 
A
divorced father and anthropologist named
Joe Weber (Michael Moriarty) tries to
spend time with his son Jeremy (Ricky
Addison Reed) due to his work schedule
and the two of them don't seem to see eye
to eye when they go on a vacation spot in
Salem's Lot as he is asked to write a
"bible" for the town's ghastly
group lead by Judge Axel (Andrew Duggan)
but he finds that Axel and the rest of
the townspeople are vampires and that his
son is possibly going to be a part of it
when he meets up with a girl named Sherry
(Jill Gatsby) who tempts him to join her
and the rest of the people there.
Joe goes to the aid of one of the locals
who isn't a vampire yet named Van Meer
(Samuel Fuller) to go on a vampire
slaying and put an end to Axel's evil
deed's along with trying to save his son.
An embarrassing
sequel and has nothing on the original in
which has bad writing and sloppy
direction to it. The performances were
extremely cheesy too. However, this film
is campy fun to watch but not meant to be
taken seriously. For the fans who wanted
another scare like in the first on this
isn't the film for you but if you want to
watch it to get a kick out of it then try
it at your own risk.
The special effects were done very
cheaply and the whole film has plenty of
low production values too.
Some scene's seemed to borrow a bit from Children
of the Corn with kids as
vampires and playing at the playground
all through the night which looked mildly
amusing.
I dug it for what it was since I am into
films that are so bad it's good. This was
one of those types indeed.
Close to the end of the film looked very
adventureous with the vampire slayings
and the battling that's happening but at
the same time alot of it looked
amateurish nonetheless.
The acting is
incredibly wooden for most of the cast
members in this film. Lead actor Michael
Moriarty tried to do his best
playing the main hero in the film as he
showed some energy and some good intense
expressions too to top it off but yet his
characteristics were a little off. Oh
well at least he did his best.
Ricky Addison Reed who played his
vulgar son was another story as all he
did was say his lines showing no
characteristics at all. Out of all the
kids who tried out for this part why was
he chosen I don't know. He didn't seem to
pull his weight at all and all he got
going for him for the story was his
charming looks but that's it.
Andrew Duggan however who played a
vampire Judge showed great anger and
aggrassions with his powerful speaking in
the film. He really brought alot to his
part and found him to be the best actor
in the film along with a nice masculine
look to him.
Evelyn Keyes who played his wife in
the film was quite spooky too with her
thin looks and intimidating cold speaking
as well. She really knew how to portray a
horror character so another gold star for
her.
Jill Gatsby did come across
mysterious as a young vampiress and
brought what she had to do with her role
in it. She wasn't award winning amterial
though but was considered above average
and made sure she was one of the drawing
cards to the story.
Tara Reid unbuttons
her top exposing her breasts in a room as
well as doing the same thing in another
scene outside.
Many necks are bitten but
it looks very fake
Cows necks are bloodied
Vampires faces melt and rot
Larry Cohen
really adds alot of cheese to his
direction in this making his work nowhere
near as effective like Hooper
did for the orignal that it's laughable.
There's a dialogue between Michael
Moriarity and Ricky Addison Reed
as a dysfunctional father and son
relationship while driving in the car
which doesn't look realistic at all in
which it looked obvious that Cohen
was forcefully directing them in which it
looked too acted out and unnatural.
We spot shots on a supporting cast of
kids giggling and surrounding supporting
actors Jim Gillis and Ted
Noose as vagrant's as Cohen
was trying to make it look spooky but it
was extremely amateurish regardless.
There's also a scene with supporting
actress Janelle Webb as a punk
kid screaming after encountering that the
townspeople are vampires which looks
extremely obvious as well as them going
in to bite the bit part actors as her
friends as it looks a little amateurish.
There's a good approach however by Evelyn
Keyes coming up to Webb and
biting her finger as well as a good close
up shot on Keyes tasting the
blood and licking her lips which I had to
say looked spooky and well done. There's
cheesy shots on an uncredited featured
extra Michael Gingold's hands as
monster hands as well as face shots on
monstrous faces in which fails to look
creepy like it's supposed to be.
There's a good still dialogue between Reed
and Jill Gatsby out at night and
telling him to join her which looked not
as bad as most of the direction on the
creepy dialogues here but again it's
nothing to brag about.
There's good close up shots on the cast
like Keyes, Duggan and June
Havoc drinking blood from dead cows
which looks creepy and almost gothic like
but still looked a wee bit cheesy but
sometimes cheesy is good.
There's a good shot on Moriarty
and supporting actress Tara Reid making
out and then lying on the ground. But
however there's a shot on Reid
opening her mouth looking as if she's
about to bite him on the neck which
didn't look convincing and too directed
without it looking natural.
There's a scene with Bird acting
sick and in pain on a chair outside which
looked way too melodramatic with Moriarty
getting anxious on what to do but
however that didn't help matters with the
direction on this scene.
There's on Moriarty carrying
Reed at a river and placing him down
with both Gillis and Noose
attacking him with nice camera shots
looking up on both of them using a stick
or other weaponary about to strike him.
However there were struggling brawling
scene's which looked incredibly sloppy.
There's some interesting moments with
both Moriarty and Sam Fuller
trying to be forceful with Reed
about his behavior but sometimes it
looked a little wooden mainly due to Reed's
acting.
There's many terrific shots with both Moriarty
and Fuller going place to
place and driving a stake through
people's hearts in coffins which were of
course performed mainly by featured
extra's. There's a great shot on the two
of them walking down some stairs in a
cellar and then shots on some featured
extra's crawling out of their coffins and
slowly trying to creep up on them.
There's a good intense moment with June
Havoc screaming at Moriarty on
what he's done as well as Andrew
Duggan getting aggressive as well
with Reed and Moriarty demanding
him to let his son go.
There's a great shot on Duggan
entering the barn with a light behind him
looking demonic and ready to attack which
was nicely done but it fell flat when the
action on all of that was going to
happen.
There's shots on Moriarty, Fuller
and Reed in a vehicle driving
with featured extra's as vampires jumping
on the car while they're driving which
looked terribly trashy and you can tell
that it was a set.
There's shots on the cast as vampires
falling while the sun shines which looked
extremely obvious as well.
Cohen proved that he wasn't the
guy for this sequel with his directing
but at times hwe made it look fun
nonetheless.
There's the cheesy
classical sounding synthesizer music but
some of it sounded okay. There's good
deep sounds as well as the odd chiming
sounds which almost seemed to ripoff the
theme from The Exorcist.
We also hear some out of synch
adventuroeous music towards the closing
credits to the film all composed by
Michael Minard.
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