Fright Night 2

Okay Fright Night was recently made with David Tennant channelling Russell Brand as a vampire hunter, but this is a review of the sequel to the rather charming original.

This sequel suffers from a number of problems.  The main antagonist is a woman, a sister to the original’s suave Chris Sarandon vampire, but she really can’t act and doesn’t have the charisma to pull this off.  Secondly, we’ve lost Charlie Brewster’s original girlfriend (who was played by the woman who became Marcy in Married With Children), who was cute, likeable and believable.  The new girlfriend is again not a great actress (but gets better as the film goes along), and not that likeable. Coupled with an internal logic that just doesn’t work (one vampire gets staked and just falls dead, while others immediately melt or somesuch), and not great dialogue, poor motivation and not a very good story, it’s not a patch on the original.

However, it has some merits.  The practical special effects are fun, and one of the Queen Vampire’s underlings is quite good.  He looks like a young James Woods with enormous and long hair.  There’s also the odd shot that’s pretty memorable, such  as a striking-looking black vampire skating towards the camera.

Maybe worth seeing the once for a fan of 80s horror.