FRIGHT NIGHT 2: NEW BLOOD

CONTAINS SPOILERS AND WHAT????

It's at least three days since the last utterly redundant horror sequel, so here's another unnecessary and pointless Part Two. In its defence it does have a couple of new ideas and it's put together watchably enough, but it's entirely surplus to requirements and the plot makes little or no sense. Incredibly, despite the title, it's not a sequel to the 2011 film: it takes the same named characters and puts them in another origins story, pretending the 2011 remake never happened. Which is fair enough: I like to pretend the 2011 remake never happened as well.

If we have to admit the existence of the 2011 version, however, and if we do have to call it Fright Night, then this isn't Fright Night 2: New Blood (the subtitle only appears at the end anyway) but Fright Night 1A: Yet Another Reboot. We still have Charley Brewster and Amy and Evil Ed (such a gratingly annoying moron it's a mystery why Charley hasn't lamped him), now students on a school trip to Romania to study the history of European art. But Charley sees professor Jerri Dandridge (Hustle's Jaime Murray, the only member of the cast you've likely heard of) out of his window and concludes she's a vampire - and not just any vampire, but Elizabeth Bathory, Countess Dracula herself. Only TV's monster hunter Peter Vincent, currently filming a shamelessly faked Most Haunted-style reality show, can help....

The best moment, and the one I don't remember ever seeing in a vampire movie before, is Dandridge/Bathory using her vampire bat-based sonar to find the fleeing Charley and Amy in the darkness. And the climax in a swimming pool of blood is visually impressive although I just kept wondering where it all came from: I'm not a medic but I didn't think blood stayed as a liquid when left to itself in the open air. Other than that, and a surprising amount of gore and nudity for a 15 certificate, it's very ordinary, the leads are pretty charmless, and even though the opening sequence is quite nicely done, it's actually got nothing to do with the rest of the film. Extremely average.

**

Compare and contrast: