fantastic dancer, so talented she even steals Peter Vincent's show and becomes the new host of the show Fright Night. They do not give Julie Carmen as much material as Chris Sarandon, so she makes an inferior villain, but she's solid as a sequel monster.
Also speaking of negatives, Fright Night 2 does not have the same special effects wizardry that the first one did. That had all these great transformations and melting scenes, it was a feast of Eighties horror tech. Fright Night 2 eventually gets its huge gore moments, and they are great, but in terms of monsters, you get one surfer dude werewolf. Later on, holy water pours out a dude's throat, and the insect-eating Renfield of Regine's crew (Brian Thompson) dies with many pounds of worms crawling out of his chest, which is fucking awesome.
That's just how things were back then, sequels get cheaper, and usually also get wackier. Fright Night 2 is not quite Gremlins 2 in terms of going for full gonzo comedy. (God, if only.) But we do now have a vampire on roller skates, that's the kind of tone we have now. Where Fright Night 1 was a winking mixture of a teen movie and horror, Fright Night 2 goes for outright gags. Vampires leave the stage with joking quips upon their death. When Charley's now-vampiric psychiatrist is stabbed through the heart, the stake does not quite get to the organ, so he stumbles around for a minutes, before he politely finishes himself off. There's also a recurring bowling alley gag. Characters always need to go bowling to feel better.
This includes the greatest scene of this movie, the vampire bowling scene. It's just vampire dudes being dudes, bowling strikes, and at one point, pulling a decapitated head out of the ball return machine. Honestly, it's heartwarming. Everybody deserves some nice clean decapitation fun.
Fright Night Part 2 is a not classic like the original. I'd take it over the remake, at least. But it does deserve better than its current status of being more or less totally forgotten. It is not available on streaming right now, possibly due to disinterest, possibly due to rights issues. This could have been a bigger movie. Fright Night 2 got lost in the shuffle when Part 1's distributor, Columbia Pictures, lost interest, and it was instead given a limited release by a company called New Century Vista, which I think was a piece of Carloco Pictures. (The story is pretty hard to follow since it requires a lot of knowledge of Eighties Hollywood insider politics that I do not have). Any hopes for a Part 3 died shockingly when New Century Vista's chairman, José Menéndez, was murdered by his two sons, Lyle and Eric which became one of the biggest tabloid stories of the late 20th century.
On the other hand, more sequels might have meant that Fright Night was going to turn into full trash like The Howling franchise did very quickly. Even I can admit Fright Night never actually needed even one sequel, let alone many. Tom Holland, the creator of the first movie has been pitching a Part 3 for decades and it's never gotten any traction. Personally, I think we have gotten as much Fright Night as you could ever want.
Next Time: We've had vampire horror, kung-fu, romances, teen comedies, blaxploitation, and even experimental art films. But have we had a vampire western yet? Nope! We fix that with Near Dark.
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