Fright Night Part II

A lesser sequel to Fright Night, duplicating the basic formula of the first film but missing much of the humor that endeared the first one to audiences. This time, it's set in a college where Charlie Brewster, the hero from Part 1, is visited by a seductive vampiress named Regine (played by Julie Carmen). 

There's a really crummy attempt at humor in which the vampires go bowling, and there are some glaring inconsistencies, namely Charlie's transformation (after being bitten) from human to half-vampire, which comes and goes in an illogical fashion.

It's all handled routinely, but there are some amusing performances: Carmen is a lot of fun playing the sexy vampire, and it's always nice to see Roddy McDowall at work, reprising his role as the TV show host Peter Vincent, the sort of Van Helsing of this franchise. (Charlie and Peter Vincent killed Regine's brother, the vampire played so wonderfully by Chris Sarandon, in the original, so she's out for revenge.) 

And Jonathan Gries gives an enjoyable turn as a vampire who's trying to hit on Charlie's girlfriend Alex (Traci Lind), a psych major who undoubtedly wants to help Charlie overcome his demons, which he now believes were not real, only imagined. Alex, incidentally, speed reads Dracula in the library after Charlie recommends it, and it's the beginning of a memorable chase sequence. (And Traci Lind was always my favorite girlfriend in the Fright Night movies--no disrespect to Amanda Bearse.) So, if you're a fan, Fright Night Part II is enjoyable enough. Directed by Tommy Lee Wallace. 1988.

Overboard

I grew up on Goldie Hawn. Overboard (1987) isn't one of her strongest vehicles, but her performance is enjoyable nonetheless. She plays a spoiled millionaire who hires a carpenter (Goldie's real-life significant other, Kurt Russell) to remodel the bedroom closet on her yacht while the boat is docked on the coast of Oregon, awaiting engine repairs. Unhappy with the local carpenter's final product, she pushes him off the boat and into the sea. Later that night, she falls into the ocean herself (unbeknownst to her husband or any of the crew), losing her memory in the process. She's eventually picked up by another boat and taken into town for medical treatment. But when her husband decides not to claim her (she's too much of a bitch even for him), the carpenter sees an opportunity for revenge. He pretends to be her husband, and takes her home to his ramshackle house and four unruly sons, turning her into the homemaker she never was.

You will enjoy Overboard more if you can ignore some of the gaping holes in the plot. (How did he convince the hospital staff he was her husband without a shred of documentary proof?) Goldie's transformation from a bored, boring, bossy snob to a person who actually knows a hard day's work, is fun to watch, especially because she does it with such charm, and she and Kurt Russell have such chemistry.

The movie is overly sentimental and lacks any kind of dependable smartness. It's funniest when the actors have little one-liners, delivered almost under their breath, showing you that the writer, Leslie Dixon, and the director, Garry Marshall, are capable of more than formula movies when given the right material, the right ideas, and the right stars. The stars are right, but the ideas aren't clever enough to make Overboard a complete success as a comedy, even though it is funny. (It's certainly not as embarrassing as it could have been; but it's also not as intelligent or as inventive either.) Most of those 80s comedies I grew up on work because of the performances, not because of the writing or the plot. It's when you remove your focus from the acting and pay attention to the silly, obvious plot that you start finding things to quibble with.

With Roddy McDowall, Edward Herrmann, Katherine Helmond, and Michael Hagerty. 112 mins.

Fright Night

Vampire freaks, rejoice! I recently revisited Fright Night (1985), writer-director Tom Holland's valentine to the horror genre in which a teenager named Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale) becomes convinced that the suave bachelor who recently moved in next door (Chris Sarandon) is actually a vampire. Lacking any empirical evidence, Charley turns to a has-been TV horror host named Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall), as well as his girlfriend Amy (Amanda Bearse) and his friend "Evil" Ed (Stephen Geoffreys), who has some knowledge of how to successfully ward off vampires.

Fright Night works because it's the right balance of funny and scary. Holland's script and directing offer plenty of amusing moments for film buffs (such as Sarandon's imitation of the vampire in 1922's Nosferatu rising from his coffin). Meanwhile, Charley Brewster is a character absorbed in horror movie culture in a very surfacey way. He enjoys watching them on TV with the campy narration of Peter Vincent, but the real horrors render him unable to respond on his own.


Chris Sarandon is perfectly cast as the bloodsucker, Jerry Dandridge, and McDowall is a wonderfully spineless foil. The special effects become the star at the end, and although they were probably impressive 25 years ago, they're a bit dated now. Fortunately, the movie itself has endured with its sharp sense of humor and well-calculated scares. The vampire is indeed an enduring literary and cinematic figure, and of all the vamp flicks to come out of the 80s, Fright Night is the most successful overall. It has all the things a good vampire movie needs: strong characters who are often somewhat ambiguous rather than black-and-white in their morality, set pieces that truly stand out (like when Peter Vincent makes a terrifying discovery in Charley's mom's room), and dialogue you can quote: "To what do I owe this dubious pleasure?" "Welcome to Fright Night...For real." ★★★