Vampire Flicks/Franchises: Fright Night. Fright Night Part 2 (1988)

Thanks to John Stanley's Creature Features book, I knew there was a sequel to Fright Night from about the time I first saw the original. I would also often see its VHS, with that cover artwork, at the same store where I got the tape of the original I had for years, and yet, I never felt compelled to pick up the sequel. I don't know why, exactly. I guess I just loved the original so much that I felt it was good enough and I didn't need to see Part 2. Speaking of which, I knew that it had William Ragsdale and Roddy McDowall returning in their respective roles, and that, this time, it focused on a female vampire, namely Jerry Dandrige's sister, seducing and slowly turning Charley Brewster into one out of revenge for killing her brother. Aside from the promised return of Evil Ed at the end of the original, that sounded like the logical direction to take a sequel, but I still just didn't feel compelled to see it. It didn't help when I learned that Ed and Amy weren't in it, and that it began with Charley having convinced himself through therapy that vampires aren't real, an idea I didn't like. The first time I saw any clips from it was when YouTube came along and I watched various videos talking about it, as well as when I saw James Rolfe's short review on his website, and from what I saw, it came off as just plain silly and far goofier than the original ever was, with its rollerskating vampire and the comedic werewolf-like character. So, again, I was in no hurry to see Fright Night Part 2, which was a good thing since, for so many years, it was a very obscure movie that was hard to come by, as the one North American DVD release was long out of print. (At one point, I almost did get a DVD-R from a website that no longer exists, but didn't go through with it when I saw it was just a VHS rip.) 

It wasn't until during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, when I had nothing else to do, that I finally watched Fright Night Part 2 after a high-def version popped up on YouTube (I also saw the 2011 remake and its own sequel during that time, but we'll get to those). What made me decide to break down and see it is because I gradually learned that, like the original, the sequel had quite the fanbase and cult following. Thus, I figured it might not have been as stupid as it seemed, and all that this time, I may have been missing out on another fun 80's vampire flick. I didn't expect it to be as good as the first, especially since Tom Holland didn't write and direct it, but I knew Tommy Lee Wallace was a capable director who was more than up to the task of creating a worthy follow-up. Upon watching it that first time, though, when it was all said and done, I thought it was just okay. However, after a couple of more viewings, my opinion on it has gone up, despite some issues I have. On the one hand, it's great seeing both Charley Brewster and especially Peter Vincent again, Regine Dandrige is definitely a sexy, effectively seductive, and dangerous vampire, her group of cohorts are quite memorable, there are a lot of great makeup effects to be found, especially during the third act, and I do think the plot makes for a nice twist on the original. But, as I originally felt, it sometimes goes overboard with the silliness in a way that the first one didn't, with jokes and sight gags that are just plain goofy, and I find the story to be uneven, with the climax feeling like little more than a bunch of setpieces strung together, and some large plotholes. Also, while Roddy McDowall is still in top form, I feel Peter Vincent kind of gets the shaft in this story, and there are some visual effects here that are much more dated than in the original.

Three years after Charley Brewster and Peter Vincent managed to vanquish the vampire Jerry Dandrige, Charley is now in college and has been undergoing therapy to cope with what happened. He has since convinced himself that Dandrige was merely a serial killer and occultist, and that vampires aren't real. Peter, on the other hand, is now a firm believer, and as he continues to host Fright Night, uses it as a platform to warn the public, much to his producers' frustration. Charley, who now has mixed feelings about Peter for killing his friend, Ed, visits him on the set, along with his new girlfriend, Alex Young. The three of them go to Peter's apartment, where he gets drunk and reminisces about his and Charley's adventures. While by himself, Charley looks out the window and sees several large crates being delivered, and a limousine with dark windows pulling up nearby, giving him an eerie feeling of deja vu. However, he dismisses the idea, and he and Alex leave shortly afterward. On the way out, while Alex is off using the restroom, Charley is alone in the lobby, and sees a group of four people walk in and head towards the elevator; one of them, an exotic and attractive woman, especially catches his attention. He and Alex then leave and park somewhere to make out, but as they do, Charley is shocked to find himself seemingly kissing the woman he saw. He quickly snaps out of the delusion, prompting Alex to get frustrated and walk back to her dorm. Elsewhere on campus, another female student falls prey to one of the group, who attacks and feeds on her blood. Another, in werewolf form, climbs up the side of the building to get at a student in her room, but suffers an embarrassing mishap instead. And later that night, Charley is woken up when the mysterious woman appears at his door. Initially bewildered, he invites her in, and she manages to seduce him. Enticed by a spot on his neck where he cut himself shaving earlier, she digs one of her fangs into the wound. Seeing that she is a vampire, Charley then wakes up in bed, screaming, and comes to believe it was just a nightmare. Unbeknownst to him, this is the first step in a plot of revenge by Regine Dandrige, the sister of Jerry Dandrige, and Alex and Peter Vincent are the only ones who can save Charley from eternal damnation.

While it wasn't a giant blockbuster, Fright Night did well enough to where a sequel seemed like a sure thing. In fact, Herb Jaffe, the head and co-founder of Vista Films, the production company behind it (then called Vistar Films), and who was instrumental in getting Columbia Pictures to back it, was intent on doing one, as he retained the rights to the film and its characters. But, while his company would ultimately produce Fright Night Part 2, it would be without Columbia this time, as Guy McElwaine, the studio head who'd greenlit the first one, had been replaced by David Puttnam. An Englishman who'd been the producer on Chariots of Fire, among many other movies, Puttnam hated horror movies or anything fantastical in general, and steered Columbia's production output away from such genres. His tenure didn't go over well, receiving a lot of criticism from both inside and outside the studio, and, in fact, by the time Fright Night Part 2 was filming, he'd been replaced. Regardless, this forced Jaffe to raise the money for and produce the sequel on his own. To that end, he and his friend, Gabe Katzka, got together with some Wall Street investors and managed to raise enough money to finance a slate of films by themselves. However, the actual budget for the movie itself turned out to be smaller than the first's already modest one of just under $10 million.

The initial screenplay was written by Tim Metcalfe and Miguel Tejada-Flores, who'd done the story for Revenge of the Nerds and, since the latter was now an executive at Vista Films, had a writing contract with them. They're the ones who came up with the idea of the villain being Jerry Dandrige's sister, and had also initially written the screenplay to include both Amy and Evil Ed, but eventually had to write them out when neither Amanda Bearse nor Stephen Geoffreys returned. And since Tom Holland, at this point, was off directing Child's Play, Herb Jaffe also had to find a new director. It turned out that Tejada-Flores was neighbors and friends with Tommy Lee Wallace, who, by this point, had directed both Halloween III: Season of the Witch and the little known 1986 movie, Aloha Summer. He'd initially brought Wallace to Vista to work on a movie that never got made, but that, in turn, led to him getting Fright Night Part 2. After reading the initial screenplay, he began working with Tejada-Flores and Metcalfe to rewrite it to where it better fit his sensibilities. And then, after Metcalfe dropped out, it was just Wallace and Tejada-Flores, although all three of them got credit on the final film. Moreover, Wallace also had a lunch meeting with Holland to get his blessing, which he said went very well, and that Holland gave him some good insight and advice as how to approach it.

At the start, we find Charley Brewster three years removed from the events of the first movie, now a college student and having been in therapy to cope with what he went through. He's now convinced that Jerry Dandrige wasn't a vampire but, rather, was a serial killer and cult leader whom Charley came to believe was a vampire as part of an internal defense mechanism to cope with the situation. Now, feeling that he no longer needs therapy, Charley is intent on putting the past behind him and getting on with his life. He has a new girlfriend, Alex Young, gets rid of just about all of the anti-vampire paraphernalia in his dorm room, and, along with Alex, goes to see Peter Vincent, whom he's been avoiding recently, to tell him what he now believes. But, while visiting Peter in his apartment, and watching as he gets drunk and reminisces about the past, Charley is unable to bring himself to do it. And then, just like before, he looks out the window to see some large boxes being moved into the building, as a black limousine with dark windows sits nearby. Immediately getting the same ideas as before, he close the drapes and puts the matter out of mind. But, as he and Alex are leaving the building, he first sees Regine Dandrige and her little entourage as they enter the lobby and head for the elevator, and is immediately taken with her. Little does he know that she's already beginning to get into his head, as while he's making out with Alex in his car afterward, he has a vision that he's kissing Regine instead. Then, later that night, Regine shows up at his dorm room and, after again telling himself that vampires aren't real, Charley talks to her and invites her in for a light for her cigarette, as well as a cup of coffee. And that's when she first seduces and bites him, digging her fang into a spot where he earlier cut himself shaving. He then wakes up in bed, screaming, but it seems like it was a nightmare. Of course, it was anything but.

It's nice that they gave William Ragsdale more to do in his second turn as Charley than just repeating himself. While still very much a horror and sci-fi fan, given all the posters on his dorm room's walls, his and Peter Vincent's roles are reversed, with Charley now the skeptic because of his therapy, while Peter is very much a believer. He's not 100% over it, given the initial fear he feels about Regine and the "nightmare" he has upon formally meeting her, but he still tries to move on. Charley is also just as horny and eager to

get his girlfriend in the sack as he was before, and really paws at Alex when they're making out (I don't think that was entirely Regine's influence). Speaking of Alex, Charley is completely open with her about what he "believes" happened, and that, as well as his increasingly strange behavior and his missing a date they had for a classical music symphony, puts a strain on their relationship. But, again, it's after that first encounter with Regine in his dorm room that everything really starts to fall apart for him. While on

his way to pick up Alex, he sees his friend, Richie, meeting up with Regine, and follows them back to her apartment building. Having a weird feeling about it, he tries to get a look at what's going on up in the penthouse, resorting to climbing onto the fire escape on the building across from it. When he does, he sees Regine and one of her companions, Belle, feeding on Richie. Knowing he's not dreaming this time, Charley goes to see Peter and tells him what he saw. Though Peter is reluctant to barge in on his neighbors and accuse them of being vampires, the two of them go to

the penthouse. They enter to find a party going on and Richie seemingly unharmed, save for being drunk. Between that, fake fangs being given as party favors, and Regine claiming to be a performance artist whose sudden vampiric appearance is just part of her act, Charley is again convinced that he was wrong and vampires don't exist. But, following a seductive, hypnotic dance Regine pulled him into there, she appears in his dorm room again and feeds on him while he sleeps.

In a blatant role reversal from the first movie, as Charley talks with Alex the next day, trying to explain himself after missing their date, Peter, now having learned the vampires are real and that Regine is Jerry Dandrige's sister, comes running and tries to warn him. But Charley is now the one telling Peter that vampires don't exist, sending him off to fend for himself. Charley soon regrets that, as one incident after another in rapid succession, particularly the discovery of Richie's body, makes him realize, once

and for all, that he was right the first time. Upon learning that Regine and the other vampires' coffins are hidden in the apartment building's cellar, Charley attempts to stake the former, but she uses her hypnotic powers to stop him, as well as make him forget what he found. But when he meets up with Alex in the library that night, the two of them see her make her debut as the new host of Fright Night on a portable TV that Charley brought with him, which causes an adverse effect on Charley. They're then attacked by Louie, Regine's werewolf cohort, but manage to repel 

him, jogging Charley's memory about the truth. Unfortunately, he soon ends up in Regine's clutches and is brought back to her apartment in order to complete his transformation into a vampire, after which she intends to torture him for all eternity.

Ever since she first bit him, Charley has, as per usual, slowly been turning into a vampire himself. The morning after, he finds himself unable to tolerate the sun or bright lights in general, prompting him to wear sunglasses everywhere, including indoors. He also ends up sleeping for six hours that afternoon, causing him to be late in picking up Alex for their date. Following the second feeding, Charley starts to become more erratic and short-tempered, getting quite defensive when Alex puts down the horror genre as a 

whole and telling her that Bram Stoker's Dracula is a great book. He also finds himself staring at women's necks and is unable to eat a slice of pizza that has a lot of garlic. And by the time the climax rolls around, he finds it increasingly hard to control himself, as he begins to periodically develop yellow eyes and fangs, as well as a thirst for blood. He attacks Peter at one point while being rescued, and is only stopped when Alex drapes a holy cloth from a church around him. Then, Regine uses her influence over Charley to try to make him attack and kill Alex, but while he comes 

close, he's able to resist her to enough to turn the tables and kill one of her cohorts. But by this point, the rising sun proves to be a danger for Charley himself, forcing them to head down into Regine's lair and kill her before it's too late.

In the documentary, You're So Cool, Brewster: The Story of Fright Night, Amanda Bearse says that both she and Stephen Geoffreys were part of a read-through of the first script for Fright Night Part 2, which featured their respective characters. She goes on to say, "And then, it just went away. And I didn't hear anything more about it." She says she then went on to do Married... with Children, adding, "And, in that time, another script surfaced, and this time, it did not have Amy's character." She says that she would've been happy to play Amy again, but also infers that Tom Holland's lack of involvement with the sequel made her lose any enthusiasm for it she might've had. In a similar vein, the authors of the book, Welcome To Fright Night, say that Bearse also didn't like the way her character was written in the sequel (Bearse was not interviewed for that book, so she's not there to confirm if that was the case). Either way, Amy is only mentioned in passing in the movie's opening, with no explanation for why she and Charley went their separate ways. There was one written where Charley would tell Peter Vincent that she began dating older men, who all looked like Jerry Dandrige, and she eventually married one and moved to Houston with him (which is a really depressing sendoff for her, don't you think?).

Charley's new girlfriend is Alex Young (Traci Lind), a psychology major who, from the get-go, has known all about his and Peter Vincent's battle with vampires, and even though Charley no longer believes it himself, she finds it rather off-putting. Similarly, while she finds Peter charming when she meets him, she also admits he's eccentric. Going back to Charley, she finds his amorousness to be a bit much, as well, and walks off in a huff when he comes on to her really strong in the car. But, because of how out-of-character he was acting, she later becomes worried and goes to his dorm room, where she sees how freaked out he is after his "nightmare." Thus, she stays with him all night, even though she fears it'll cause her to flunk a test she has in the morning. However, she really becomes steamed when he never shows up for a date at a concert hall, and when he tries to apologize and explain himself, she becomes frustrated, saying she's going to college in order to become a psychologist, first and foremost. She also proves to be quite a snob in regards to Charley's interest in the horror genre, suggesting, when Charley himself says he may have felt intimidated by listening to classical music, "That might also explain your fascination with low-grade melodramas." This leads him to get frustrated and tell her that she should be a little more open-minded, that Dracula by Bram Stoker is a great book. Seeing just how passionate he is about it, Alex, to her credit, gets a copy of Dracula while in the library and spends the evening reading it. She proves to be something of a speed-reader, as she's read the whole thing by the time Charley joins her in the library, and admits that she was wrong about it. However, she soon learns that vampires are real when they get attacked by Louie, who is infatuated with her and tries to take her by force. Remembering what she read in the book, Alex uses some roses that Charley gave her to drive Louie away. Unfortunately, they then get arrested for the ruckus their scuffle causes, and Charley is bailed out and taken hostage by Regine. Alex, meanwhile, manages to contact Dr. Harrison, her teacher and Charley's psychologist, who bails her out. Learning that not only does Regine have Charley but Peter Vincent, after he tried to kill Regine on air, has been committed to a mental hospital, Alex is determined to release the latter so they can save Charley.

Though Harrison turns out to be a vampire as well, Alex manages to deal with him (she doesn't 100% kill him, though), and then makes it to the mental hospital, where she poses as Peter's psychiatrist. She's able to bluff her way inside, flashing Harrison's credentials as her own, and with some unexpected help, she and Peter manage to get out of there. After loading up with the tools necessary to combat vampires, as well as some makeshift weapons, they go to rescue Charley. While Alex doesn't have many 

standout moments during the climax (she doesn't kill a single vampire by herself), she does manage to stave off Charley's growing vampire instincts when he attempts to kill Peter, and her confessing her love for him enables him to resist Regine's influence and kill Bozworth. She also helps Charley kill Belle, and when they find Regine's lair down in the basement, they work together to make her coffin uninhabitable for her. However, Alex gets knocked unconscious and Charley is left defenseless, so it's Peter who ultimately puts Regine down.

Even though he's top-billed this time, I feel Roddy McDowall is kind of underutilized in his second appearance as Peter Vincent. While he actually entered the story quite a while into the first movie, he still came off as a significant character, with this great arc and relationship with Charley and the others; I don't get that here. Now, that said, Peter's first appearance, right at the beginning, is quite promising. He's still hosting Fright Night, but now, uses it as a means to warn people of the existence of vampires, much to the frustration of his producers. He's delighted when Charley shows up with Alex and, at his apartment, the old friends reminisce, with Peter looking back fondly on both his glory days in the movies and how he and Charley vanquished Jerry Dandrige. Because of that, Charley is unable to tell him the conclusion he's reached after his years of therapy, nor does Peter know that Alex doesn't believe the stories, either, instead thinking Charley told her as a warning. But after that, you don't see Peter again for a while, not until Charley, convinced that he saw Regine and Belle feeding on Richie's blood, goes to him for help. Surprisingly, he's skeptical about Charley's claims, something that Charley himself calls him out on, but Peter then says he's reluctant to accuse his own neighbors of being vampires. But when Charley is determined to go help Richie, Peter accompanies him to Regine's penthouse, where they find a party going on. Like Peter, Charley soon becomes convinced that he misinterpreted what he saw and apologizes, with Peter being totally understanding. But, when he sticks around at the party after Charley rushes off, remembering his date with Alex, he notices some of the partygoers' odd behavior and, on a hunch, opens his cigarette case. Like with Dandrige, he sees that Regine and Belle, who are dancing within sight, cast no reflection, confirming that Charley was right. He tries to flee, only to be confronted by Regine, who reveals that she's Dandrige's sister and is out for revenge on them for killing him, particularly Charley.

The only other scene that Peter has with Charley before the climax comes the next day, when he tries to tell him and Alex that Regine, whom he also learns has taken over his hosting gig on Fright Night, is actually a vampire, only to find that Charley doesn't believe anymore. Instead of trying to convince him otherwise or, at the very least, sticking around and keeping a close eye on his young friend, Peter packs up and leaves, not showing up again until he pops into a bar to get drunk. Seeing Regine's Fright 

Night debut on a TV set in there, Peter suddenly gets the gumption to head back to the studio and attempts to stake her on air. Naturally, he's stopped, dragged off the set, and arrested, and because he won't stop raving about being a vampire killer, is committed to a mental hospital. Fortunately for him, Alex manages to break him out, and the two of them arm themselves in order to save Charley. What's disappointing is, while it's obvious that he's intent on saving his friend from losing his soul, so much more could've been done

with Peter and Charley's relationship, particularly the role reversal of Peter now being the believer and Charley the skeptic. You get just a little bit of it, in the scene where Charley is rationalizing everything that happened at Regine's party and Peter exclaims, "That is not true! Think of what happened before! What we went through together!", only to be utterly horrified when he realizes that neither nor Alex believe him; otherwise, nothing. And like I said, while you'd expect Peter to still be skittish and freaked out when faced with real vampires, I don't like how, during the second act, he's still cowardly enough to abandon Charley and try to save himself. 

All that aside, Roddy McDowall is still an absolute delight in the role, bringing that same touch of class and dignity he brought to the first movie. Moreover, aside from that bit of abject of cowardice, the not so great aspects of Peter's personality from before are no longer here. In fact, it's commendable that he's now attempting to use Fright Night to warn the general public that vampires are real and seems to have truly accepted this responsibility, declaring with a toast early on, "To... the unending task of conquering the 

forces of evil, wherever they might appear." Obviously, he can still be a scaredy cat, as proven by what a terrified mess he is following his first confrontation with Regine, but he's smart enough to know to protect himself until sunrise, which he does. McDowall also plays Peter as much quirkier than before, with many great and, sometimes, oddball lines, like, "Forewarned is forearmed," and, "Oh, yes, Charley, there is time. I mean, look at the time," while pointing at a clock. When Charley, in that scene, then 

accuses him of being afraid to go to Regine's penthouse, Peter sincerely says, "That hurt, Charley." And after the inmate named Fritzy helps him and Alex escape the mental hospital, he comments, "One meets friends in the strangest of places." Alex then asks if he thinks Charley is alright and Peter's, rather random, answer is, "I don't know, my dear... It is war." When they next borrow some sacred objects from a church, including a sacred cloth, Peter looks back at the church and says, "I am just borrowing this. I promise." And, probably my favorite, when he and 

Alex grab a rope to use to scale the face of the building, he says to her, "What are we doing?! I cannot go dangling from a rope like Tarzan!" Finally, during the climax, Peter proves to still be quite adept at fighting vampires and, this time, is the one who manages to bring the main one down.

There's a real bittersweet feeling about the last time you see Peter, as he looks down the elevator shaft at Charley and Alex after Regine has been vanquished, as it's also the last time you'd ever see McDowall in this great role. It's especially sad when you know that he absolutely loved this character and was very eager to play him a third time, even personally attempting to get another Fright Night made for a while after Part 2. Unfortunately, the tragic circumstances connected to the movie's release, as well as its dismally limited performance as a result, destroyed any chance of a third movie. It's a shame, too, because who wouldn't have wanted another movie with McDowall in that part, perhaps, this time, in a story that focused squarely on him?

From the outset, Regine Dandrige (Julie Carmen) proves to be just as, if not more, seductive than her brother, as she intrigues and casts an influence over Charley as soon as he sees her. In fact, her mere presence proves to be sufficient to affect him, as when she lies atop his car's roof as he and Alex are making out, she not only gets him to become a little rough with Alex but makes him to see a vision of herself in Alex's place. Later, she meets him formally in his dorm and acts very coy in her approach to getting to him. When he slams the door in her face out of fear, she acts as though she's leaving, and when he then calls to her, she says she was looking for someone else named Charley. She goes to leave again, but then turns around and calls to Charley, asking if he has a light for her cigarette. He invites her into his dorm room and, after giving her a light, goes to make her some coffee, which is when she, in a very seductive voice, says, "You remind me of someone... This guy had a mouth like yours, good lips, and he knew how to use them. Do you know how to use your lips, Charley?" That, naturally, gets his attention, and he turns around, which is when she manages to truly seduce him, bringing him in for a round of passionate kissing and pawing at each other. In the midst of this, she removes the bandage from the shaving cut on his neck, bares her fangs, and jabs one of them into the cut, beginning Charley's gradual transformation. She continues to work on him throughout the movie, first by abducting and feeding on his friend, Richie, in an apparent ruse to get him to come to her penthouse. There, amid the party she's throwing, she appears and performs a seductive and hypnotic dance with him, as well as suddenly reveals her vampire side, only to make it seem like it was all part of her act as a performance artist, with fake fangs and such. But when Peter discovers that she and some others around her really are vampires, Regine confronts him, telling him, "Let's talk about blood, Mr. Vincent. It's very precious to me. Jerry Dandrige was a thousand years old when you spilled his blood. He was my brother, Mr. Vincent. Your punishment won't be as severe as Charley Brewster's."

In that same scene, Regine also shows the same sort of disdain for Peter as her brother, calling him a coward. She even goes as far as to take over hosting Fright Night from him, using it to continue influencing Charley (which it does), as well as possibly anyone else who watches. Speaking of which, she feeds on Charley a second time, slipping into his dorm room again to do so. She also proves to be adept at defending herself even she's sleeping in her coffin during the day, as when Charley finds her

lair down in the apartment building's basement and attempts to stake her, she awakens and uses her hypnotic powers to both send Charley away and make him forget what he found. By the time the third act rolls around, Regine's plan is almost ready to come to fruition, as Peter gets arrested and committed to an insane asylum after attempting to stake her on the air, and she bails Charley out of jail when he and Alex get arrested for what happened with Louie in the library. She brings him back to her lair, preparing to complete his change into a vampire, telling him, "Do you know

why I've done this to you, Charley Brewster? Because soon you'll be immortal. You'll live forever. And it's forever that I'll torture you." Even when Peter and Alex show up to save Charley, and manage to take out a couple of her minions, Regine's influence causes him to nearly succumb and feed on Alex's blood to complete his change. Much to her chagrin, he manages to resist and they all fight back, killing the rest of her cohorts and forcing her to flee back to her coffin. But just like her brother, she proves to be quite hard to vanquish.

While she's not quite as multi-faceted as her brother, as we don't get much personality out of her other than her desire for revenge on Charley and Peter, Regine is still an effective villain. Not only is Julie Carmen very beautiful, with an exotic and unique look (she's of both Afro-Cuban and Spanish/German descent), and a sense of grace, elegance, and power about her, but her voice just oozes sensuality. It's no mystery why Charley is taken by her, even without her hypnotic powers. That's to say nothing of her dance 

numbers, which run the gambit from being very sexy to downright unsettling. On top of that, the way she not only manipulates and seduces Charley, as well as operates to take Peter's job (how she managed that is never explained, but I'm sure she was very "persuasive" towards the show's producers) and manages to have him committed to an asylum, alludes to a dangerous and cunning intelligence. And her ultimate plan to make Charley a vampire and torment him for all eternity is pretty evil, as well as when you 

think of the various ways she could do so. Again, we don't have the sense of pathos and longing that Jerry had to him, but the fact that Regine is willing to do this to avenge her brother suggests the two of them were quite close. And, while she has an undead servant akin to Billy Cole in the form of Bozworth, as well as a small group of cohorts, the one she seems the closest to is Belle. She doesn't spend that much time with Bozworth and Louie, save for when they're following her orders, but she and Belle feed on Richie together, are seen dancing at the party, and Belle is

the one who assists Regine in bathing Charley in the lead up to his final transformation. Like with Jerry and Billy, some of this does point to a suggested homosexual relationship between Regine and Belle (I think back to an early scene, where Belle offers Regine a taste of a victim's blood and she accepts, licking it off her hand), and Regine lets out an especially enraged shriek after Belle is destroyed, but it's never confirmed.

Also like her brother, Regine has several different stages to her vampire side. The most basic one has her develop inhuman yellow eyes and fangs, but you also see a glimpse of an older, more monstrous face when she hypnotizes Charley during her dance at the party, and during the climactic battle, she turns into a hideous bat-like monster, infinitely more horrifying than Jerry's ultimate form. Speaking of which, Regine is also able to turn into a monstrous vampire bat, as well as become a cloud of mist when she enters

Charley's dorm room to feed on him the second time, alluding to another of Dracula's abilities in the original Bram Stoker novel. As has been noted, her hypnotic powers are also considerable, and she's able to manipulate and get into Charley's head by her mere presence, as seen in that early scene between him and Alex in the car. Not only does she, as per usual, not cast a reflection (though, by that logic, the television cameras shouldn't be able to record her, either), but she's stopped from getting back into her coffin when

Charley and Alex put a set of Communion wafers in it, in the shape of a cross, and is destroyed by sunlight. Also, given how she stops Charley from doing so, we can assume that, unlike Jerry, she is vulnerable to being staked. One thing about her that's inconsistent is whether or not crosses affect her. When she confronts Peter after he learns that she is a vampire, he tries to repel her with one but it does nothing. She then says, "Over the centuries, one develops a bit of tolerance for some of the trappings." But, during the climax, Peter manages to ward her 

off with one while in her monster form and, again, the shape of one made from Communion wafers prevents her from getting into her coffin, as well as contributes to her final demise at the end. It clearly can't be a question of faith, given how Peter gained his faith near the end of the first movie, after he was initially unable to ward off Jerry with a crucifix. The rules of vampires may change from movie to movie, but you'd expect some consistency within a single movie or a franchise, you know?

Evil Ed's absence in the sequel has a much simpler and more straightforward explanation: Stephen Geoffreys simply wasn't interested in returning. In fact, he says in the documentary that he was contractually obligated to be in Fright Night Part 2 and had to get out of it, mainly because he was much more interested in starring in 976-EVIL. So, the character of Louie (Jon Gries) was created in Ed's place, with the most obvious connection between them being how Louie turns into a werewolf, as well as how he's the funniest of the movie's villains. But those are about the only similarities, as they're completely different characters, and in more ways than one. Louie has something of a "far out" surfer dude kind of mentality about him, and is much more interested in getting with girls than feeding on them, much to Bozworth and Belle's irritation. He especially becomes infatuated with Alex, as he shows up and takes her to the symphony in Charley's place, and then walks her home. When Bozworth, for the second time, tells him that he was supposed to bite her neck, Louie, who has quite the pep in his step, tells him, "I'm not thirsty right now, man." This continues the following night, when he meets up with Alex at the library and intends to have a romantic date with her if Charley stands her up again. But when Charley does show up, Louie has to be restrained from attacking him, with Bozworth reminding him that Charley is Regine's victim. They and Belle go bowling in order for him to take his mind off of Alex, though he does eventually return to the library and isn't happy when he sees her with Charley. He tries to take her by force, and only laughs when she slaps him across the face. And when confronted with Charley, Louie lets the beast out and stalks them through the library, before Alex uses roses to drive him away.

I'm not entirely sure if Louie is a vampire, a werewolf, or a mix of both. I'm guessing he is a vampire, since he never appears during the daytime, is able to become his wolf form at will, retains his senses and the ability to speak, and is killed when Charley shoots a small stake through his chest. What confused me is, while Ed just turned into a normal wolf, as per traditional vampire myths, Louie becomes something more akin to your classic humanoid, Wolf Man-style werewolf, with long claws

that allow him to climb up the sides of buildings like Spider-Man. Like the other vampires, he's also able to bring out bits of his monster form at a time, like when his eyes turn yellow and his teeth sharpen before he chases Charley and Alex through the library, and his face briefly becomes wolf-like when he scares a dog that's barking at him. In any case, I've never been a big fan of his werewolf form, mainly because he's so hairy that he mostly looks like a Wookie in need of a manicure, with a kind of goofy face and mouth full of teeth (I hate saying that, as the late, great Greg 

Cannom, after having just done the vampire work for The Lost Boys, was the guy behind Louie's makeup). He probably looks that way because he's meant to be a comedic character, aside from some occasional moments where he's a little menacing, but he's not one of my favorite werewolf characters, that's for sure. You also don't get to see him in full-blown werewolf form that much, as all of his scenes like that were shot in a row so Gries would only have to spend a limited amount of time in that makeup.

Again, Louie is mostly a comedic character, mainly because of Gries' naturally funny look, and his energy and enthusiasm about life and lovely ladies. When he's first introduced at the beginning, he's climbing up the side of a building in werewolf form, heading for Alex's window, only for her to obliviously slam the window down, chopping off his claws and sending him falling into a bush below. He turns back into his human form, completely naked, and is later seen sitting in the limousine with Regine and Belle like

that. He sheepishly asks Belle, as she feeds on her own victim, "Can I have a bite?" During the scene where he, Bozworth, and Belle go bowling, after slaughtering everyone there, Louie is constantly slipping and falling all over himself when he tries to roll a ball down the lane, and cannot keep them out of the gutter, even when he runs after one and kicks it. The only time he knocks the pins over is when he slides and hits them himself, and then, he gets caught up in the rack when it comes down. At one point, he messes with Bozworth by putting the bartender's

severed head in the ball retriever, which doesn't sit well with him and the two of them come close to getting into a fight over it. Louie's last scene is when, while Peter and Alex are trying to save Charley, he traps Peter outside on the building's ledge and nearly causes him to fall to his death. He picks at Peter's hand as he hangs on to the ledge, saying, "This little piggy...", only for Charley to shoot him through the window with a speargun. He falls into a fountain down below, turning back to his human form again, and before he dies, compliments Charley, saying, "Bullseye, dude."

Remember when I talked about how, when I saw the first Fright Night, I initially wasn't sure what Evil Ed's gender was? Well, that was taken up to eleven here with Belle (Russell Clark), as Clark, for one, had such a naturally androgynous look to his facial structure, and then, when you add the outfits, the long hair with obvious extensions, long claws with black nail polish, and his complete lack of dialogue, you're really not sure if this vampire is a man or a woman. Since their name is "Belle," I'm going to assume this is a case of a man playing a female character. And while the idea of a vampire on rollerskates is ridiculous, Belle is probably the most dangerous of the group besides Regine. Bozworth is only interested in insects and Louie just wants to get with Alex rather than drink her blood, but Belle? Shortly after the group's introduction, she stalks a student on the college campus and, when she's alone in the actual school, Belle rolls right at her, grabs her, and bites into her neck, splattering her blood against some of the drawing paper she was carrying. Belle continues feeding on her in the limousine, even offering some of her blood to Regine. Like I said, the two of them seem especially close, with Belle taking part in Regine's feeding on Richie, dancing with her during the party, and helping her prepare Charley for the final part of his transformation. Her coffin is even down in the basement near Regine's, something I can't quite say for Louie. And above all else, she's at least equal to Regine in terms of gracefulness and agility, proving to be quite fearsome and quick on her skates (Clark was not only an accomplished dancer, but also Michael Jackson's choreographer at one point), and is the one who comes off the most skilled during the bowling scene. Finally, her death scene is the movie's most spectacular effects showcase, even more so than Regine's.

Brian Thompson, whom most will remember as the Night Slasher in Cobra (though I always think of him as the punk who gets his heart ripped out at the beginning of The Terminator), plays the role of Regine's chauffeur and servant, Bozworth. Like Billy Cole in the first movie, Bozworth is Regine's Renfield, as his ability to walk around in the daytime enables him to perform tasks that she herself can't. He's also as loyal to her as Billy was to Jerry, at one point stopping Louie from going after Charley, telling him, "He's not yours," and securing Charley when Regine tries to make him bite into Alex's neck to complete the metamorphosis. Plus, being a big, burly, strong guy, Bozworth is quite effective as a bodyguard for Regine, easily managing to thwart the heroes' initial attempt to vanquish him. While his relationship with Belle is pretty indifferent, it's clear that Louie gets on Bozworth's nerves, with his refusal to kill Alex and also because he often tries to antagonize him. And, most of all like Renfield, he has a taste for insects and constantly searches for a bug to snack on. What's more, he proves to be something of a connoisseur, stating an insect's scientific name, like you would the brand and vintage of a fine wine, before gulping one down. However, this leads to his death scene being especially disgusting, as it seems like all of his innards were replaced by the hundreds of bugs he devoured over however long he was serving Regine.

One character whose deal I've never been able to figure out is Dr. Harrison (Ernie Sabella, the voice of Pumba in The Lion King), Charley's psychiatrist and Alex's psychology teacher. At first, he seems pretty straightforward: he's been helping Charley come to terms with what he went through over the past three years and has helped him convince himself that vampires aren't real. He also helps him work through his complicated feelings about Peter Vincent and encourages him to go talk with him. Charley comes to Harrison again following the first encounter he has with Regine, where he assures him that what he went through is a normal part of dealing with trauma, that his "delusion" about Jerry Dandrige being a vampire, coupled with how he first saw Regine in the apartment building's dark lobby, caused him to have this apparent dream. He then attempts to give Charley some medication to take care of his dreams, opening up a desk drawer full of packs of pills, which serves as the first indication that there's something fishy about him. When Charley doesn't seem too enthused about taking them, Harrison goes, "Just say no? I understand," and instead suggests he go bowling as a way of "exercising." Harrison isn't seen again until, after she and Charley are thrown in jail, Alex calls him and he bails her out. The two of them then go to get Peter out of the mental hospital... and when they stop at a train crossing, Harrison turns out to be a vampire himself.

He doesn't last long, as Alex almost immediately impales him with a splintered half of a board, but I have so many questions. Since his sessions with Charley took place in the middle of the day, Harrison clearly wasn't a vampire then, but was he still working with Regine, perhaps giving Charley therapy for years in order to make him an easier target? You never see any real evidence of this, save for maybe when, as Harrison did for Charley, Bozworth suggests that Louie go bowling to get his mind off of Alex, 

but that could also just be a coincidence. Since Charley goes to see him when he really starts to feel the change, only to find he's not in, we can assume that's when he was turned, but, still, whether it was something Harrison himself wanted is left unclear. And as if I weren't confused enough, when Alex stakes him, it doesn't go in all the way and Harrison decides to finish himself off. Okay, he talks about how painful it is, as well as, "I know something of what you're feeling and it's important for you to experience that," before putting himself out of his 

misery, but I still don't know if he was an innocent who became a vampire or if he was an awful person who got what he wanted, but the pain from this partial staking made him realize it wasn't worth it. And, as it turns out,  there was originally some dialogue while they're sitting at the train crossing where Harrison describes to Alex something that happened the previous week, namely that Regine suddenly showed up at his office, claiming to be conducting a "social experiment." I don't know why they felt the need to remove that in the editing but that would've cleared things up a little bit.

A character who's much easier to understand is Charley's friend, Richie Green (Merritt Butrick). He walks in on Charley, waking him up after he overslept for his date with Alex, and asks to borrow a necktie, a habit he's had for the past six years. When asked whom he's trying to impress with said tie, he replies, "Art women! Bohemian bodies!" Turns out his date is with Regine, as Charley sees her lure Richie into her limo, take him to her building, and then, through the penthouse window, feeding on him, along with Belle. When Charley brings Peter to the penthouse, they find Richie amid the party that Regine is throwing, and doesn't look too good. He insists that he's just drunk, and he also gets uncomfortable when Charley inspects his neck, looking for bite marks, telling him, "It's the wrong thing to do, Brewster." The next day, Charley hears a news report about how Richie was found murdered in a cemetery outside of town, but when Regine takes him back to her building in the third act, Richie, now fully a vampire, pays him a visit, much to Charley's shock. He explains, "Got off the slab at the morgue just to be here tonight. It's great you're joining up. I really mean that, Charley... I know Regine's pissed at you but, she has a great sense of humor. It'll blow over." Also, he explains that, the night of the party, he was wearing makeup to cover up the bite marks on his neck. He then leaves, only to immediately come back and walk in on Peter and Alex after they've climged through the window to help Charley. Before Richie can do anything, Peter sprays him with holy water, leading to a pretty gruesome death.

One last noteworthy character is Fritzy (Josh Richman), this one inmate at the mental asylum where Peter is taken. He turns out to be a big fan and is excited when Peter shows up, and when Peter tells him that he's after a real vampire, Fritzy says he believes him. And he means it, as when Alex shows up to get Peter out, Fritzy helps them. He finds Dr. Harrison's AMA card, which Alex dropped at some point, and the nurse on staff takes it and is about to call security, only for Fritzy to knock her out. He then activates the fire alarm and knocks out the orderly who's with Alex and Peter when he comes running out of the room. That done, Fritzy comes in and sincerely tells Peter, "Okay, Mr. Vincent. You can go kill your vampire now."

It's a real shame that, for decades, Fright Night Part 2 couldn't be seen in anything better than VHS or early DVD quality, nor in its original aspect ratio, because it is a well-shot film. That's likely due to the cinematographer having been Mark Irwin, who shot many of David Cronenberg's early films and, just before this, had done The Fly, as well as the 1988 remake of The Blob. He gives it a very appealing overall look, with a light brown, comfortable, autumnal feel during the daytime scenes, namely the exterior ones, while the nighttime scenes, both 

outside and inside, take the blue moonlight scheme from the first movie and really run with it, sometimes practically bathing them in that lovely deep blue. In addition, the sequence where Alex walks across the campus, back to her dorm, and when Belle stalks the one student before attacking her in the school, is covered in a classic, creepy mist. The party in Regine's penthouse has a very otherworldly look and feel, with the blue, pinkish, and green lights, and the visible haze in the air. In fact, that hazy feeling is 

maintained in many of the scenes there in the third act, like when Regine and Belle are washing Charley, and during much of the climax, with nice beams of sunlight coming through the windows. And Regine's dance when she first hosts Fright Night is shot in a very vivid, brightly lit manner, going along with the very surreal stuff you see during it.

Tommy Lee Wallace's direction is also on point, and while he doesn't get too crazy with his camerawork and editing, there is some truly inspired work to be found here. Early on, there's a high-angle, wide shot of the apartment building lobby, making Charley look very small and minute as he's waiting around for Alex, followed by an overhead shot of the limousine as Bozworth opens the door for Regine. And when Charley and Alex leave the building, there's a shot looking down at them from the roof, suggesting that it maybe Regine may be watching them from up there,

much like with Jerry Dandrige's POV atop his house's roof in the first one. Speaking of which, there are more elaborate shots from Regine's POV when she's flying around in her bat form, often sped up to come off as more unnatural. You see the camera swooping above the highway and towards the top of Charley's car, which is parked on the curb as he and Alex are making out inside, and it then goes up and comes straight back down towards the roof. Shortly afterward, after Louie falls off the side of the building and gets admonished by Bozworth, you then see

Regine's POV as she flies past them, goes up above the dormitory, then down towards the spot where the limousine is parked, swooping past both the car's roof and Belle as she carries her victim back to it, and finally, towards Charley's dorm. And in-between those scenes, when Alex is walking to her dorm, there's a low angle, floating POV shot, very reminiscent of The Evil Dead, stalking her. Whether it's meant to be Belle or Louie is kind of unclear (probably Louie) but, either way, it's still well done. 

And like the first movie, there are some very memorable images and moments to be found here, like the shot of Regine lying atop the roof of Charley's car in a very sexy manner; the slow-motion one of a backlit Belle rollerskating towards her victim, followed by a pretty scary close-up of her face; Regine's seductive dance with Charley at the party, not to mention her surreal performance on TV; shots of Louie climbing and hanging onto the sides of buildings in his werewolf form, as well as the

darkened shot of his face when he threatens Charley and Alex; a very memorable image of Regine walking through a room, backlit, as she makes the candelabras around her suddenly light up; a shot of her wailing like a banshee from a ledge after Belle has been killed; and all the memorable deaths of the villains during the climax.

While we can assume that it takes place in the same general neighborhood in Illinois as the first movie, possibly in the larger town seen in the backgrounds of the suburbs, Fright Night Part 2, like the first, was shot entirely in California, not just in the Los Angeles area but also in Long Beach and a bit in San Francisco. As most of the movie takes place at Charley and Alex's college, the primary shooting location was California State University, and its campus makes for an appealing setting, with notable locations like Dr. Harrison's office, the large library

where Charley and Alex are attacked by Louie, and Charley's dorm-room, which is just as cluttered and covered in movie posters as his bedroom was. Probably the most notable building on the campus is the Student Union, which houses pool tables, a mini-restaurant that sells food like pizza, and even a freaking bowling alley and bar in the back (at the private high school I went to, all I can remember our Student Union having was some foosball tables and a big screen TV), which Louie, Belle, and Bozworth take over in order to blow off some steam. Elsewhere,

you see the exterior and lobby of a large concert hall, where Alex intends to listen to some classical music with Charley, and a typical type of bar that Peter stops at after he's fled his building. Also, this time, you actually get to see the Fright Night set in person, which looks as though it got a budget increase, with a more elaborate cemetery mock-up in the background and detailed decor out in front, including a throne-like chair for Peter to sit on, as well as fake headstones and candelabras. When Regine takes over the show,

the set becomes little more than a single tree in the middle of a misty spot with a black background. And, for a little bit, Peter winds up in the mental asylum, which is the typical rundown, crummy-looking place that has clearly seen better days. Peter's room, however, doesn't look too bad, if a bit claustrophobic and with little furniture other than a small cot and a smaller table.

The most memorable location is Peter Vincent and Regine's apartment building, and another nice twist is that the vampire is Peter's ostensible neighbor this time. The building's exterior, which was used prominently in the movie's theatrical poster, and was actually the Trianon Apartments in Los Angeles, is memorably spooky and Gothic in its own right, not unlike Jerry's large, old house. Again, we can easily assume this is same place where Peter was living before (there was no establishing shot of his building in the first movie), although his apartment doesn't

look quite the same. In fact, all that's familiar is that big, arched doorway, which now seems to lead into a dining room rather than a kitchen, and the numerous posters and memorabilia from his past movies; otherwise, the walls now have a green color scheme, there's a big fireplace and mantle, and a small nook in the corner where he sits and waits until daylight after learning that Charley was right. Regine's penthouse apartment on the top floor is large enough to house quite a big party that she throws shortly after she 

arrives, with a long corridor made up into a spot where everyone mingles about and are given party favors in the form of fake fangs. When Charley is brought there to become a vampire during the climax, you see this one room with a tub in the middle of a thin, see-through curtain, where Regine and Alex clean him up, and a small one with rather fancy furniture, but with drab walls and fairly weak, old doors, which is where he's held hostage afterward. There are also rooms filled with old, cobweb-covered, dusty furniture and crates, and the long corridor where much of the confrontation with Regine's cohorts takes place (the same spot where the party was held).

Other parts of the building that get some use include the interior stairwells, where Peter is first confronted by Regine; the outside ledge, which he and Alex have to use to get to Charley; the elevator shaft, which plays a pivotal part in the finale; and the big, creepy lobby, where Charley gets his first good look at Regine and her group (and which kind of makes me think of the lobby of the Tower of Terror at Disney World, with the old rug in the middle of the floor, the marble pillars, the potted plants, a bunch of sitting areas, and a chandelier). Finally, the basement is 

where both Regine and Belle's coffins are kept, and this place is both a storage area for old, cobweb-covered stuff that's no longer used and has a feeling of Freddy Krueger's boiler room about it, with the metal walkways and stairs. Regine's coffin is found in a spot beyond a large hole in the wall, leading to an area at the bottom of the elevator shaft.

It's in the scripting where I feel Fright Night Part 2 truly falls short of the first. For one, I find the plot structure to be a bit poor, such as how, during the first act, we go back and forth from Charley having convinced himself that vampires aren't real, and then him coming to believe they are again and attempting to show Peter, to Peter himself then realizing that Charley was right and trying to convince him, and Charley finally learning he was right and trying to talk with Peter, who has left his apartment by this point. Needless to say, that gets repetitive fast. And, 

while you, admittedly, could kind of say the same for the first movie, the climax here feels like just a series of special effects setpieces strung together. In the first, you had the struggle to save both Amy and her soul before it was too late in-between those effects moments, whereas here, you go from Richie and Louie's deaths to those of Belle, Bozworth, and then the final confrontation with Regine, without much space between them. Not only that, but the climax was longer and had more time to breathe in the first, whereas here, it lasts for about fifteen or so minutes 

and feels rushed. There are some issues in the writing itself, as well. As I mentioned before, Peter not only abandons Charley but isn't utilized that well in the story as a whole and feels pushed to the side during its middle, and there are some plotholes, such as Dr. Harrison suddenly turning out to be a vampire (as I said, that was caused by some ill-advised editing, but even then, the revelation that he was turned by Regine a week before still flies in the face of his early scenes, where he's in broad daylight), and how some people 

at the party appear to be biting their lovers but are never seen as full-on vampires later. Now, I could've misread those visuals, since, as you can see, the party scene's misty look makes it a bit hard to tell what's going on, but seeing that was why Peter checked his mirror. Or, maybe he got the wrong idea from that, like me, and it still led to him unintentionally proving that Charley was right.

As is often the case with sequels, there are maybe one too many elements here taken from the first. They put some twists on it, for sure, like the overall story of Charley being seduced by a female vampire, with his girlfriend and Peter trying to save him, the vampire now being Peter's neighbor, and the action being moved from a less suburban setting, but you still have a lot of moments that are recreated, often in detail. Among them are Charley looking out a window and seeing mysterious crates being moved into the building (even the angle is similar), which later turn 

out to be the vampires' coffins; Charley being a total horndog with his girlfriend; him seeing Regine feeding on someone through a window while watching from nearby, leading him to lock eyes with her; him getting a nighttime visit from Regine in his room after she's been invited in; Regine having an undead minion who's able to walk around in the daytime, and another who's able to become a wolf creature; a seductive dance scene; Peter Vincent learning the vampires are real thanks to his cigarette

case's mirror; Regine initially proving resistant to crosses; the climax being a continuous struggle to save the vampire's intended victim, with the final confrontation taking place near Regine's coffin; Regine finally being destroyed by sunlight (for the most part), resulting in a type of explosion; and the final scene being Charley and his girlfriend making out. It's a tricky balancing act to give the viewer what they expect in a sequel but also not repeating things to the point of feeling like a rehash and, while I wouldn't go as far as to refer to this as such, there is a lot here that's familiar.

Speaking of a tricky balancing act, while Tom Holland was able to give the first Fright Night a sense of humor without going so over-the-top that it became a parody, Part 2 isn't as successful in the regard. Certainly not a full-on comedy, it has little of the same atmosphere or spooky vibes as the first one, and the attempts at humor are sometimes downright goofy. As effectively creepy as she proves to be, Belle is still a vampire on rollerskates, which is hard to take seriously, no matter what, and Louie is a very comedic character who gets caught up in some silly

and cartoonish situations, such as falling off a building after Alex slams the window down on his claws and then having to ride back nude, or when he briefly uses his werewolf form to scare a dog that's barking at him. The most overtly comedic scene is when Louie, Bozworth, and Belle go bowling, which plays like a sillier version of the bar scene in Near Dark, as the vampires take over the Student Union bowling alley after killing everybody on staff. Then, while Wilson Pickett's In The Midnight Hour plays on the soundtrack, you see the three of them bowl in 

their own respective ways (Bozworth often uses his strength to throw two balls at once, Belle makes use of her skates, and Louie just fumbles around like an idiot). And when it comes back to them after cutting away briefly to Charley and Alex, Louie use the stump of the bartender's neck like a beer dispenser, filling a mug with his blood, and plays a joke on Bozworth by putting the guy's head in the ball return system. Bozworth then comes close to beating on him and they almost get into a fight, before they're

distracted by Regine's debut on Fright Night on the TV. Other examples include Charley running around in a panic in order to get dressed and go pick up Alex, how exaggerated of a character Richie is, how outraged Charley gets when Alex puts down the horror genre, his disgusted reaction when he finds he's eating a pizza with lots of garlic, Dr. Harrison's over the top reaction to being staked, Fritzy in general, and Peter Vincent's more eccentric personality (though, again, Roddy McDowall makes that work). 

While we're on the subject of Peter, we hear some more titles of his movies, and while some are pretty generic (Jaws of the Vampire, Fangs of Fear, Beast of Budapest, etc.), others are more ridiculous than they were before. Granted, the only one we heard of before was Orgy of the Damned, which didn't sound like high art either, but here, we get titles like Scream For Your Supper, Blood Beast on Broadway, and such. Also, the scene where he and Alex are gearing up to save Charley kind of makes me think of the Ghostbusters getting their own equipment together,

and some of the weapons they come up with are quite silly in and of themselves, such as how they sharpen pencils into small stakes and shoot them from a gun, and fill a sprayer up with holy water.

Incidentally, the use of holy water here proves that it likely would've worked on Jerry Dandrige in the first movie, and we also learn that the use of a holy cloth from a church is both lethal to vampires and able to stem a victim's transformation into one. Furthermore, they bring in some effective items that are mentioned in the original Dracula novel but are often not used in most movies, like Communion wafers, which are used to make Regine's coffin lethal to her, and roses, which are used to repel Louie during the scene in the library by jamming them in his mouth, after which they 

combust. (It's been so long since I've actually read Dracula that I was confused by the latter, and wouldn't know what happened if Alex hadn't mentioned she read it in the book.) And speaking of the Stoker novel, Regine's ability to become mist is something else that's often not incorporated into movies. However, like I mentioned earlier, it's confusing just how vulnerable Regine is to crosses, and there's also a moment where you see Regine in the daytime, when she's talking with Richie before 

she takes him back to her apartment. It was basically dusk, though, and Bozworth was there with an umbrella as a further shield from the sunlight. Similarly, Charley, despite claiming during the climax that he's now vulnerable to sunlight, is able to reach through a beam and pull Regine into it without being affected. And before that, he reaches for a discarded cross, even though he shouldn't be able to even look at it. I think the explanation we can come up for those instances is mere plot convenience. Otherwise, nearly all of the other familiar tropes are at play here.

One thing I've come to really like about Fright Night Part 2 over these last couple of viewings is how utterly 80's it is. The first one was most definitely of its time as well, but here, it's amplified. I mean, Charley Brewster now has an honest to God mullet! Need I say more? And that's to say nothing of the clothes and fashion you see a lot of the college students wearing, the way Louie has his hair, despite how he's clearly balding, those sunglasses that Charley starts wearing, Belle's rollerskates (only during this period would anyone think to put those on 

a vampire), the overall look of the party that Regine throws in her penthouse, some of the songs on the soundtrack, and, particularly for me, the colorful look of that Student Union's interior. Doesn't that just scream 1980's in and of itself? And the movie overall just has that unmistakable late 80's look to it that, even though you can't really define it, you know it when you see it.

While bloodier than the first one, this is still not nearly as gory of a vampire movie as you might expect. You get a little bit early on, when Charley cuts himself while shaving, but then, when Belle kills the woman she stalks on the campus, you see a big spurt of blood onto some of her drawing paper, which then gets smeared by her flailing hand, and with more blood spurting from the girl's neck as Belle feeds. That's definitely the bloodiest moment in the whole movie, and is followed by some smaller moments here and there, like when Regine punctures Charley's 

cut with one of her fangs, Alex notices blood seeping from underneath his bandage, and Regine bleeds a bit from her own neck during her dance on Fright Night. On the other hand, the sight of Regine and Belle feeding on Richie through the penthouse window is fairly bloody, and during the bowling scene, you see Belle feeding on a dead woman, while Louie pumps the bartender's blood into a beer mug (you don't see the blood filling it up but the nasty, squelching sound effects as he does it are enough), right before the 

man's severed head tumbles out of the ball return, though it's all played for laughs. Following that, the effects, like the first movie, are more outrageously slimy and nasty than they are full-on bloody, as none of the stakings are that graphic, and nobody else gets bitten.

This time, the makeup effects were mostly the work of a division of Fantasy II Film Effects, the company hired to do the miniature work and opticals, called, fittingly enough, Makeup Effects Unlimited. They're not quite up to the standard that Richard Edlund and company set in the first movie, but it's still good stuff, even if you can sometimes tell when an actor has been replaced by a dummy and some of the props don't look that great (like the bartender's head). Also, the vampire makeups are much simpler here, mostly consisting of fangs, yellow eyes, and some possibly

subtle prosthetics on the faces, with the exceptions being a more hideous face that Regine exposes to Charley when she hypnotizes him during their dance, and her monster bat form during a bit of the climax. And during her dance on Fright Night, there's a moment where her face becomes really fake-looking, as it if it were made of plastic, giving off an uncomfortable, Uncanny Valley feel, and then becomes more monstrous when she splashes blood on it. Again, like the first movie, the makeup effects really get to strut their stuff during the third act, with 

the vampires' elaborate deaths. Richie gets sprayed in the face with holy water, which badly burns much of it, and when he's sprayed again, a big glop of water and blood discharges through his neck. Bozworth gets his stomach ripped open by Belle's claws and, after he falls to the floor, it just erupts with hundreds of bugs, maggots, and worms (like Louie's werewolf makeup, that effect was also devised by Greg Cannom). Probably the most amazing death is Belle's, where, after Charley and Alex wrap her up in the holy cloth, 

she proceeds to spectacularly melt and dissolve into nothing, all while her body appears to glow from the inside. It was created through a pretty simple process, actually, as they just filmed a wax skull, covered in gelatin, through an oven's window as it melted inside, and was shot in a special time-lapse manner that created a bizarre, uncanny, almost digital feel to the action. For my money, it rivals Billy's disintegration in the first movie. And finally, when Regine is 

exposed to sunlight at the end, you see her beginning to burn and her skin sizzling, before she combusts into flames, and you then see a more monstrous version of her melting within. There was also a badly burned makeup for the final shot of her struggling back to her coffin, which, in behind-the-scenes photos, looks like the skinless Frank in Hellraiser, but, unfortunately, it was mostly obscured by the flames that were matted onto her in post-production.

There are also far more visual effects this time around, and many of them are either very obvious or haven't aged all that well. For example, many of the exterior shots of the apartment building involve a matte painting of the sky, which looks nice but you can tell that's what it is, and the same goes for the high-angle shots of Peter and Alex making their way across the building's exterior ledge to save Charley. Other effects, like the switching back and forth between normal Regine and the older, uglier version during the dance sequence, the blue screen work for 

when Peter is hanging from the ledge and Louie then falls off the side of the building to his death after getting speared, and the beam of sunlight that destroys Regine at the end (which is purple, for some reason, as you can see), all look rather archaic. But, at the same time, the red, hypnotic glowing in her eyes when she stops Charley from staking her is effectively simple, while the visual of her mist form filling Charley's room, before she materializes out of it, is a genuinely cool effect, and we also get some 

nice stop-motion for the sequences where her bat form is flying around, notably when you see it during the ending. And the use of the elevator shaft during the climax involved some very well done miniatures, such as one of the shaft itself and the elevator's interiors for when you see Regine smashing her way through the floor (the latter look so great that I just assumed they were a set and was very surprised to learn they were actually a miniature), as well as a mock-up that was filmed at a slanted angle.

Remember back when sequels would often start up with a recap of the previous movie? Fright Night Part 2 is one such example, as it begins with a quick montage of major moments from the first one: Charley seeing Jerry Dandrige and Billy Cole carry the coffin into the house, his confrontation with Dandrige in his room, Dandrige biting Amy, and his and Peter's battle with Dandrige, leading to the vampire being destroyed by the rising sun. Besides catching the audience up to speed, this recap also 

serves as part of Charley's therapy, as he's telling Dr. Harrison what he "believes" happened before going into the "truth." After that, the first major scene comes following his and Alex's visit with Peter, when Charley first sees Regine, as well as her group, when they enter the building's lobby. Then, after Regine's first sign of influence over him, causing him to get really grabby with Alex and see a vision of Regine herself in her place, Alex gets frustrated with Charley and walks back to her dorm. The path leads through a 

very spooky, mist-enshrouded patch of woods, and a low-angle POV indicates that she's being followed. Her stalker trails her all the way to the dorm, before she walks in and closes the door behind her. As soon as she does, there's a very quick flit of something outside the door. Hearing the sound, she turns and looks out the window, but decides to forget about it and heads up to her room, as her stalker hides in the nearby bushes. Another student promptly walks out the door and heads down the path, unaware that she's caught Belle's eye. Walking into the actual school, 

carrying some sets of drawing paper with her, the student is startled when a group of guys come out of a door in front of her. She then realizes that one of her shoes is untied and stops to correct that, when she hears something. There's a cutaway to Belle scraping her claws across a set of lockers like Freddy, and when the student looks up and to her left, she sees her coming at her on her rollerskates. Instead of running, she watches her, transfixed, until Belle reaches her. She promptly grabs her, bites into her neck, and feeds on her in the middle of the hallway.

Back at the dorms, Louie pops up right outside of a window on the ground floor, and then climbs up the side of the building, heading to an open window several stories up. It just so happens to Alex's, who's changed into her nightgown and completely unaware of what's going on. Louie's clawed fingers come over the windowsill, but Alex never notices. In fact, she closes the window, breaking the claws and sending Louie tumbling down into the bushes below. As Bozworth admonishes him for not biting Alex on

the neck, we get Regine's POV as she flies above the campus, heading towards Charley's dorm. Cutting to Charley himself, he's awakened by a persistent knocking on his door, and as he gets out of bed and puts his robe on in order to answer it, he hears a woman's voice say his name. He thinks it's Alex (even though that doesn't sound like her at all), and opens the door to find Regine standing there. He immediately slams the door shut, but then tries to get a grip, telling himself, "One, there are no vampires. 

Two, there is a rational explanation for this. Three, that was very rude. Four, she is incredibly beautiful. Five, there are no vampires." That's when he invites Regine in to give her a light for her cigarette and also goes to make her some coffee, when she seduces him and they begin making out. As they do, she digs one of her fangs into the cut on his neck, drawing blood, which she then licks off her fang, moaning at the taste. Charley then sees her face and screams at the sight of her fangs and yellow eyes, before suddenly waking up back in bed from an apparent nightmare.

He hears knocking at the door again and, deciding not to take any chances this time, takes the one crucifix he still has and brandishes it when he opens the door. However, it actually is just Alex, who spends the night with him when she sees how shaken he is by his "dream."

The next day, when he oversleeps and is late for his date with Alex at the concert hall, Charley rushes to meet her there, when he sees Richie getting friendly with Regine on a street corner as he drives by. And when he gets into her limousine and they drive off, Charley, despite looking at his watch and seeing that he doesn't have much time to spare, follows after them anyway. He tails them to the apartment building, where he watches them talk and slightly make out on the front steps, before going inside. Charley gets out 

of his car, is about to follow them into the building, but decides what he's doing is stupid and goes to get back in his car. But just as he's about to, he sees an eerie blue light in the penthouse window, and gets curious again. Unable to see much from that angle, or from the street, for that matter, he tries desperately to get a better view. Walking along the sidewalk, he's gradually able to see that there appear to be at least two women in there with Richie, but not much else. He climbs up onto a gryphon statue next to the 

building across the street, which gives him a slightly improved vantage point, but it's still not enough to satisfy him. He finally opts to climb up an exterior stairway on the other building, and that's when he's able to see that Regine and Belle are feeding on Richie's blood. Knowing that this isn't a dream, he goes to warn Peter, and the two of them make their way up to the penthouse. They're let inside by a rather creepy-looking guy who promptly brandishes some fangs and growls menacingly. While Peter covers his face with his hands and yells in abject terror, Charley 

shoves a cross in the guy's face, causing him to drop something that breaks on the floor (likely his fake fangs). Dropping the act, he tells them to not get carried away, and the two of them head on inside to find the party that's underway. Charley finds Richie, seemingly unharmed, save for being really drunk, and with no marks on his neck.

Just as Charley and Peter are about to leave, Come To Me starts playing on the soundtrack, as Regine, accompanied by Belle, appears amid the crowd across from them. She walks towards Charley in a very sultry manner and offers her hand. He offers his in return, she takes it, and the two of them engage in a sensual dance. It's very close and intimate, as well, with lots of touching, gyrating, and body bending, and near the end, Regine pulls a necklace with a small crucifix hanging from it off of Charley. She waves 

the crucifix back and forth in front of his face like a pendulum, creating a hypnotic effect, and as he falls under her spell, he gets brief glimpses of an older, less appealing version of her face. Then, suddenly, she sprouts fangs, her eyes turn yellow, and she proceeds to swing around and fling the crucifix across the room, breaking a mirror. As she glares at him with her vampire features, Charley awakens from his trance. Regine then gets a round of applause and she bows to the crowd, before removing both a pair on contact

lenses and fake fangs. Convinced that Regine is actually just a performance artist, as she says she is, Charley then finally remembers Alex and rushes off to the concert hall. Peter sticks around at the party, and notices how some of the guests appear to be biting their lovers. On a hunch, he takes out his cigarette case and reflects the room with its mirror. Sure enough, Regine and Belle, who are dancing amid the crowd, cast no reflection. Horrified, he quickly rushes out the door and into the hall, only to see Regine standing at the end of it, in front of the

elevator. Peter then rushes through the emergency exit and down the stairway, only to run into her there as well. That's when he finds he's unable to repel her with a cross, and she, in turn, tells him who she is and what she intends to do to both him and Charley. She proceeds to make a very memorable exit when she pulls her hood over her head, turns around, and appears to sink down to the floor, leaving her shroud behind. Once it's all the way down to the floor, it suddenly shoots through the stair railing and goes straight down between the floors. And as Peter looks over the side, Regine flies back up in her bat form, going past him and up to the top floor.

Peter beats it back to his apartment, locks the door, and tries to call Charley to warn him. However, Charley is just now arriving at the concert hall and finds he's not going to be seated while the performance is going on. Unable to get him, Peter decides to wait for daylight before taking any action. Later that night, Regine slips into Charley's dorm room in the form of mist, materializes next to his bed, and feeds on him again. His phone can be heard ringing in the background but he's in no position to

hear it, let alone answer. Naturally, it's Peter trying to call him again, doing so from a nook in his apartment that he's made into a protective space for himself. Fortunately, nothing happens until morning, and when he wakes up after dozing off, he goes to warn Charley. On the way, he stops by the TV station to find that his set is being dismantled and that he's been fired from hosting Fright Night, with Regine taking his place. After Peter finds both Charley and Alex, only for Charley not to believe him, he packs up and

flees. And that's when Charley finds himself leering at women's necks while subtly licking his lips, unable to eat garlic, and, after trying to go to Dr. Harrison, only to find he's not in, hears on the news that Richie's body was found that morning. Now believing in vampires again, he runs back to the apartment building and tries to get Peter's help, unaware that he's left. On the way back out, Charley sees Bozworth enter the lobby and head downstairs. He follows him down to the basement, finds Belle's coffin along the way, and opens it to find her sleeping in it. He then 

rips a leg off a nearby wooden chair to use as a makeshift stake, leading into a bit where he has to duck down behind some old shelves when Bozworth comes back up from below and then searches the shelves for any bugs. There's one moment where his hand comes very close to Charley as he reaches over from the opposite side of the shelf, feeling beneath it. Charley proves to be in luck, though, as Bozworth does find a beetle, eats it, and leaves the basement. Once he's gone, Charley heads further down and finds Regine's lair and her coffin. But, of course, she 

prevents him from staking her, and sends him wandering out of the building and across the street. It's not until a car peels by right in front of him that he wakes up from the trance, clearly confused as to how he got there.

Following Louie, Belle, and Bozworth's adventures in bowling, we get Regine's crazy dance performance during her first hosting gig on Fright Night. Not only are her cohorts watching at the bowling alley but so is Peter in a bar elsewhere, and Charley and Alex on a portable TV in the library. Her performance is unusual to say the least, involving her splashing water in her face, running around the fake tree in the middle of the mist-enshrouded set, seemingly developing clawed hands that nick her on the side of her neck, before she ducks down beneath the layer of mist and

covers herself with a veil. When she rises back up, her face has that strange, unnatural texture to it, and it then becomes more monstrous, as she splashes blood on it and her eyes turn yellow. In the midst of this, Peter decides to rise to the occasion and rushes out of the bar, declaring himself to be a vampire killer. As for Charley, the sight of this negatively affects him and he turns the TV off. Seeing how bad he looks, Alex, after he says he feels faint, runs to get some water. She takes the roses he gave her out of the cup

she had them in and runs elsewhere to, hopefully, rinse it out and bring him back some fresh water. She rushes by Louie, who's sitting with his back to her, and isn't happy that Charley showed up for his date this time. Regine, meanwhile, finishes her performance and gets applause in the studio, while Peter arrives outside.

Alex gets some water out of a fountain and goes to take it to Charley, when she's confronted by Louie. He grabs her arm when she tries to walk by him, and she slaps him when he makes an unwanted comment. This, however, only emboldens him, as he gets in front of her and calls her a "tough chick." She calls for Charley, and when he shows up, he's about to fight Louie, only to see in his face that he's with Regine. Instead, Charley takes Alex and they run back into the depths of the library. Seeing Louie round the corner where they were standing, now in full werewolf form,

they run and hide behind some book shelves. It becomes a game of cat and mouse, as they try to avoid Louie, and when he cuts them off at one point, Charley turns one of the shelves over on top of him. But no sooner do they turn and run, than he suddenly pops up in front of them, blocking their way. He repeatedly cuts them off as they keep trying to escape, until he manages to knock Alex to the floor, then grabs Charley and slams him down. Fortunately for him, Alex grabs the roses off the table and jams them into Louie's mouth. He wrenches back, letting out a

pained roar (which I can tell is provided by voice acting god Frank Welker), and throws some of the roses down, while others are caught in his mouth. They burst into flame and he proceeds to dive out the window behind him, vanishing into the night. Charley then declares, "That was not... group... hypnosis!", while the portable TV, which got knocked to the floor in the struggle, switches back on. Regine appears, introducing Fright Night, when Peter, who's sneaking around just offstage, makes the rather dumb decision

to run at her with a stake and mallet. However, he's quickly grabbed by security and escorted off the set, as he raves about her being a vampire and that he has to kill her. Seeing this, Charley and Alex intend to go help him, when the police show up and they're arrested themselves.

While Peter is sent off to the nuthouse, Charley is bailed out by Regine, who takes him away. Dr. Harrison, meanwhile, bails Alex out, and the two of them make their way to the asylum, where Peter has just met Fritzy. They're forced to stop at a train crossing but, as they sit there, with Harrison trying to get Alex to do some deep breathing to relax, she notices that there doesn't seem to be a train coming. And that's when Harrison opens his mouth and sprouts a pair of fangs, sending Alex running out of the car. She tries to run along the length of the tracks,

but Harrison emerges from a shack just a few feet up ahead. She then turns to run in the other direction, only for Harrison to suddenly appear right in front of her. He grabs her and forces her down to the ground, but just when he attempts to bite her, she grabs a large rock and whacks him in the side of the head. He falls over and she runs across the tracks, finds and rips loose a large board from them, and smashes it against him when Harrison comes at her again. The board splinters and she proceeds to jam the broken end 

through his chest and heart, after which he decides to finish himself off. While Regine arrives back at the apartment building with Charley and takes him inside, Alex gets to the asylum and, thanks to some fast-talking on her part, as well as some unexpected help from Fritzy, manages to get Peter out. They then arm themselves, getting some holy water and a cloth from a church, and go back to Peter's apartment and grab every weapon from his movie glory days that they can.

The two of them make their way across the building's outer ledge, towards Regine's penthouse. At one point, Peter nearly slips and falls, and then, as they inch further along, he looks through a window and points Alex to it. When she looks inside, she sees Charley in the room to the right, lying on a couch. After Belle leaves the room, Alex and Peter make their way towards that window and slip inside. However, they quickly have to take cover when Richie, now a vampire himself, walks in. When he leaves after saying hi to Charley, Alex and Peter

emerge from their hiding spot, and he gratefully hugs them. But then, Richie walks back in and, seeing the intruders, bares his fangs. Peter quickly sprays him in the face with holy water, burning the left side of it, and continues doing so until it kills him in a messy manner and he collapses to the floor. Peter gets Charley to his feet and helps him towards the window, while Alex closes and bolts the door. She does the same to the door leading into the hallway they looked into earlier, when Charley begins to succumb to his growing vampire instincts. He grabs

Peter and shoves him against the wall, but Alex grabs the holy cloth and wraps it around him. He yells in pain, but it also staves off the change for the time being. Peter climbs through the window and out onto the ledge, when it's suddenly closed behind him. He looks up to see Louie hanging from the side of the building above him. He swipes at Peter, causing him to fall and hang off the edge. On top of that, Alex hears someone trying to get in through the room's locked door, and grabs and uses a nearby board to bar

it further. Outside, Louie starts scratching at Peter's hands, threatening to make him fall, while also teasing him. Alex hands Charley a speargun they brought and he aims and fires, scoring a hit on Louie right through the glass. This sends him tumbling down off the building and into the fountain in the courtyard below. When he emerges from the water, he's turned back to his human form, and congratulates Charley on his marksmanship before dying.

Charley and Alex pull Peter back up through the window, as the person on the other side of the room's door begins breaking through the old, weak wood. The three of them escape through the hallway, navigating some twisting corridors, and end up in the long corridor where Regine held her party before. Seeing Belle on one end of it, lighting a candelabra, Charley tries to shoot her with the speargun as well. But, when he fires, she vanishes and the spear merely puts out the candle she just lit. Bozworth then appears in a doorway to their right and Peter fires the gun that

shoots mini stakes at him. He easily catches two in his hands, when Belle suddenly appears behind Alex and restrains her. Charley points the speargun at her but, obviously, can't shoot without hurting Alex as well. That's when Regine appears in the doorway across from everyone, walks in, and lights up the candelabras around her, declaring, "Welcome to Fright Night." She then approaches Charley, not at all intimidated by the speargun, and asks, "Are you thirsty, Charley?" She tells him to come kiss her, and when he, against his will, moves to do so, Alex

protests. Regine makes a motion towards Belle and she shoves Alex towards Charley. When she does, Charley swings around and shoves her away. Peter tries to intervene but Bozworth disarms him and socks him in the gut, causing him to collapse to the floor. Regine prepares to have Charley feed on Alex, as Belle and Bozworth tie her hair up in some symbolic manner. Charley drops his speargun, shakes off the holy cloth, and walks towards and stands in front of Alex, whom Belle has on her knees. Next,

Bozworth forces Charley down to his knees as well, and while Alex pleads with him, saying she loves him, Regine's influence makes his vampire self emerge. But, after Belle wrenches Alex's head to the left, baring her neck for him, Charley regains his senses. He quickly grabs Belle's hands and jabs her long claws into Bozworth's midsection. He then quickly uses them to slash his stomach open, and Bozworth stumbles back and slumps up against the wall, as the maggots and bugs he's consumed erupt out of him.

A gust of wind blows out all the candles in the room and they see that Regine has escaped. As they search for her, Belle comes right at them on her rollerskates. She leaps at them when she gets close, but they hold up the holy cloth and catch her with it. They then wrap her up in the cloth and keep her forced down, as she proceeds to melt and disintegrate from its effects. Regine appears and let out an enraged shriek upon seeing this, but Peter manages to make her flee by running to a nearby window and throwing open the drapes, letting the daylight in. Regine jumps, changes

into her bat form, and bursts through one of the room's doors. They follow her out into the hallway beyond and see that she tore through another door at the opposite end. Following her path, they make their way out of the penthouse and see the elevator door closing down the hall. They run to it, force the doors open, and watch the car descend down the shaft. Charley uses the speargun to jam the pulley system above them, stopping the car between floors. But that doesn't stop Regine, as she starts smashing her way through the car's floor. Charley then remembers that

her coffin is down at the bottom of the shaft and says they have to go down there to keep her from reaching it. Peter says it would be best to wait until the sun gets higher, making her more vulnerable, but Charley notes that the sun is now lethal to him as well. He opts to go down and cut her off, with Alex joining him, while Peter takes care of things up top. Charley and Alex then rush down to the basement, while Peter climbs down to the car's roof. When they reach the lair and find Regine's coffin, Charley and Alex place

Communion wafers into the soil in the shape of a cross. Peter manages to get onto the car's roof, then bends down and unlocks the hatch there. He lifts it up, only to be faced with Regine's monster bat form, and quickly closes and locks it back. Regine then punches up through the metal and tears the roof apart, managing to rip away the entire hatch. When she comes at Peter again, he repels her with a cross, sending her hurtling down through the car's floor. Turning into her pure bat form, she goes down the 

shaft and then over Charley and Alex, towards her coffin. She screeches in horror when she sees the cross of wafers in it and flies around in a panic, before flying at the kids again. Alex pulls out her own crucifix, but Regine is able to knock her to the floor, before disappearing.

Looking around the room, Charley spies and reaches for Alex's dropped crucifix, when Regine appears, back in her human form. She slowly approaches him and Alex, saying she has other hiding places which she can easily get to. Hearing this from what remains of the elevator car's interior, Peter appears to abandon his friends and climbs back up the elevator shaft. Regine holds her hand out to Charley, telling him, "Time to go," while Peter, reaching the hallway outside the elevator door, rushes to a mirror that Regine smashed earlier. He grabs a big shard of 

glass, runs back to the elevator, and uses it to reflect a beam of sunlight coming through a window down the shaft. It illuminates Regine's hand and Charley quickly grabs her wrist and forcefully pulls her into the beam. Peter angles the light more towards her, getting her in the face, and Charley falls back as Peter illuminates Regine completely. Her flesh begins to sizzle and steam, as she futilely tries to run, and then, she bursts into flames, dropping her human disguise and revealing the monster beneath. Now engulfed in 

flames, Regine stumbles towards her coffin, despite the Communion wafers, and climbs in, leading to a large explosion that goes up the elevator shaft and stopping very close to Peter. The last bit of life from her is her charred, skeletal arm rising up out of the coffin, before it falls and shatters into pieces on the floor. The movie then promptly ends, with Charley and Alex, like him and Amy at the end of the first, making out. As the camera pulls away, there's a sound of a squeaking bat, which suggests that, as Alex mentioned, there may be more vampires elsewhere.

Tom Holland may not have returned, nor did the other two major cast members (not counting Chris Sarandon, since Jerry Dandrige was definitively destroyed at the end of the first movie), but one major behind-the-scenes player who did was composer Brad Fiedel. His score for Fright Night Part 2 definitely has the flavor of the first one, but still manages to be its own thing, often much more melodic, and you can also tell that the equipment he used had advanced in the past three years. Come To Me is still used, both in its original form, during Charley and Regine's dance at the party, and in other guises, such as this leitmotif for Regine herself, which is done on an electric violin again and has a very similar air to Jerry's own theme, coming off as seductive and sensual, and with an initial simple, knocking beat that leads into it. The difference is that it has a rather melancholic melody amid all of the electronic sounds, which makes it stand out. Fiedel also sort of recreates that piece of music he originally did for when Charley was sneaking around Dandrige's house in scenes like when he first sees the crates being moved into the building, and when he tries to see what's going on with Richie in Regine's penthouse. In addition, there's a majorly threatening piece of much that plays when Alex is stalked while walking back to her dorm, a truly freakish, screeching one for when Belle kills that woman, and the music that plays during Regine's dance on Fright Night is just as bizarre as the scene itself. However, I think my favorite part of the score is this electronic theme that plays at the beginning, when Charley leaves Dr. Harrison's office and runs back to his dorm room, as it has really a upbeat, yet kind of nostalgic, sound to it that I really like. A lighter version is heard during the closing scene, nicely capping things off. My only major qualm with the score is that the music during the third act climax doesn't do much for me, very much unlike the first.

Going back to Come To Me, a new version of the original song was created for the ending credits. Again, this time it's less electronic and more melodic, at least at first (that electric violin comes in at full force later on in it), and is beautifully sung by Deborah Holland. I like it so much, in fact, that, as much as I love the original version used throughout the first movie, this may rival it. There are some other notable songs on the soundtrack, like the aforementioned Wilson Pickett number, In the Midnight Hour; Louie, Louie, which, appropriately, can be heard playing on the two college students' boombox right before one of them shuts the window and Louie pops up in his werewolf form; You Could Look It Up by T-Bone Burnett, which plays when Charley and Peter first arrive at Regine's party; and Dressed In Red by Leslie Lewis, which plays after Charley and Regine's dance, and is probably my personal favorite song outside of Come To Me.

Because it wasn't backed or distributed by a major studio like the first one, Fright Night Part 2 has had a much lower profile for many, many years. The reason for that lack of exposure is partly due to how, by the time the film was finished, Vista Films was on the verge of bankruptcy and they sold it as an asset to IVE (International Video Entertainment, which later became Live and finally Artisan Entertainment). A home video distribution company that, at the time, was owned by Carolco Pictures, IVE only allowed Vista to give the film any sort of theatrical release in North America because that was part of the terms of the company's bankruptcy. However, it's possible that they could've gotten a much better release, as, in the midst of its limited run, Tommy Lee Wallace and Roddy McDowall met with the senior manager of Carolco to talk about expanding the scope. However, said senior manager happened to be Jose Menendez, whom McDowall already had a bad feeling about following that meeting, and then, that very night, he and his wife were famously murdered by their teenage sons. Naturally, that destroyed any hopes Fright Night Part 2 had of getting that better release (in the documentary, Wallace, while talking about this, looks right at the camera and says, "Eric, Lyle, you fucking assholes! That's what I think of you. You killed my movie,"), as well as the possibility of a Part 3, as the company had the rights. Even the home video release wasn't well handled, with the actual product leaving much to be desired, and when Herb Jaffe, who spearheaded the movie, was diagnosed with cancer and died in 1991, it really felt like the movie was jinxed. The home video rights were also a murky mess in the wake of the Menendez murders, which is why it took so long for it to finally get a really good release in North America.

Though not as accomplished as the first one, Fright Night Part 2 is, if nothing else, another fun 80's vampire flick. William Ragsdale and Roddy McDowall are still on form as Charley Brewster and Peter Vincent, Julie Carmen makes for a memorable new villain as Regine, her inner-circle is also made up of characters you're not likely to forget, it's a very nicely directed and shot film, there are a plethora of good makeup effects like before, and the music score and soundtrack are a nice touch once again. However, the writing is a little shaky in places, with Peter himself not being utilized as well as he could've been. the attempts at humor becoming far more silly than the original ever did, some repetitive moments in the story, as well as some plotholes, and maybe too many callbacks to the first one. Also, there are some dated visual effects to be found here, and despite how good of a director Tommy Lee Wallace may be, his take on this material just isn't quite as inspired as Tom Holland's. Still, there's more than enough here to make this worth your time, and maybe its wider availability now while bring it the audience it deserves.