The new FRIGHT NIGHT really isn’t a sequel.  It is the second remake of FRIGHT NIGHT in two years.  This time, Charley, Evil Ed, and Amy are college students going to school in Romania and Gerri Dandrige (Jaime Murray) is a sexy professor at night teaching art history.  In reality, Gerri is a vampire known better as Countess Elizabeth Bathory.  Charley (Will Payne) witnesses Gerri drinking blood from a woman from across the street as Charley sees it all from his hotel room window and Gerri knows he has seen what she does.  She begins to take an interest in Charley and lets him live while Charley tries to find a way to stop her (and get back in the good graces of his on-and-off girlfriend Amy).   Meanwhile, Peter Vincent (Sean Power) is in Romania filming episodes for his show Fright Night which is all about hunting the supernatural around the world, but Peter is just a fraud who doesn’t believe in the supernatural.

The latest FRIGHT NIGHT makes Gerri a female vampire who is also Countess Elizabeth Bathory (aka Countess Dracula) and Jaime Murray makes a better Gerri than Colin Farrell did as Jerry in the last FRIGHT NIGHT remake.  Sean Power is passable as Peter Vincent, but I wish they focused more on his character and developed him more than showing him as a boozing and stripper loving fraud.  His character isn’t as involved in this remake as the other versions of Peter Vincent were and instead the film focuses on the weak leads because I could care less that Charley got Amy back and Evil Ed quit being such a dickhead.   I think I would have loved this version of FRIGHT NIGHT better if they just had Peter Vincent and totally new characters in it instead of trying to mix in the legend of Countess Bathory in with yet a subpar FRIGHT NIGHT remake.  I liked the last remake and this latest remake would have been better if they made it a sequel in the series and focused on the ideas about the Countess.  Maybe they should have made Peter Vincent more of the gateway character into the story instead of trying yet another remake so soon.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Audio commentary by Director Eduardo Rodriguez and Producers Alison Rosenzweig and Michael Gaeta

Four FRIGHT NIGHT webisodes starring Peter Vincent as he explores the castles of Vlad Tepes and Countess Bathory.

DRACULA REVEALED is a promotional featurette that has behind-the-scenes footage, interviews with the cast and crew, and an author who wrote a book on Countess Bathory.   It splits its meager six minutes runtime between talking about the movie and the history of Elizabeth Bathory.

Trailers for 12 ROUNDS 2: RELOADED, STOKER, THE EAST, and AMERICAN HORROR STORY: ASYLUM are accessible through the extras menu while the trailer for CARRIE (2013) plays before the main menu.

FINAL ANALYSIS:  FRIGHT NIGHT 2: NEW BLOOD has some interesting ideas, but I wish they quit remaking FRIGHT NIGHT and do a continuation of the series because this latest FRIGHT NIGHT would have been better for it.  Hopefully, they won’t remake FRIGHT NIGHT next time as a found footage film from Peter Vincent’s point of view.

This DVD review is (c)10-3-2013 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com

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