Fright Night Part 2 (1988)

Director: Tommy Lee Wallace
Writers: Tim Metcalfe, Miguel Tejada-Flores and Tommy Lee Wallace
Stars: Roddy McDowall, William Ragsdale, Traci Lin and Julie Carmen

Index: Make It a Double.

It’s easy to see why Stephen Geoffreys chose the first Fright Night over the second; he’s not in this one. He was asked back but he didn’t particularly like the script, so chose to do 976-EVIL instead.

It’s easy to see why William Ragsdale chose the second Fright Night over the first; he has a much better part, one that allows him to really get his teeth into the role, if you’ll pardon the unintended vampire pun.

He’s still Charley Brewster, of course, but he carries the film this time. He was the lead last time out, even though Chris Sarandon got top billing, but he was a pretty routine high school kid unworthy of much attention, if you ignore the whole vampire next door thing. Geoffreys and Roddy McDowall were both far more fun to watch. Here, McDowall has the top billing, and he’s as great as always, but I was primarily watching Ragsdale this time.

Like last time, he’s struggling to be believed, but for the opposite reason. Before, he had to convince people that his new neighbour, Jerry Dandridge, was a vampire, which was tough to do, for obvious reasons. Now, having killed the vampire, with the aid of Peter Vincent, host of TV’s Fright Night, he’s a survivor trying, with a lot of therapy, get past that and move on.

So, he has to convince his therapist that he isn’t seeing vampires, because they don’t exist. Dandridge was a serial killer who attacked his girlfriend Amy and friend Evil Ed and what he and Vincent experienced was group hypnosis caused by serious trauma.

It’s been three years and he’s now in college with a new girlfriend, Alex, played by Tracey Lin, mostly because Amanda Bearse was busy shooting Married... with Children. Alex is patient with him, being a psychology student herself, and, like Amy, she’s far more substantial than the genre norm for the hero’s girlfriend.

Of course, she doesn’t believe in vampires at all, which makes their first time visiting Peter Vincent rather awkward, because he does. He was empowered by what they achieved in the first film and does plenty of fond reminiscing.

What follows riffs so hard on the concept of being believed that it almost becomes a staged farce. Therapy has taught Charley that there’s no such thing as vampires but his experiences with a mysterious lady named Regine change his mind, so he reverts back to vampire killing mode until he realises he’s just wandered into a themed party. Peter, however, never ceased believing in vampires, but thinks Charley’s in a confused state so fails to believe him until he pulls out his trusty mirror.

This escalates in clever fashion. Regine has a hypnotic power that allows her not only into Charley’s room but into his neck, thus adding another layer of irony because he’s suddenly a vampire who doesn’t believe in vampires. He’s able to function and figures some things out, but she clouds his memories well enough that he can’t remember what he learned.

And Peter, ultra-confident until he realises that there’s a new vampire in town, runs away to avoid a repeat experience, especially given that he’s fired from Fright Night and Regine is announced as his replacement. He runs so far that he ends up hiding within himself, further down than his fictional persona, meaning that we lose Peter Vincent the actor but gain Peter Vincent the vampire killer. And suddenly he’s back in action! Well, until he’s locked up for an attempted assassination attempt on live TV.

I love the layers here, as two characters who have struggled to believe and be believed find themselves in situations where neither really counts as them any more but they still need to believe and be believed more than ever before but with far less likelihood of it happening. I’m sure Alex could tell us the psychological terms for all this, but she’s not here to ask. It isn’t important though.

What is important is how much opportunity that gave both Ragsdale and McDowall to do something new with their characters. At least the latter was able to do something substantial in the first film but Ragsdale gets that freedom here for the first time. I’d say that they’re the two characters I’m watching this time, but it’s not entirely fair. They’re the two substantial characters I’m watching this time.

That’s because the vampires are much more interesting this time as well. Julie Carmen is a thoroughly ironic choice to play Regine, given that she’s now a psychotherapist as well as an actor and a dancer, with a Masters in Clinical Psychology. She’s magnetic as Regine, making it very easy indeed to believe in her hypnotic powers. Her androgynous right hand, Belle, is hypnotic too, courtesy of another lithe dancer, Russell Clark. Damn that guy can move! It isn’t surprising he’s been in music videos for Grace Jones and Laura Branigan, but his debut was as a buttgammon dancer in Cinderella!

That leaves Jon Gries as Louie, who serves as the comic relief for this picture—presumably a new vamp who keeps getting things wrong—and an elegant renfield, Bozworth, played by the ever-versatile Brian Thompson, the same year he played one of the titular characters in the TV show Werewolf. All of them are far more fun than the vanilla arrogance of Jerry and his renfield in the first film, even Louie with some ridiculous dialogue. “How about that classical music?” he asks Alex. “Tits, huh?”

Fright Night Part 2 may not be as iconic as its predecessor, but it’s smoother and it has more traditional horror touches, such as nightmares and jump scares and deliberate telegraphing. It’s certainly much scarier, even if it isn’t very icky and the special effects aren’t as effective. That’s the main reason I can buy into the film being made for less budget, given that it looks like a bigger film otherwise. Maybe that’s just the more artistic approach showing.

I’d come into this wondering why Ragsdale chose it, as I’d blurred it in my mind with a different, much less successful horror sequel. Now, it’s easy to see why he chose it and it’s a good question as to which of the two movies is better. It’s hard to say because they do wildly different things, even with obvious parallels to cater to the logical audience who saw the first film and loved it.

Fright Night had the core Peter Vincent story and Evil Ed and a believable girl next door who does good. Fright Night Part 2 has a substantial part for Ragsdale, much better vampires and a bunch of layers of subtext. It’s also scarier and more haunting. I guess that means I’ll happily take them both, thank you very much indeed.