Fright Night Part 2 (1988) with My Daughter

 

While Charlie sleeps, Regine prepares for a taste

Mimicking Jerry and Amy's dance in their club in Fright Night

Peter Vincent looks on in amazement at Regine

I love the vampire designs in the film. Regine responds to Charlie's blood

My daughter and I watched Fright Night (1985) just a few weeks ago, and I had started on Fright Night Part II (1988) one Saturday night not long after. She interrupted my viewing taking me to task for not asking if she could watch it as well. This is where I'm at in my horror viewing now as my teenage daughter inquires on almost every horror film I watch. She wants those same experiences I had as a teenager, but I, as a dad, am a bit reticent to just let her watch anything. Not too long ago, I had Clive Barker's Nightbreed (1990) on in the background. Shudder had the film on its It Came from Shudder channel -- the Director's Cut, which I had never seen in its entirety but always planned to -- and she was curious. This is one of those films -- as are a lot of Barker's resume -- that I wasn't sure she should watch so young. Yet I watched Nightbreed at a younger age, renting the film on VHS, loving it despite the very heavy subject matter (particularly, Cronenberg's psychopath's killing spree). I want my daughter to look back at our times watching horror together to be special memories. I didn't really have any of that with parents, but I did with my uncle, the ten year anniversary of his death coming up in June. I asked her after Fright Night Part II was over which film she preferred and it was an emphatic Part 1 without hesitation. She told me the combination of Chris Sarandon and "Evil Ed" were the main reasons. While I prefer Traci Lind to Amanda Bearse, my daughter quite liked Bearse, not sure why I was "so hard on Amy". I just thought Lind was more mature, less whiny. But that was how Amy was supposed to come across, though I told my wife and daughter that undoubtedly Bearse's scenes with Sarandon in the club and later at him home when he bites her as she removes her blouse were two of my favorites of Fright Night. She let me know that she wants watching Fright Night to be an annual tradition...she really loved that movie. I do wish she felt the same for the sequel, but there wasn't that same energy and excitement after its conclusion as the first film. 

And, I'll tell you, she loved her some Fright Night. But as I've said before -- and will no doubt say many times in the future -- the sequel has really become a big favorite of mine. I wish I could hold off and watch it during October. I bet the sequel would be so perfect for the month of Halloween. Jon Gries as the werewolf is an absolute ghoulish delight. He is so actively chatty, aggressive, hyperactive and dopey. And this Brian Thompson has more personality than most who know him from Cobra and The X Files could attest to...gobbling up moths and insects, when his stomach is opened up at the end, all of them spill out with maggots for what is quite a grotesque makeup effects sequence. And in Tommy Wallace's film, roses in a werewolf's mouth sure has quite an allergic reaction!