I didn't get as many reviews in as I was kind of hoping over the weekend. I went to go see The Conjuring 2 Saturday, but I just wasn't really in a writing mood once I got started on the review. I did get it done though, so click on the link if you are interested in my thoughts on it. I jumped right into Fright Night 2 (2013) from there since I wanted to get my next movie in at the very least. Fright Night 2 is a bit of an odd movie. While it is a sequel, at least most people would assume so with the 2 after the title, it is actually yet another remake of the original film.
Charley (Will Payne), Amy (Sacha Parkinson) and "Evil" Ed (Chris Waller) are part of a group of students visiting Romania for a class there. Ed and Charley are friends, but their friendship is a little strained. Charley is also trying to win back Amy after she says he cheated on her, which he denies happens. Gerri (Jaime Murray) is their teacher for the class they are taking, who Charley sees once before in a room with another woman. The more that Charley sees from the other apartment, the more he suspects that Gerri is a vampire. His fears are spot on, but worse than that is when he discovers that Gerri wants Amy.
Going in cold like I did, I found the plot very confusing at first. I couldn't really remember what happened to Ed in the previous film, so I just assumed he somehow survived, even though I didn't think that was the case. The changing of the cast didn't really bother me, since that sometimes happens.I kept waiting for the characters to mention what happened before, and it took me a while to realize that wasn't going to happen. Writer Matt Venne and director Eduardo Rodriquez instead gives us a film that borrows a bit from the original film, they say this a remake of the original film and not a remake of the remake, and just a little from the sequel to the original. There is also some changes along the way along with some new stuff to be found for good measure. Fright Night 2 probably would have made more sense to change the names of the characters instead of basing them off the original character names. It could still have nods to the original films and could have been a stand alone film as a sequel, like so many other series has.
Fright Night 2 does offer something I'm pretty sure I have never seen in a vampire movie. Maybe I'm wrong and have just forgotten about it, which is likely as much as I hate to admit it. Gerri loses track of her pray at one point in some tunnels, so she uses sonar like a bat would. It took me a moment to figure that out, but thought it was pretty awesome once I did figure it out. On the other side of that though, I couldn't figure out why there would be a strobe light effect that goes with it that the people she is hunting can see. Fright Night 2 is kind of like that though. For everything that I found was interesting about the film, it countered it by something that didn't make a lot of sense. I liked that there was a meeting between Charley and Amy towards the end of the film like in the original. I liked that Amy was almost playing with her food, throwing Charley around for a bit. What I didn't get was what happens to Amy once Charley does something to himself. I got the plan behind it, but what happened to Amy didn't really make any sense. There is an actual back story with this Gerri which uses a real legend. The back story itself was done with animation, which I thought was actually kind of cool.
The effects are also a mixed bag. For the most part things get pretty gory when there are effects. They looked good for the most part as well. Some minor things to me, but nothing to complain about too much. The best effect to me was the aftermath of what happens to Ed. However, the last effect in the movie was CGI and looks really bad. The acting, like everything else, was also mixed. I'm not saying that Will Payne and Chris Waller did a bad job, but I couldn't really get into either one of their characters. Sacha Parkinson wasn't too bad in some scenes, really liked her towards the end of the movie, but she also came across as annoying at times. Jamie Murray was the stand out of the film and was easily the best to get behind even if she was the bad vampire. Sean Power plays the part of Peter Vincent and does just okay with it.
Speaking of the Peter Vincent character, he is updated a bit in Fright Night 2. He is still a TV host, but instead of being the old style horror movie host, he is now an adventurer looking for monsters in the world. The character this time around reminded me a bit of Josh Gates. Of course I could never see Gates acting the way Vincent did in this film, but that is beside the point. Of course, Vincent just happens to be in town doing a show. What was kind of cool is that this was actually filmed in Romania. Call me crazy, but I kind of liked Fright Night 2. It wasn't great by any means, but it is a film I would watch again. Not one I would go out of my way to watch again, but I still didn't find it to be that bad of a film. It does manage a lot of hate on the IMDb boards, and I get the complaints about it for the most part. It is a mixed bag of a film for sure, but maybe worth checking out if you are curious about it.
3 out of 5 Maybe more interesting if it was a remake of a sequel?
Charley (Will Payne), Amy (Sacha Parkinson) and "Evil" Ed (Chris Waller) are part of a group of students visiting Romania for a class there. Ed and Charley are friends, but their friendship is a little strained. Charley is also trying to win back Amy after she says he cheated on her, which he denies happens. Gerri (Jaime Murray) is their teacher for the class they are taking, who Charley sees once before in a room with another woman. The more that Charley sees from the other apartment, the more he suspects that Gerri is a vampire. His fears are spot on, but worse than that is when he discovers that Gerri wants Amy.
Going in cold like I did, I found the plot very confusing at first. I couldn't really remember what happened to Ed in the previous film, so I just assumed he somehow survived, even though I didn't think that was the case. The changing of the cast didn't really bother me, since that sometimes happens.I kept waiting for the characters to mention what happened before, and it took me a while to realize that wasn't going to happen. Writer Matt Venne and director Eduardo Rodriquez instead gives us a film that borrows a bit from the original film, they say this a remake of the original film and not a remake of the remake, and just a little from the sequel to the original. There is also some changes along the way along with some new stuff to be found for good measure. Fright Night 2 probably would have made more sense to change the names of the characters instead of basing them off the original character names. It could still have nods to the original films and could have been a stand alone film as a sequel, like so many other series has.
Fright Night 2 does offer something I'm pretty sure I have never seen in a vampire movie. Maybe I'm wrong and have just forgotten about it, which is likely as much as I hate to admit it. Gerri loses track of her pray at one point in some tunnels, so she uses sonar like a bat would. It took me a moment to figure that out, but thought it was pretty awesome once I did figure it out. On the other side of that though, I couldn't figure out why there would be a strobe light effect that goes with it that the people she is hunting can see. Fright Night 2 is kind of like that though. For everything that I found was interesting about the film, it countered it by something that didn't make a lot of sense. I liked that there was a meeting between Charley and Amy towards the end of the film like in the original. I liked that Amy was almost playing with her food, throwing Charley around for a bit. What I didn't get was what happens to Amy once Charley does something to himself. I got the plan behind it, but what happened to Amy didn't really make any sense. There is an actual back story with this Gerri which uses a real legend. The back story itself was done with animation, which I thought was actually kind of cool.
The effects are also a mixed bag. For the most part things get pretty gory when there are effects. They looked good for the most part as well. Some minor things to me, but nothing to complain about too much. The best effect to me was the aftermath of what happens to Ed. However, the last effect in the movie was CGI and looks really bad. The acting, like everything else, was also mixed. I'm not saying that Will Payne and Chris Waller did a bad job, but I couldn't really get into either one of their characters. Sacha Parkinson wasn't too bad in some scenes, really liked her towards the end of the movie, but she also came across as annoying at times. Jamie Murray was the stand out of the film and was easily the best to get behind even if she was the bad vampire. Sean Power plays the part of Peter Vincent and does just okay with it.
Speaking of the Peter Vincent character, he is updated a bit in Fright Night 2. He is still a TV host, but instead of being the old style horror movie host, he is now an adventurer looking for monsters in the world. The character this time around reminded me a bit of Josh Gates. Of course I could never see Gates acting the way Vincent did in this film, but that is beside the point. Of course, Vincent just happens to be in town doing a show. What was kind of cool is that this was actually filmed in Romania. Call me crazy, but I kind of liked Fright Night 2. It wasn't great by any means, but it is a film I would watch again. Not one I would go out of my way to watch again, but I still didn't find it to be that bad of a film. It does manage a lot of hate on the IMDb boards, and I get the complaints about it for the most part. It is a mixed bag of a film for sure, but maybe worth checking out if you are curious about it.
3 out of 5 Maybe more interesting if it was a remake of a sequel?
