Movie Review: Fright Night 2 (2013)

The movie stars Will Payne, Jaime Murray, Sean Power, Sacha Parkinson and Chris Waller.

I ended up putting this movie in my Netflix DVD queue more as a whim than anything. I enjoyed the movie Fright Night (especially the remake of it) and, while I figured this wouldn’t be as good, I wanted to at least give it a chance.

One of the first things I discovered about this film when I started watching it was, despite the title, this is not a Fright Night sequel. Instead, as it turns out, it was actually another re-boot of the movie. The characters are all the same, except the main villain, Gerri (Murray), is female.

At first, I was actually somewhat disappointed by this. However, after watching the movie, I honestly have to say it was considerably better than I thought it would be.

Even though the film had a lot of the same basic concepts as other Fright Night incarnations, the writers did change the overall storyline enough to turn this into a brand new movie. The fact they chose to portray a real-life person, Bathory (AKA Countess Dracula), was a little bolder than I would expect from a movie like this and, ultimately, it did pay off because it gave the movie a somewhat unique plot point, Murray’s character needed blood from a virgin born at midnight under the blood of a new moon so she could go out in daylight. And, the person that fit that description happened to be Charley’s (Payne) girlfriend, Amy (Parkinson).

Another thing I found I liked about this movie was how it managed to keep the viewer off balance by various camera angles, strobe-like effects and even a variety of lighting. This did manage to make some of the scenes a bit more eerie than they might otherwise have been.

One concern I had regarding this movie was whether or not it would turn out to just be some sort of soft-core porn film, like so many others we’ve watched. This, however, was not the case with the movie. There was some nudity and a few sexual-themed situations. But, it was nothing that was overly explicit and didn’t have a gratuitous feel to it.

The film, however, is somewhat graphic when it comes to blood and gore. Again, I don’t think it was anything that I would describe as being over the top. However, if you are squeamish when it comes to that type of stuff, you may not enjoy those scenes.

When I realized it was another remake, I was concerned it would be a bit too familiar to be enjoyable. However, there is enough uniqueness to make this movie much more enjoyable to watch than I first expected and I would recommend it as a result.

My Grade: B