NIGHT OF THE DEMONS 2 – I have pretty warm memories of the first film and, surprisingly, the remake. But I’d never seen this. I just always thought – “well, that’s bound to be bollocks.” What was I thinking? In my defence, it was made in 1994, a truly moribund year for the genre. When people get into nineties nostalgia, they don’t mention the horror films (until about 1996, but that’s all a matter of opinion really). Anyway, I’ve revised my completely unfounded opinion, because NOTD2 is a smooth moving, well-oiled beast and is almost the ultimate teens-in-a-haunted-house flick. It’s really just a re-tread of the first movie, which was no more than an iteration of a formula anyway – young adults, horniness, house with a past, dark corridors to wander down, choice moments with splatter prosthetics. But behind it is exploitation powerhouse Brian Trenchard Smith, who certainly knows how to lay down crowd pleasing trash with ruthless economy, and NOTD2 just steams ahead, lean and mean – it knows exactly where it’s going, and so will you, most likely. Steve Johnson is the other factor, impressing with a couple of pretty crazed fx set pieces. Highly enjoyable, the kind of film you’d be watching around this time.
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