Author's Note: Pardon for the brief delay on this one, as I was waiting to see whether Democracy would be saved or America would slide off a cliff. Turns out just enough people cared to save it. The fact that it was such a close call is disturbing, though. You'd think a choice between someone who wants to save lives and someone who doesn't care about anyone's well-being but his own would be pretty obvious, but America isn't exactly known for its common sense- at least not lately. Regardless, as the song goes: you about to lose your job! 😜 (Now, if we could just get him to leave already... 😒)
Anyway, not what you came for, so I digress. As a reward for your patience, I'll be doing separate articles for NOTD 2 & 3 , instead of just the one. Look for a review of the remake after that, then it's back to semi-normal, likely beginning with a new installment of The Cronenberg Chronicles, at long last. But, for now, we're going into Halloween overtime- because, as a nation, don't we kind of deserve that? 😉
This also had an effect on the way the film business worked. Originally seen as competition, soon Hollywood realized that, in fact, all these developments were actually a positive, as it allowed movies to have a second leash on life, as it were. It also led them to realize that a film could still turn a profit, even if it only had a limited theatrical release, or no release at all- hence the birth of direct-to-video movies.
Night of the Demons had a reasonably successful theatrical release, garnering a respectable $3 million on around about a $1 million budget. However, its real success came on home video, where it became a cult hit, continuing to sell expeditiously, even years after its initial release. It was even more successful on the home video rental market, which is why it was decided to, at long last, give the film a sequel, well over five years after the release of the original, with only a limited theatrical release, being basically conceived as a high-end direct-to-video release.
While original director Kevin Tenney opted not to return, he gave the project his blessing, even visiting the set at one point. However, original screenwriter Joe Augustyn did return to write the script, with an assist from James Penzi on the story end. Also returning were star Amelia Kinkade as Angela, and FX artist Steve Johnson, albeit in a more limited capacity, having long since formed his own production company, in large part off the back of his (literally) eye-popping work on the original film. So, it was actually his team that handled the lion's share of the effects rather than Johnson himself.
To the film's credit, it built on the legacy of the original film by paying that much more attention to character-building and plot than the first film, with Augustyn being given free rein to do exactly what he wanted this time around, whereas, in the first film, compromises had to be made, i.e., his original draft featuring a gay interracial couple. Be that as it may, Augustyn opted not to go there in the sequel, instead landing on a different sort of controversy by deciding to explore the more religious aspects of the story, setting the bulk of the film at a Catholic boarding school.
The story picks up six years later after the events of the first film, with everyone's body but Angela's having been found in the aftermath of the massacre at Hull House, leading some to wonder if she was the culprit. When her parents receive a gift card with Angela's signature on it a few years later, they promptly kill themselves under decidedly mysterious circumstances. This leaves Angela's little sister, Melissa (Merle Kennedy), an orphan and she is eventually sent to said Catholic boarding school, St. Rita's Academy.
Though popular girl Bibi (Kristi Harris) is relatively kind to her, most of the girls bully her, led by Shirley (Zoe Trilling), who spreads the word about Melissa and her not-so-illustrious background around the school, redubbing her "Mouse," due to the girl's understandably shy and withdrawn nature. It doesn't help that she often wakes up screaming, plagued by nightmares of her sister, Angela.
Lending a sympathetic ear are Sister Gloria (Jennifer Rhodes), the head nun at the academy, and Perry (Robert Jayne), a schoolmate who has a bit of a crush on Melissa, but also an avid interest in demonology, which is frowned upon at the school, especially by Father Bob (Rod McCary), who catches Perry trying to do a ritual in the chapel to prove the existence of demons, nearly conjuring up Angela in the process.
Unfortunately, it's mean girl Shirley that proves more of the problematic one, stealing one of Perry's demonology books, with the intention of throwing an alternate Halloween party to the one at the school at- you guessed it- Hull House, after she's grounded from the dance for fooling around with one of the boys on the tennis courts. (Never mind the weirdness of a Catholic school having a Halloween dance in the first place- you'll just have to go with it.)
The idea is to get Melissa there somehow, in order to terrorize her as a faux "virgin sacrifice." To that end, Shirley dupes Bibi into inviting Melissa- which should have been a red flag, needless to say- and the group do said ritual, eventually admitting it was just a prank, but a successful one, as it succeeds in bringing Angela back in earnest- although, to be fair (not that Shirley deserves it) - we see earlier that she's still haunting the house and perfectly able to take someone out already, as she does with some unfortunate Jehovah's Witnesses.
Here, though, the idea is to get out of the house itself, as she is bound to it, more or less, save to haunt her sister's dreams, apparently. (Think American Horror Story, particularly the Murder House season.) When the gang flees the house, save one unlucky victim, one of them makes the mistake of taking a mysterious lipstick with her- if you saw the first one, you know the one I'm talking about- thus allowing the evil Angela to hitchhike a ride out of there, more or less, and subsequently terrorize the dance.
Things go from there, with lots of murder and mayhem along the way. Loyal readers will recall my dream of a killer or demon or whatever going crazy and running rampant at a party or the like. We basically get that here, though not to the extent I hoped for, as Sister Gloria takes charge and keeps the body count relatively low, all things considered.
But there are definitely some casualties here, to be sure, with a much higher gore quotient than the original, to say nothing of another boob-related effect that goes a long way towards topping the original, with all due respect to the tremendous work by Scream Queen par excellence Linnea Quigley. While not quite as wonderfully trashy as the original, in many ways, this is actually a decided improvement over the original, particularly in the writing department.
Far more attention is paid to character development, and we have far more time to get to know the characters than in the original. While the stripped-down approach does work like gangbusters for the original film, to be sure, taking the opposite tack here actually makes the sequel overall a better film, even if it's not quite as fun on the whole as the original, if I'm being honest. I think that element was why this film didn't have quite the impact that the original one had on me- I was just too young to appreciate the character development element. I wanted them to get to the point sooner, being younger and more impatient.
Now that I'm a bit older, I realized that the original film does, in fact, take its time getting going as well, but that the characters are a bit less likable than they are in the sequel. Don't get me wrong, I love the characters in the original, but the guys are mostly douchebags (even the kid!), save for Rodger, and most of the women are underdeveloped- well, character-wise, anyway. 😉
Not so in the sequel. Even the bully character, Shirley, has more layers than you'd expect. Only the two doofuses that Shirley recruits to terrorize everyone are stock d-bag types, and they're dispatched pretty quickly. Everyone else is pretty likable, even the more antagonistic types, like Sister Gloria and Father Bob, especially the former, who grows on you as her character becomes more involved in the action, bringing to mind a similar character in Peter Jackson's cult classic Dead/Alive, aka Brain Dead. (You halfway expect her to say "I kick ass for the Lord!" at one point, lol.)
Given that that film preceded this one by a few years, I'm guessing that isn't a coincidence- but it could be, as Jackson wasn't exactly a household name at that point, and was making strictly homegrown films at the time. Whatever the case, I loved the character, and it's always nice to see a writer thinking outside the box a bit. It would have been easy for him to let all the characters stay flat throughout the film- after all, that's pretty standard operating procedure for a lot of horror films, to have the characters be stereotypes, with one main characteristic and that's about it.
But Augustyn doesn't go there, more often than not. The "good girl" Bibi, has sex, or comes pretty close, when the two are rudely interrupted by Shirley's shenanigans- but it's clear that they would have, if not for that. Shirley seduces a jock type, only to reveal later on that she actually has a boyfriend, which would typically be something a guy did in one of these movies- she just does it to get him to Hull House, which is pretty next level deception.
Only Shirley's boyfriend and his buddy remain pretty flat throughout, and like I said, their screen time is pretty brief. Although, I suppose a case could be made for Father Bob as well, but I liked the character, or maybe it was just the actor playing him, who brought more to the role than you might expect. Most of the actors do, in fact. Let's take a closer look at all concerned. (We, of course, covered Amelia Kinkade last time, so we'll skip her this time around, with respect where it's due.)
As the leading lady, Bibi, there's Cristi Harris, who looks an awful lot like a young, pre-brunette Mandy Moore, which is to say, she's absolutely gorgeous. Born in Georgia, her brother Jeffrey Craig Harris' involvement in working behind the scenes as a production assistant on TV shows like L.A. Law, The X-Files and Rescue Me was what led her to the industry. After a chance meeting with the legendary Sammy Davis, Jr. on one of her brother's projects, the entertainer encouraged her to follow her heart when it came to what she wanted to do, which led her to get into acting.
Harris' career was mostly confined to TV- in particular soaps like Sunset Beach and the cult-ish Passions, but she was also in a few decent low-budget movies as well, notably the horror cult classic Night of the Scarecrow (maybe I should have reviewed that one during my scarecrow-palooza), as well as the erotic thrillers Kiss of Death (the one with Vanity, not Nic Cage) and Lurid Tales: The Castle Queen, from cult director David DeCoteau, working under a female pseudonym. (Talk about literally stealing a job from women!)
More recently, she was in the mystery-comedy-drama Mister Sadpants and a return to horror with 2020's The Unhealer, which she also produced, along with her brother. The film stars Natasha Henstridge, of Species fame, Adam Beach (Slipknot in Suicide Squad, also the cop on The CW's Nancy Drew reboot) and cult movie fave Lance Henriksen, of Near Dark, Aliens, Pumpkinhead and many more where that came from.
As the much-put-upon Melissa, aka "Mouse," there's Merle Kennedy, who has a quiet intensity, while being very likable and sweet-natured at the same time. Kennedy made her acting debut in a guest spot on the cult TV series She-Wolf of London, before landing a bigger role in the Full Moon favorite Dollman from prolific director Albert Pyun. It must have gone well, as Pyun cast her as the cooly-named Max Impact in the following year's Nemesis, also with Dollman star Tim Thomerson.
Kennedy did a variety of TV movies and guest spots on shows like Evening Shade, ER & Profiler over the following years, and alternating between lower-budgeted gigs like The Apocalypse, Convict 762, Full Blast, Tyrone and Three Days of Rain and higher-profile feature films like Across the Moon (with a young Christina Applegate), Junior (yep, the pregnant Arnold Schwarzenegger flick), Switchback, The Perfect Storm and Bubble Boy (with a young Jake Gyllenhaal).
But my favorite movie of hers is undeniably the excellent cult flick May, from horror auteur Lucky McKee, of All Cheerleaders Die and The Woman fame. It's an admittedly small role (as May's mom) for Merle, but she's great in it, and it's a fantastic movie that I highly recommend for horror fans, with a stand-out performance from the underrated Angela Bettis, a rare serious turn from funny lady Anna Faris and a cast that also includes Jeremy Sisto and James Duval. Don't miss that one.
Moving on to the resident bad girl Shirley, we have the foxy Zoe Trilling, who has kind of an old-school Betsy Russell vibe. (You horror fans probably know Russell best as Jigsaw's wife, but long before that, she was a sexploitation star in movies like Private School , Avenging Angel and Tomboy, which is more the vibe I'm referencing here.) Like co-star Kinkade, Trilling started out as a dancer, and even previously appeared alongside Kinkade in the teen comedy Girls Just Want to Have Fun, her feature film debut.
She had a bigger role in the TV movie Children of the Night, which is not a horror movie, in spite of that title, but actually a raw look at teen prostitutes in LA. She did lots of TV guest spots on shows like Hunter, 21 Jump Street, Married with Children, MacGyver and others, but it was cult flicks where she made her name and earned her following. These films include Fear (not the Mark Wahlberg one- this one has Frank Stallone, lol) Amityville: The Evil Escapes, The Borrower (fond memories of that one), Dr. Giggles (love it), To Protect and Serve, Night Terrors (directed by Tobe Hooper, with Robert Englund- don't think I've seen it, but I want to now after reading the description- England plays the Marquis De Sade!), Hellbound (with Chuck Norris), The Sunchaser (with Woody Harrelson) and Last Exit to Earth.
The naturally-blonde Trilling- she died her hair for this role- has a loyal cult following to this day, and with that uneven-but-fun resume, it's easy to see why, especially if her role here is any indication. I may have to rewatch some of the above or watch the others for the first time, as Trilling has a really unique presence, and obviously, is very easy on the eyes, with cheekbones for days. She sadly retired from filmmaking in the late 90's, but all's well that ends well, as she went back to her first love: dancing. She went on to become a choreographer and dance teacher at The American Ballroom Theater in NYC, which is cool.
If Sister Gloria looks familiar, there's a reason for that, at least if you're an old-school Charmed fan- actress Jennifer Rhodes was none other than the much-beloved Penny "Grams" Halliwell on that show. Her cult status hardly ends there, as she was in the classic 1978 version of Halloween, albeit the "TV Version"- she's one of the nurses that shows Donald Pleasence's Dr. Loomis Michael's trashed room after he escapes- she also co-starred with the actor in Night Creature the same year.
Other spooky efforts include Sketches of a Strangler, Ghost Fever, Slumber Party Massacre II, Heathers, The Baby Doll Murders, Killing Obsession and The Killers Within. But her bread-and-butter is undeniably TV, and she's been on damn near everything, from The FBI and Little House on the Prairie in the 70's; Fame, Cagney & Lacey, L.A. Law and Quantum Leap in the 80's and plenty more where that came from in the 90's and beyond before landing her big role on Charmed in the late 90's and early 2000's. She's a bit skittish about her horror-oriented fare, but she shouldn't be- she's damn near the best thing in this film, for one.
As her would-be partner-in-fighting evil and secret crush, Father Bob, there's Rod McCary, who looked very familiar to me as I was watching this, just as Rhodes did. Turns out there's good reason for that, as he was all over the movies in the 70's, 80's and 90's and beyond. His more notable credits include: Herbie Rides Again, Loose Shoes, Wholly Moses, Stir Crazy, Harper Valley P.T.A., Beverly Hills Madam, Stewardess School, Sunset, A Girl to Kill For, 976-Evil II, The Flintstones, 28 Days, Komodo vs. Cobra and Spreading Darkness. He's also done a crap-ton of TV like Rhodes, over the same span of time.
Probably the most instantly recognizable of the main cast, though, is Christine Taylor, as Terri. Taylor's first role was on an episode of TV's Dallas before landing a starring role in the short-lived but much-beloved Nickelodeon show Hey Dude! More TV followed before she made her motion picture debut in Calendar Girl, about a road trip to meet Marilyn Monroe. A leading role in the Billy Blanks action flick Showdown followed, then this film, then her big breakthrough playing Marcia Brady in The Brady Bunch Movie. Interestingly, the "Marcia" reference made in NOTD 2 was BEFORE she landed the actual role- it was an ad lib by the actor, who rightly thought she resembled the character. Who knows- maybe the casting director saw this movie?
Though the Brady movies solidified her presence in comedies for the most part from there on out, she did take a brief detour back into horror in the classic The Craft, as a bully one of the witches gets revenge on in horrific fashion, and she was also in the anthology Campfire Tales, which isn't half-bad, like most horror anthologies, and the decent Room 6. In spite of her comedic chops, she's actually an avid fan of the horror genre, and has lamented that she hasn't done more of it. Who knows? Maybe she will, on down the line.
Other credits include The Wedding Singer, Overnight Delivery, Desperate Not Serious, Zoolander (as well as the sequel), Dodgeball, Dedication, Kabluey, License to Wed, Tropic Thunder, The First Time, Little Boxes and TV's Arrested Development. She, of course, was married to Ben Stiller from 2000 on- hence all their film credits together- though the two have sadly filed for divorce recently. Yet another Corona-fueled relationship casualty, I guess. Damn you, Corona! 😡
Other notable cast members include: Robert Jayne (Iron Eagle, Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II, and several Tremors-related projects- he played Melvin Plug) as Perry, the aspiring demonologist; Rick Peters (Leprechaun 4: In Space, TV's Veronica Mars and Dexter) as Rick, Shirley's "real" boyfriend; and Darin Heames (also in Dr. Giggles with Trilling, as well as the underrated The Fear and TV's Sons of Anarchy) as the villainous Z-Boy, Rick's sidekick.
There's also Ladd York (also of Leprechaun 4) as Kurt, the guy Shirley dupes, but who ends up hooking up with Terri- not a bad trade-off, at least until he gets attacked by Angela while hooking up with Terri- there's a lot of coitus interruptus in this movie; Johnny Moran (Up Against the Wall, Pleasantville) as, um, Johnny, Bibi's boyfriend; and Mark Neely (also in Stewardess School and the infamous Soul Man- this was his last role, sadly) and Rachel Longaker (a child star from TV's The Waltons and the movie Oh God!) as the Jehovah's Witnesses at the beginning of the movie, who get invited in Hull House to meet their doom by Angela.
In the director's seat is Brian Trenchard-Smith, an eclectic British filmmaker that started out making documentary films for Australian TV, mostly revolving around the stunt industry and martial artists. He continued to work in Australia moving forward into film work, directing such cult semi-classics as Deathcheaters, Stunt Rock (if you look at just one trailer in this article, make it this one- it's freaking amazing), Turkey Shoot (aka Escape 2000- that one's something), BMX Bandits (with a young Nicole Kidman- it's hilariously bad), Blood Tide and the slasher flick Dead-End Drive-In.
Smith relocated to LA in 1990 and basically continued in this same vein, with movies like Deathstone, Leprechaun 3 and 4 (probably why cast members from this film also cropped up in the latter), Megiddo: The Omega Code 2, In Her Line of Fire, Arctic Blast, Absolute Deception and Drive Hard. He also remade his own Turkey Shoot in 2014 and he's done lots of TV, including the movies Atomic Dog, Happy Face Murders, DC 9/11: Time of Crisis, Aztec Rex and Malibu Shark Attack, the last two of which are Syfy monster movies.
While his films are made on the cheap, they look higher-budgeted than they are, with solid productions values more often than not- NOTD 2 being no exception, and one which he cites as one of his all-time favorites of his work to date, alongside Dead-End Drive-In and Happy Face Murders, an assessment I'd have to agree with, though I'd also include the original Turkey Shoot. I have yet to see the remake- though it's got Dominic Purcell in it, of Legends of Tomorrow fame, who I like, so I might have to check it out sometime. For whatever it's worth, he's also one of Tarantino's favorite directors as well.
Night of the Demons 2 is just a fun little movie. The girls are all very beautiful- I'd even go so far as to say they give the original cast a run for the money in that department- and the film is well-cast in general and the characterization is pretty solid. Screenwriter Augustyn really went the extra mile to make this a bigger, if not better sequel.
The first one has a more special place in my heart, simply because I've seen it more and grew up with it in my life since I was a kid, and it was a go-to Halloween movie, but I genuinely underestimated how much I'd enjoy this one this time around. As an adult, I appreciate the thought that went into this one more than I did when I was younger.
The film really kicks into overdrive once Angela hits the Halloween dance at the school (with Kinkade once again getting to strut her stuff, but of course), with Sister Gloria morphing into a really fantastic character in particular, as she and Perry take matters into their own hands, complete with holy water Super Soakers and balloons, be that as it may that it was possibly ripped off from Dead/Alive. There are lots of great horror set-pieces and creative effects, and the gore quotient is much more pronounced than in the original. I particularly liked the decapitated head basketball bit and the Angela snake creature at the end.
That said, is it a better movie than the original? Debatable. The filmmakers acquit themselves nicely, but it still has issues overall. You've got some particularly gratuitous nudity at the beginning, which falls into the problematic territory of something like Revenge of the Nerds or Porky's, which is unfortunate, even if I know it was standard issue stuff for the time.
Weirdly, though, it plays more as an 80's movie than a 90's one- you'd never guess it was made in that era, so there's no real excuse for this transgression by that point. I appreciate naked girls as much as the next guy, but it's definitely a little iffy to see it in the context of horny dudes watching it through a pair of binoculars. Talk about the male gaze personified.
But I can't imagine I had a problem with it as a kid- if anything, I sought out stuff like this left and right. I remember scanning the HBO and Cinemax (aka what me and my friends called "Skinemax," because of the propensity of adult material on the channel) guide every month for whatever movies had N or SC or the mother lode of SSC (respectively, Nudity, Sexual Content and Strong Sexual Content) listed and watching those movies, no matter what they were. At one point, I actually watched Reds, a three-hour movie about Communism, because it had nudity in it, lol. (Well, that and I was a big Jack Nicholson fan.)
So, yeah- not exactly an innocent victim here. Hell, I still watch some of that sort of thing, even to this day. It's hard to shake things you loved as a kid, during those formative puberty years. But I'm also enlightened in a way I wasn't back then, so it does dampen the effect somewhat if it's REALLY gratuitous, and the scene I'm referencing here really is.
So, even if I somewhat enjoyed it in the moment, it left a bad aftertaste because of the given scenario, and I felt kind of like I needed a shower afterwards, if you know what I mean. But I'm not a prude, so I'm not going to judge anyone who doesn't have a problem with it. It is, after all, to quote the legendary Wes Craven ad, "only a movie." But I can definitely see where some might be offended. If you think you might be, then maybe skip that bit.
In addition, one of the things I really appreciated about the original is how there was not only representation of different races, but they even had a Final Guy that was black and implied to be gay. That's really cool in retrospect, especially for the time. That is not the case here, as the entire cast is lily white and the people that live are basically who you think they will be, with perhaps one exception. For that reason, I think maybe the original remains the superior film, but this one is more elaborate and well-thought-out, so respect for that where it's due. It's definitely a worthy sequel, to be sure.
The film is readily available on all the expected formats, though you should probably spring for the Blu-Ray if you want the best picture, but I suppose that goes without saying. I gather there's a Director's commentary on the Blu, which I haven't heard- but I'd like to, for whatever that's worth. I watched it on my Roku, so there wasn't one- though, interestingly, there WAS one for the original on the Shout Factory channel, which is where I got a lot of my info on that one, along with an extensive making of documentary I found on YouTube.
This being more or less a straight-to-video effort, it's to be expected that there would be less bonus material to be found, and I expect even less for the third installment, so fair warning there, which was why my initial thought was to do a combo review for both this and the 3rd outing. Once I saw that there was more than I thought there was for this, I decided to split them up after all, but, like I said, don't expect as exhaustive a review of the third one as I have for the first two. (Probably to your relief, lol.)
That about does it for Night of the Demons 2- by all means, check this one out, even if Halloween is in the past at this point. It's a better film that many of you who saw it back in the day might remember, and well-worth seeing again. It's not without faults, but it's a decent little movie, if I do say so myself. 😈
Join me next time, as our franchise review continues with a look at Night of the Demons 3. Will it be as good as the first two? Probably not, but we'll see- I remember virtually nothing about it, so this should be an interesting journey. See you then, and remember, if you're going to spend the night at a haunted house, it never hurts to have a Super Soaker filled with holy water at the ready!
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