'Night of the Demons 2' review by MartialHorror

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NIGHT OF THE DEMONS 2(1994)
(Directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith)

"Ugh, another sequel that wants to be funny."- Signed by MartialHorror

Plot: A group of teens go to the house where the demons like to party, and accidentally brings them home.

Review:

Imagine that it’s the year 1994. It is the year of “The Crow”, “Stargate”, “Forrest Gump”, "Dumb and Dumber”, “The Lion King”, “Pulp Fiction”, “The Santa Clause”, “The Shawshank Redemption”, “True Lies”, and “Godzilla Vs Space Godzilla”…….Especially the last one. It was a year of special effect bonanzas, gripping dramas, comedies that actually made you laugh, intense action, quirky artfilms and Spacegodzilla. Especially the last one. It’s amusing that among all of these films, someone, somewhere suddenly decided: We need another “Night of the Demons” film.

What is “Night of the Demons”? Well, it was a bold film that blatantly ripped off “Evil Dead”, “Evil Dead 2”, and just about every ‘stupid teens do a séance at a haunted house’ film ever made. Ew, I just realized that it may have ripped off even “Spookies”. Yikes! With that said, it’s a popular film within its limited confines of the genre. It offers plenty of gore, nudity, style, tension and even some black humor. So it worked. But it was an 80’s film, and while it had deservedly garnered a cult following, it was only a modest success. So make a sequel? Amidst all these epic films, was a sequel to a mostly obscure movie in demand? The sad thing, the films existence isn’t even the worst thing about it.

The story begins with an admittedly funny opening, where two missionaries drop by the infamous haunted house . They are greeted by the demonic Angela(Kinkade), who promptly kills them. Sure, this raises some questions, like why would people presume someone lives in an old, busted up, house that has a reputation of being abandoned and haunted. But maybe this scene was part of an urban legend or something. We then cut to our heroines. The cast is pretty big, but these girls include: Mouse(Merle Kennedy), the super shy one who we learn is actually Angela’s sister, Bibi(Christi Harris), the virginal good girl, Terri(Christine Taylor), the normal, popular girl, and Shirley(Zoe Trilling), who I’ll get into more later. We then meet the boys, who include: Johnny(Johnny Moran), the good boyfriend who knows martial arts, Kurt(Ladd York), the jock and Perry(Robert Jaybe), the nerd who knows about demons(AKA: Captain Exposition!). They all live at a Catholic Boarding School that’s under the strict rule of Sister Gloria(Jennifer Rhodes) and the kinder Father Bob(Rod McCary). The film makes a unique point at how that Father Bob is a practical and likeable guy who is more interested in teaching kids about Math than demonology, while Gloria is one-dimensionally religious, but in the end, is the right one. Strange….

Anyway, Shirley invites everyone to a private party at Hull House(where the first film takes place). She also invites Mouse after learning of her relation to Angela. They have a prank scene there, but leave when some strange things happen. One character unwittingly brings the demon with her when she takes some lipstick from the house as a souvenir. We are excited to see that the bulk of the film won’t be taking place at the house, but then they go back later on…..Eventually the movie turns into a rescue situation.

I will give “Night of the Demons 2” credit for trying to be clever. In fact, a lot of the ideas are pretty nifty. I liked the idea of the ass-kicking Nun, even though I’m pretty sure they were borrowing from “Dead Alive”. I liked the idea of the liberal vs. conservative Church teachings. I liked the idea of having one of the teens know karate. I liked how they use holy water in squirt guns and water balloons to fight off the demons…..Oh wait, I didn’t. That part actually was really stupid and also derived from “The Lost Boys”, where it worked to better effect. Apparently this film took a few lessons from the first by ripping off other peoples movies as well…..

“Night of the Demons 2” suffers from two reasons. The first is the standard direction, mixed in with the poor camerawork. There are a few good shots, but for the most part, they just rip the original off, but fail at it quite badly. There is no suspense, maybe a little intensity and some atmosphere: But it still feels like a watered down version of the original. The 2nd reason is that they play it up as a comedy. Making this a comedy sequel is about as absurd as making a sequel to a forgotten 80’s movie in 1994. I mean, did the failures of “Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2” or “Return of the Living Dead 2” not tell you anything? PEOPLE DON’T LIKE COMEDY SEQUELS TO SERIOUS MOVIES! Well, except for “Evil Dead 2”. So maybe we would like them okay if they were actually funny and complimented the original. “Night of the Demons 2” never made me laugh as well as losing its horror edge.

At least there is an abundance of nudity. It’s as if the movie knows its bad, so hopes to use the nudity to distract us. Of course, we roll our eyes, declaring that such cheap tricks will never work on us. Then we forget what we’re talking about due to the breasts that just keep appearing on the screen. I’d say that the nudity is what kept me interested.

The acting is pretty good too, at least for this type of movie. Christi Harris(Bibi) does fine as the heroine. Merle Kennedy(Mouse) does okay. Johnny Moran(Johnny) is pretty amateurish. Jennifer Rhodes(Sister Gloria) does okay, but is pretty fun. It’s pretty surreal to see Christine Taylor(Terri) here. Overall, she does pretty good and is super hot. Robert Jayne(Perry) is boring. Props to Rod McCary(Father Bob), who gives the best performance in his limited screentime. Then we have Amelia Kinkade(Angela) and Zoe Trilling(Shirley), who deserve their own paragraph.

In the first film, Angela was a normal gothic gal who, when possessed, suddenly became surreal and creepy. Here, she’s become a parody of herself…over-the-top, annoying, and unfunny. On the other hand, Trilling’s Shirley is played to be a despicable, soulless, bitch who probably should’ve been the new villain. Even as a human, she is immensely unnerving and is the type of character who you’d expect to go on a murder spree one day. Unfortunately, this is another possibility that the film simply couldn’t explore. Good job, Zoe, you were pretty cool here.

“Night of the Demons 2” has some gore, lots of nudity……..and that’s pretty much it. It’s just a watered down version of the first film, which was a watered down version of other films. It lacks the creative energy of its predecessor, and it’s attempts at comedy are both in poor taste and just……weird(Angela raping a boy in demonform. What the hell?).

Violence: Some nice moments. Loved the jaw tearing scene.

Nudity: Lots and lots and lots. Some light lesbian action, demon-rape(as mentioned above), and lots more. I guess I will say this. It’s the only movie I've seen where a girl gets raped by lipstick.

Overall: If you liked the first one, you might be okay with “Night of the Demons 2”. Even moreso if you liked some of the other comical sequels to serious movies…….

2/4 Stars


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