Fright Night 2

A most unusual sequel.

Generally speaking, we expect sequels to carry on the story line from the preceding movie, or at least the general tone or spirit. While Fright Night 2 is ostensibly a sequel to 2011’s remake, it really is as much of a remake as the last one was. The characters of Charlie, Amy, Peter Vincent, and Evil Ed return (despite Evil Ed’s demise) without any knowledge of vampires or the events of the first film, and Jerry the vampire is now Gerri the vampire, and female.  Curious. As near as I can remember, it doesn’t have anything to do with Fright Night Part 2, the original sequel to the original film.

Charlie (Will Payne), Evil Ed (Chris Waller), and Amy (Sacha Parkinson) are American university students (all played by British actors, of course) whose class has gone to Romania for a course, field trip or something else. Not exactly sure on that one. Their professor is the sexy Gerri Dandridge (Jaime Murray), and Charlie spies her one night from a window dining on a young woman. Gerri is a vampire! He tries to convince Amy and Evil of this, but they haven’t seen the previous Fright Nights, so they are hard to convince. Eventually Evil comes around, and suggests they consult Peter Vincent (Sean Power), the famous host of a ghost-hunting reality TV show, who just happens to be in Bucharest. Vincent scoffs at them and tells them vampires aren’t real.
The plot plays out pretty much in the same fashion as the original and remake of Fright Night. The major change is Gerri is Countess Elisabeth Bathory, and that Amy turns out to be a virgin born at midnight during a blood moon, whose blood can either turn a vampire human or allow them to walk in the daylight. Gerri wants Amy, Charlie wants to save Amy, things work out for Evil Ed as well as you’d expect, etc., etc.

The movie is barely passable for a straight-to-dvd feature. The movie lacks the humor which helped elevate the first two versions of the movie, and suffers for it. The actors are competent but bland with the exception of Jaime Murray, who really, um, bites into her role. This one is for hardcore vampire movie fans and those who can’t bear to miss a sequel, even if the sequel to a remake is really a remake itself.
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