Monday, September 27, 2010

FRIGHT NIGHT 2 (1988)

[Update 6/3/19: I really need to redo this review and replace those shitty screenshots. Ugh!]

Life's been pretty swell for Charley Brewster in the three years since the original FRIGHT NIGHT. He's in college, he's still friends with Peter Vincent, he's got a cool PREDATOR poster, he's still got that cool 80's hair and best of all his new girlfriend is a gigantic improvement over that diseased sea donkey he was banging in the first movie. Yuck! Now for the bad news: the vampires are back and even worse is it's the sister of the dude he killed in part 1. Yikes!

Good sequel. I enjoyed it, but it lacks that certain something to make it an 80's vampire classic like the original or THE LOST BOYS. The wall climbing werewolf and the roller skating vampire did help though.

More blood and ooze than I expected, hot girlfriend (she never got even close to naked though), not as much Roddy McDowall screen time as I had hoped for, the vampire gang was not scary, the "sexy" female vampire was ugly, great 80's clothes.

Part 1 - Fright Night (1985)
Remake - Fright Night (2011)
Sequel to remake - Fight Night 2 (2013)

THE COLLECTOR (2009)

[Update 08/01/2022: Need re-watch this film and redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

A burglar breaks into jeweler's house to get his burgle on, but ends up discovering that the entire house has been set up with extremely elaborate traps to capture...uh, him, I guess? I never did really figure that part out. Anyway, so there's traps everywhere and he sneaks all over the house, back and forth, upstairs and downstairs for the entire movie. Logic and common sense are thrown right out the window, so just sit back and enjoy the silliness of it all. I watched it with some friends and we got a good laugh out of it.  Often when I see films like this I can't help but wonder how much people get paid to write it. There's no way this entire script took over just a few days to complete beginning to end.

Nice amount of blood, a little gore, minor tit shot, bad guy wasn't scary, over stylized lighting, completely unbelievable story. Like I said, it's good for a laugh, but there wasn't nothing in this film to make it stand out from the crowd.

Part 2 - The Collection (2012)

THUNDERBALL (1965)

James Bond is sent to a health clinic to recover from his last mission. While there, Bond sexually assaults a young woman, but naturally she learns to like it and then later that night from her window, Bond sees something strange: an ambulance taking a dead body into the clinic. Could it be the set up for another FRIGHT NIGHT movie?! Oh, please! Oh, please! Oh, please! Bond vs. vampires!!! That'd be awesome! No, it's just some evil henchmen working on a body double to use in their plot to steal two nuclear weapons. Bond investigates, but it's all after the fact because they've already stolen the bombs and unless the government pays up $280 million they are going to blow up an undisclosed city. Bond isn't going to stand for that kind of shit, so he follows the clues of the dead body and goes to the Bahamas to seduce the dead guy's sexy sister and pump some information out of her.

Beautiful tropical locations, lots of underwater shenanigans, sharks and even more sharks, cleavage, bigger budget, it's all pretty fun, but a little too long.  Still worth a watch.

Two thunderballs out of five.

Part 1 - Dr. No (1962)
Part 2 - From Russia With Love (1963)
Part 3 - Goldfinger (1964)
Part 5 - You Only Live Twice (1967)
Part 6 - On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
Part 7 - Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
Part 8 - Live and Let Die (1973)
Part 9 - The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
Part 10 - The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
Part 11 - Moonraker (1979)
Part 12 - For Your Eyes Only (1981)
Part 13 - Octopussy (1983)
Part 14 - A View to a Kill (1985)
Part 15 - The Living Daylights (1987)
Part 16 - Licence to Kill (1989)
Part 17 - GoldenEye (1995)
Part 18 - Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
Part 19 - The World Is Not Enough (1999)
Part 20 - Die Another Day (2002)
Part 21 - Casino Royale (2006)
Part 22 - Quantum of Solace (2008)
Part 23 - Skyfall (2012)
Part 24 - Spectre (2015)
Part 25 - No Time to Die (2021)

Non-Eon James Bond films:
Casino Royale (1967)
Never Say Never (1983)