Fright Night Part II (1988)*

"Welcome to Fright Night"

****/*****

Three years of therapy with a shrink has Charlie convinced that Jerry Dandridge was nothing more than a serial murderer and that vampires don’t exist. He is also worried about crossing Peter Vincent as the therapy has encouraged him to look back at the experience as the mind’s “defense mechanism” to deal with the trauma caused by Jerry in regards to Ed’s death and his girlfriend’s kidnapping. Charlie is with a new girl named Alex, and she is quite a babe (with a head full of hair!).

To be honest, I never had the chance to watch Fright Night Part 2 back in the 80s when it came out. It had a very difficult act to follow as the first film has a level of nostalgia for those who came out of the decade of the Brat Pack that has it considered a horror treasure. The sequel really pleasantly surprised me. I wasn’t expecting much but what the film provided left me more than satisfied; it left me thrilled. Satisfaction with a sequel that comes after such a revered original seems quite uncommon. Duplicating that kind of appealing magic seems damn near impossible…but not altogether improbable. I honestly believe that if Fright Night fans just gave the sequel a chance, many would be quite happy with what they see. Important to the sequel’s appeal is, no doubt, Roddy McDowell and William Ragsdale returning from the original. Evil Ed’s absence led a bit to the cult of the original, but the two returning stars more than make up for his being missing from the sequel. But without a good villain(ess) to play off of, the sequel just wouldn’t be quite the same. Chris Sarandon was so crucial to the sexually provocative side of Fright Night. He brought that stud sex appeal that added a lot of eroticism to “vampire seduction” scenes. In the sequel, Julie Carmen is game to match him and has that screen presence and confident swagger needed to be a master vampire. When Peter Vincent uses a crucifix authoritatively (while looking scared shit-less, as if he’s ready to leap from his skin), Carmen’s Regine (the sister of Jerry seeking to get even for his death against those responsible for it) doesn’t even flinch, instead holding still and proving that it will take more than a cross held in her face to stop her.

Peter is once again washed up. The Fright Night show, when the first film was ending, appeared to establish that Vincent had regained his mojo as a host thanks to vanquishing a vampire of the caliber of Jerry Dandridge. But as we see at the beginning of the second film, there are new producers of the show and they consider Vincent an old-fashioned dinosaur difficult to reign in due to his inability to follow their script or obey their wishes on how to host Fright Night. Seemingly a past-his-prime relic, the producers kick him to the curb, opting to try something fresh, new, alive (well, so to speak), and happening for the audience they wish to appeal to. Vincent knows she is a bloodsucker, attempts to put an end to her, and is subsequently sent to the booby hatch.

 

Fright Night Part II has fun with vampires. I found one particular character and his death to be quite amusing. Charlie has been seeing a psychiatrist to deal with the experience of Jerry and his battle with what he thought was vampirism. Alex goes to the shrink because she felt he was the only one to confide in, but it turns out he’s a vampire! So she tries to evade him only to encounter the shrink wherever she turns. Luckily for her, they are near old train tracks with plenty of damaged wood. I especially enjoyed how the doc examines analytically his situation as he is in pain from the large stake wedged in his chest (but not far enough)! Alex’s character spends a great deal of time trying to logically explain what her eyes and brain seem to tell her…that vampires exist. As Charlie tried, Alex will also have to face reality.

I’m baffled as to why this film wasn’t distributed properly and went in and out threatres and onto video so quickly. You’d think the original had such value, the distributers would have trusted the sequel to sponge some of its popularity and be a return on an investment. It is sad that I was unable to have access to it until years down the road, but sometimes the absence of time allows for a fun viewing experience. I had no idea of how good or bad Fright Night Part II would be so there was little expectation. I looked forward to it, mind you, but there was no inclination this would be little more than an okay diversion. I certainly had anticipation, though, if just because the film was so hard to find for some time. It hit dvd in a rather unspectacular fashion and went out of print soon after. It bewilders me, the treatment of this film. Why isn’t a company using the original film’s clout to put over the sequel? The mind boggles.

I just love how McDowell, a horror icon, was able to resurrect his career in the 80s with the character of Peter Vincent. He dresses a bit like his public access show counterpart, a Peter Cushing-esque vampire hunter in the Van Helsing vein. In Fright Night Part II, he gets to work the Van Helsing vampire-hunting in homaging form through the use of a mirror and later broken glass. Still not attaining the Van Helsing courage and stern command, eventually Vincent says screw it and embraces the vampire hunter in himself, even if trying to on public access television was perhaps not the wisest decision. There’s a cute bar scene where Vincent is in mourning after getting canned from Fright Night (perhaps the lowest of low points in any performer’s career), with a glass of beer, and this patron approaches him wondering why Peter looks familiar. This is where Vincent defies common wisdom and proclaims himself a vampire hunter. Landing in the loony bin with others claiming to be various characters from fantasy, Vincent seems right at home, but eventually Alex lends him a hand in an escape as the knowledge that Regine must fall so that Charlie can be saved is quite urgent.

This film takes an interesting direction when Regine, in a sweet goal of revenge for the death of her brother, seductively lures Charlie into her grasp, the kiss of the bite the method to retain his will. Charlie spends his time fighting to fend her off, but his only hope, this time, is Vincent and Alex. Vincent, in spirited fashion, is not going to retreat in cowardly fashion.

With the intense heavy Brian Thompson (Sly Stallone’s nemesis in Cobra) as a bug-eating brute, Jon Gries (many of my generation will also know him in The Monster Squad) as a surfer-slang werewolf, and Russell Clark as the mute, effeminate, flashy and deadly Belle, they make up Regine’s brood. Along with the fun cast, there are lots of gory make-up effects (a stomach is slashed open to reveal bugs and maggots, a vampire’s face and hands melt, and a face tears apart thanks to sunlight) and monsters (a werewolf, vampires, and a very ugly vampire bat that Regine turns into) so this horror fan was given plenty to appreciate. Even Brad Fiedel (the composer for Just Before Dawn, The Terminator, and Fright Night) returned to score the music for the sequel.

Tommy Lee Wallace is well known to John Carpenter fans. As director of Halloween III, and working with Carpenter in various ways on his movies, Wallace got the Fright Night Part II gig. He would later director a follow-up to Carpenter’s Vampires, Vampires Los Muertos. Stephen King’s It could be Wallace’s most famous horror work. I really think Fright Night Part II was a fine example of fun summer afternoon horror entertainment. However, Fright Night Part II has remained rather lingering in unflattering fashion in relative obscurity. I would like to see Scream Factory or a similar company release the film in a format that opens it to both fresh eyes and to the lucky ones who viewed it on VHS (and barely in the theatre) back in the late 80s. Perhaps someday, FN Part II will get the The Boogens treatment on blu. We’ll see.