It’s ridiculous how great director Bryan Trenchard-Smith’s sequel to “Night of the Demons” is. Smith doesn’t just take Kevin Tenney’s story and run with it, but he ups the ante by adding mythology, giving Angela a larger persona as the series’ official villain, and has a damn good time. And how bad ass is Jennifer Rhodes as film heroine Sister Gloria, an uptight nun whose own religious devotion becomes the only thing that can stop Angela’s reign of terror?
You wouldn’t think a superhero nun would work for such a fun horror film, but Rhodes is able to take what could have been a horrible plot device and transforms Sister Gloria in to a heroine we can root for. Though the demonic frenzy is entertaining, watching Sister Gloria kick unholy ass is also immensely entertaining. Rhodes steals every scene she’s in, and she really is one of the most underrated horror heroines of all time. A few years after the events of “Night of the Demons,” Hull house is still standing with Angela its primary resident. It turns out Angela Franklin had a little sister who is now an orphan attending a Christian school. Constantly picked on, her classmates decide to trick her in to venturing out in to Hull House for Halloween, unaware they’ve released Angela once again.
With a local demonology student accidentally invoking the spirit of Angela, she crashes the school’s party and begins possessing the students through sexual contact. Kevin Tenney’s original film touched on the sexual contact being the primary means for demonic possession, and the sequel injects more of those elements with plenty of kissing, and a classic scene involving gorgeous Zoe Trilling and a phallic demonic lipstick. Much like Tenney’s original horror film, “Night of the Demons 2” packs in a ton of very memorable and raucous scenes of terror and laughs. There’s Angela as the giant rattle snake, the gorgeous Amelia Kinkade dancing to death metal, and the sexy Zoe Trilling giving her boyfriend a hand with her bust.
There’s also a lot of call backs to the original film with Suzanne’s lipstick playing a key role in the film, and a great recreation of the original house and dreaded oven. Best of all, Amelia Kinkade seems to have a lot of fun as the evil and devious Angela, and gives her the added dimension that director Trenchard-Smith aims for, with her embracing the dark side that was given to her in the original, and having a blast destroying the souls around her. Like the original film, “Night of the Demons 2” is a great party film, and a wonderful Halloween treat. Director Bryan Trenchard-Smith takes Kevin Tenney’s story to brand new realms and provides a sequel that’s just as good as the first film. Sometimes, even better.