Release Date: August 19, 2011
Studio: Dreamworks
Genre: Horror / Suspense
Rated: R    1 hr 46 mins

Fright Night

August 23, 2011

Reviewer: Rottenbucher

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CAST:

Anton Yelchin:  Charley Brewster
Colin Farrell:  Jerry Dandrige
Imogen Poots:  Amy Peterson
Toni Collette:  Jane Brewster
David Tennent:  Peter Vincent
Christopher Mintz-Plasse:  Ed Lee

DIRECTOR:

Greg Gillespie

As vampires continue to chew up the big screen, the remake of the classic Fright Night effortlessly adds more gore and interestingly alters the story.  But do buckets of 3D blood and Colin Farrell as a throat-ripping villain make for a good remake? Yes.

Outside of Las Vegas, a new suburb is starting to lose residents. Real estate agent Jane Brewster (Toni Collette, United States of Tara) is not only bugged by the flight, but by her new neighbor’s roll offs.  Charley Brewster (Anton Yelchin, Star Trek, Terminator Salvation) thinks his mom is overreacting, but is a bit put off when his mother and his girlfriend Amy (Imogen Poots, Centurion) find the hunky night construction worker Jerry Dandrige (Colin Farrell) to be excessively charming.  However, Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kick-Ass, Superbad) warns Charley that Jerry is a vampire responsible for all of the missing families in the development and teens at school.  When Ed goes missing, Charley spies on Jerry, learning that he is indeed a vampire.  Without the help of Ed, Charley turns to Macabre Magician and vampire scholar, Peter Vincent for help in slaying the bloodsucking menace.   With Jerry out for blood and Peter too drunk to help, Charley tries to prevent his mom and girlfriend from getting bit at all costs.

Fright Night is a dark and violent film.  Farrell has a lot of fun not only as a dreamy construction worker, but an enraged vampire, ripping apart throats and stalking his prey. The blood is tossed at the camera and sprayed all around the sets. Former-nerd Charley initially is solely focused on impressing his mod girlfriend and doesn’t want to fall for the vampire mumbo-jumbo his jilted childhood friend Ed is selling.  But when it comes down to stopping more people from getting killed by Jerry, Charley finds firm ground utilizing his geeky background.  Poots’ Amy is a great love interest that isn’t oversexed or completely dopey and her devotion to Brewster is something rarely seen from a damsel.  In addition to some decent characters, there also are some decent laughs early on and the Twilight criticism is excellent. Plus Farrell’s Jerry doesn’t sparkle in the sunlight and there is no sappy romance stinking up the place. 

But there are a few rough spots in the film.  Unfortunately Peter Vincet (David Tennent, “Doctor Who”) may play a snotty drunk exceptionally well, his character is really underutilized in the film.  He also quickly shifts from drunk to reluctant vampire assassin after a quick pep-talk from Charley. The change is just too quick and almost asks if Vincent would have been more effective with even less screen time. Also Mintz-Plasse’s portrayal of Ed is a bit too close to Superbad’s McLovin with the nerdy demeanor and snappy dialog.   So much so, if the audience is familiar with the actor’s previous breakout role, they will simply think McLovin also believes in vampires and carries a few crosses as well as a fake ID in his book bag.  The 3D also gets short-changed as Fright Night is a very dark film with the majority of the film taking place not only at night, but in dimly lit interiors. While the murky look perfectly fits the mood of the film, it actually detracts the 3D aspects.

In terms of Fright Night as a remake, the film is actually successful.  Fight Night has the distinction of being the first horror remake in recent years to really stray from the source material, altering not only locations, but some roles of the main characters. The original film was simply a retelling of The Boy Who Cried Wolf with horror and comedic overtones.  The remake has more to do with horror, revenge and damsels in distress and keeps the humor only in the first act, adding much more violence (car wrecks, exploding bodies and exploding houses) throughout the film.

The fact that Peter Vincent is now a magician makes much more sense as the newer audience has no reference of late-night horror film hosts. With cable channels devoted for niche material like horror films, late-night television is currently riddled with comedians and infomercials, not reruns and b-movies.  While this will undoubtedly cause fans of the original to groan, Tennent’s Vincent is nothing like the original character. In fact, the new audience would probably find the original character even cheesier than the Criss Angel-styled update in the current film.

Fright Night is fast and fun.  With no teenage-vampire sexual tensions or other lame Twlight bogusness, Fright Night is perfect for those that like threatening vampires with fangs and horror films with gore, not metrosexual vampires partaking in PG-13 sex sequences and gore-free kung fu action. While it doesn’t have the unique charm of the original, Fright Night is very entertaining and may be the most lively horror remake yet.  Recommended to audiences old and new.

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