I’m a huge fan of the original Fright Night (1985). It’s one of my favorite vampire movies of all time. While Fright Night Part 2 (1988) doesn’t reach the same heights, there’s a lot of love here. The film works best when it’s at its most funny. There’s some great sight gags and jokes here. Unfortunately, when things get more serious, it can grow tedious at times. But one of the things I’ve always appreciated about this series is that it uses the classic vampire lore as opposed to trying to remake it. And I’ve got to give a lot of credit to this sequel because it doesn’t try to just remake the original. The film has its own thing going.
Uncle Rico (Jon Gries of Napoleon Dynamite fame) gives a hilarious performance as one of the not-so-brilliant vampires. He cracks me up in this. And it’s always great to see the genius work of Roddy McDowall as Peter Vincent. Charlie is back in this one again (with a new girlfriend this time who actually gets more to do than just be a damsel in distress). In fact, Charlie is the one in need here and while the switch works well at times, it also sometimes deflates Charlie’s lovable character.
The creature effects are excellent with a holy water damaged exploding vampire neck, a torn apart belly with bugs squishing out, and a melting vampire face. I still like the original’s more campy effects as they had a bit more character but there’s some awesome stuff here. The makeup is top notch too.
All considered, Fright Night Part 2 is a great follow-up to the original 1980’s classic. There’s probably a stellar third film that could have been done (if the producer n[Jose Menendez] and his wife hadn’t been bizarrely murdered by their sons – what a weird story that is) but Fright Night 1 & 2 make one of the best vampire movie pairs of all time.