Twitter Plot Summary: A remake of a remake, and not a particularly good remake either.
Not to be confused with the actually quite decent Fright Night Part 2 from 1988, which acted as a sequel to the equally decent vampire horror Fright Night, this is an unrelated sequel to the similarly quite decent 2011 Fright Night remake. But then perhaps this should be considered a confusing affair. Characters with origins in the 1985 original – Charlie Brewster, his friend Evil, and TV “vampire hunter” Peter Vincent – are taken from their rightful home in a 1980s shockfest and transplanted to deepest, darkest Romania to enact what is almost entirely a remake of the remake. Did any of that make sense to you? I know it makes my brain hurt a little…
There are similarities to Fright Night Part 2, in that the vampire villain is a woman, but otherwise this almost a beat for beat match to the 1985 and 2011 editions. Jaime Murray plays that lady vamp, Gerri Dandridge (oh, how cunning a change from the male Jerry), a professor by day (well, early evening) and a vampire by night. Wise to her bloodsucking ways is Charley Brewster, played by cut price budget Tobey Maguire lookalike Will Payne. He has eyes for Classmate Amy (Sacha Parkinson) and is joined by his caustic friend Ed, aka Evil, played by Chris Waller.
I have to question the logic of calling this Fright Night 2 as it has nothing to do with the 2011 remake apart from stealing its entire plot and just moving the action over to Eastern Europe. None of the subtlety of the original or even the fun of the remake is present, replaced mostly by characters we don’t care about and a story that you have literally seen done better in two other Fright Night movies.
For what it’s worth Murray gives the sexuality of the role a good go, but the random blasts of nudity do little to help matters and come across as nothing but a cheap attempt at titillation. It’s also not helped by maintaining a similarly serious tone as the 1985 original, yet lacking the elements that made the film as enjoyable as it was – and how it remains to this day.
One fun little twist is the use of an animated sequence, in a comic book style, to describe the vampire’s long history. This was apparently in an attempt to reduce the film’s production costs and save the studio a bit of money – in all honesty you can tell, but for all its brevity the animated sequence does help this stand out a little on its own two feet, even if those two feet were previously stolen from a vampire victim.
If I was going to say anything else positive it would be that the Romanian locations are nice to look at, but that’s really not enough to suggest Fright Night 2 is worth seeing – you’d be better off just taking a holiday to Romania and seeing the sights for yourself. Trust me, you’d enjoy it much more. Similarly, you’d be better off watching any of the other Fright Night films, even Part 2 – in each of those cases they could at least justify their existence, whereas Fright Night 2 does nothing of the sort.
Score: 2/5
