Main cast: Cristi Harris (Bibi), Darin Heames (Z-Boy), Bobby Jacoby (Perry), Merle Kennedy (Melissa “Mouse” Franklin), Amelia Kinkade (Angela Franklin), Rod McCary (Father Bob), Johnny Moran (Johnny), Rick Peters (Rick), Jennifer Rhodes (Sister Gloria), Christine Taylor (Terri), Zoe Trilling (Shirley Finnerty), and Ladd York (Kurt)
Director: Brian Trenchard-Smith

Well, well, well. Look what crawled out of direct-to-video hell six years after the original Night of the Demons – it’s the sequel that nobody asked for but everybody got anyway!

And what an amazing coincidence that this sequel is set exactly six years after the events in its predecessor, just like some kind of demonic cicada emergence cycle. I’m sure this was all part of some grand master plan and definitely not the result of someone in Hollywood going, “Hey, remember that movie that made money on video? Let’s do that again, but with Catholic schoolgirls!”

Right off the bat, this movie announces its intentions louder than a fire alarm in a library. Within the first fifteen minutes, we’re treated to a scene featuring partial to full frontal female nudity, because apparently the filmmakers looked at the original and thought, “You know what this needed? More exploitation and less time to establish literally anything else.”

Naturally, this peep show is being observed by two guys strutting around in nothing but tighty-whities, because equal opportunity objectification is the cornerstone of progressive filmmaking in 1994.

The action takes place in a Catholic boarding school, because nothing says “let’s ramp up the sleaze factor” like throwing nuns and repressed teenagers into the mix.

Here we meet Mouse, the sister of Angela from the first film — yes, Angela apparently has family, which is about as surprising as finding out Freddy Krueger has a LinkedIn profile. Mouse gets her nickname because she’s timid and unassuming, and also because her tormentors clearly peaked in creativity sometime around second grade. She’s bullied relentlessly, because the Final Girl Handbook explicitly states that your protagonist must suffer through at least 45 minutes of social ostracism before she’s allowed to fight demons.

Surprise, surprise – Angela is back from the dead! Well, not exactly alive, but more like a demonic middle manager who’s been promoted to full-time haunting duty. She gets her chance to play twisted family reunion when some brilliant teenagers decide that Hull House is the perfect party venue — apparently nobody in this universe has ever heard of just renting a community center like normal people. They drag Mouse along as the designated punching bag, as nothing makes a party more fun like having someone there specifically to torment.

Here’s where things get weird, and not in the good way. This movie decides to throw horror out the window in favor of becoming a comedy with occasional practical effects. We get martial artist nuns – because apparently the Vatican has been secretly training Sister Act cast members in kung fu – and demonic lipstick that, I kid you not, crawls up a woman’s… well, let’s just say it takes “makeup application” to places that would make a gynecologist uncomfortable.

Remember when demonic possession used to be simple? You just needed the demon to slip into you like catching a cold from someone who sneezed on the subway. Now apparently demons need to get creative with their entry methods, like they’re competing in some kind of supernatural Olympics.

The movie does have its bright spots, particularly Sister Gloria, who steals every scene she’s in like she’s auditioning for a much better movie. Then there’s Perry, who fills the Sal role from the original – you know, the one sane, genre-savvy guy who actually understands how horror movies work. He’s likable, he’s smart, he makes reasonable decisions, and naturally, he has to die because the Horror Movie Gods demand that competent characters be sacrificed to appease the stupidity demons. It’s like watching the smartest kid in class get picked off in dodgeball — tragic and deeply unfair.

Mouse, our designated Final Girl, doesn’t have much to do for most of the runtime, but at least she’s more proactive than her predecessor, who spent most of the first movie perfecting her impression of a fire alarm. It’s a low bar, admittedly, like praising someone for being more athletic than a sedated sloth but hey, progress is progress.

So, is this movie better than the original? Oh, sweet summer child, no. Not even close.

It takes almost an entire hour before anything remotely spooky happens, and until then, you’re stuck watching tedious teen drama featuring characters so bland and one-dimensional that cardboard cutouts would have more personality. Even when the supernatural shenanigans finally kick in, it’s less scary and more like watching a very expensive community theater production of Demons: The Musical.

The whole thing feels like someone took the original movie’s DNA, mixed it with Sister Act, threw in some Porky’s-level exploitation, and then forgot to add any actual horror. It’s like ordering a cheeseburger and getting a salad with a picture of a cow taped to it – technically related to what you wanted, but missing the essential components that made you hungry in the first place.

All things considered, Night of the Demons 2 is watchable in the same way that a traffic accident is watchable. You can’t quite look away, even though you’re not entirely sure why you’re still there. It’s forgettable entertainment that works best when you don’t think too hard about it or, God forbid, compare it to its predecessor.