‘Let’s talk about blood, Mr. Vincent, it’s very precious to me...’
Tom Holland’s vampire fable Fright Night is rightfully regarded as a classic of the genre. Funny, frightening and full of heart, Fright Night boasts an excellent villain in Chris Sarandon and generally offers an alternative to all the self-serious vampire films of the era. Fright Night Part 2 retains some of the charm of the original, but without Holland or Sarandon, it also feels like an example of diminishing returns…
Young protagonist Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale) returns, as does his friend and mentor, Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall), but with a whole new supporting cast in tow featuring Traci Lind as Charley’s love interest and Julie Carmen as the villain.
While Tommy Lee Wallace has done some fine work in the horror genre (Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Stephen King’s IT etc), he doesn’t bring the same warmth to the material as Holland did, and the absence of Sarandon really harms this second entry. Carmen is fine, she’s suitably seductive and sinister, and it’s refreshing to have a female vampire as the main antagonist, but Sarandon casts such a huge shadow that its hard to imagine anyone being able to convincingly step up.
Fright Night Part 2 is a solid and fun ’80s vampire flick if you can divorce it from the source material. Taken on its own merits, there is loads here to enjoy, but when compared to Holland’s far superior original, it falls considerably short.
