A fun, B-movie horror remake of a fun, B-movie horror flick from the 80s. Without the fun part. When your "stars" are Shannon Elizabeth, Monica Keena and Edward Furlong, and you aren't in fact ten years in the past, you're in trouble.

It takes place at a party in a haunted house. We know it's some level of haunted thanks to a random, silent movie (complete with intermittent dialogue posted on the screen) from the 1920s. After a few scenes involving Keena calling Elizabeth and Diora Baird "a couple of pussies", because they're dressed as sexy cats for Halloween, Elizabeth gives a moving speech to the party-goers, promising a "night of debauchery". Whenever such things are promised, there's usually disappointment to follow. Almost always.

Once the fun starts, it doesn't ever elevate beyond being a pale imitation of one man's vision of what horror is. It's passively scary, never really trying hard enough to qualify. It's silly, but not a good kind of silly. Monica Keena is probably the best addition to the cast. She's in her element of "bad acting" in teen-targeted horror. Shannon Elizabeth exhibits no such "acting" chops. Diora Baird is there to take her top off, and even then, it's so she can shove a lipstick cylinder through her nipple and take it back out through her vagina. Not nearly as sexy as it sounds. Or anatomically correct. But to be fair, spoiler alert! --- she was a demon at the time.

And Edward Furlong... was he auditioning to play k.d. lang in a movie? To see a fairly recognizable name actor look so much like a butch lesbian (not that there's anything wrong with that) is startling. Years of drug and alcohol abuse have not been kind to Ed.

I wouldn't say avoid at all costs. But there are better things to do with your time. Like seeing the original Night of the Demons instead.

*½/****

I thought this was a gory good time. I've never seen the original series, but found this pretty fun.

B

The original is loads of fun. Check it out.

Can't speak for the sequels though.