Movie Review: Fright Night
As the remake becomes more and more popular these days, you begin to hear people wonder why they are made in the first place when the original was fine to begin with. This tends to be a more prevalent discussion when people aren’t watching John Carpenter’s The Thing or the Coen Brothers’ True Grit, both of which have become praiseworthy adaptations made from movies that were already considered superior products. For me, the new Fright Night has placed itself in a hard place: on its own, it’s an intelligently scripted and enjoyable romp, but compared to the original film from 1985, there are some notably lacking elements that keep it from reaching its full potential.
Charlie Brewster (Anton Yelchin) lives in Las Vegas, just a few miles away from the Strip. He’s got a hot girlfriend (Imogen Poots), and a new neighbor, Jerry Dandridge (Colin Farrell), who seems to be a decent enough guy. The only problem is that people in Charlie’s class aren’t showing up at school, and his long-neglected ex-friend “Evil” Ed Thompson (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) suspects that Jerry is a vampire. Charlie writes Ed off as crazy, until Ed himself goes missing, and Charlie finds evidence that Ed wasn’t crazy at all. Can Charlie stop Jerry before the whole neighborhood becomes a rampaging army of the undead?
First off, let’s discuss the good things about Fright Night. The casting is superb. Farrell plays Jerry with the proper balance of smarm and downright sadism, right down to how he licks the blood off his hands after every bite. Yelchin and Poots look the part and have good chemistry (and are close to being age appropriate…let’s face it, William Ragsdale and Amanda Bearse were both pushing 30 and playing teenagers in the original), and Toni Collette as Charlie’s mother has a much larger and more active role than Dorothy Fielding did in the original. And finally, David Tennant is a hoot. Unlike his heroic performance in the Doctor Who television show, he plays Peter Vincent as a showboating Vegas magic performer (bearing a striking resemblance to Criss Angel) who drinks, swears, and hates leather pants.
Also, despite the longer running time compared to the original film, there is definitely a brisker pace set. The first one, I will admit, is a very, very slow burn, and this one wastes no time getting right to the meat of the story. The obviousness of Dandridge’s vampirism is set up early on, and the focus is on how Charlie is going to handle it. It also allows the movie to raise the body count considerably…in the first three minutes almost as many people die than in the entirety of the original film, and more come soon after. The ending is also given a more modern action-film feel without going so completely over the top as to remove some sense of proportion. Really, it is nice to see a vampire film where even a solitary vampire is a genuine threat to the protagonists instead of the endless parade of cannon fodder than can be karate kicked to death.
But the film does have its drawbacks. First off, Charlie must be a master of stealth, because there is a scene where he grabs somebody’s press pass in a Las Vegas casino and not a single one of the approximately five trillion cameras that must exist there notices him doing it. That’s a minor quibble. What isn’t minor is why the movie goes to great lengths to set up a much deeper relationship between Evil Ed and Charlie in this film than the original and then does hardly anything with it. Ed just sort of tags along in the first one, and yet what happens to him in the original has much greater impact on the viewer than the moments Charlie has with him at the end of the second act in the new version. It still baffles me as to why they would go and get Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who has been playing this part for most of his career, try to make us care about him, and then have him disappear for 75% of the movie. It is a completely missed opportunity to add depth to the remake.
David Tennant and Anton Yelchin in Fright Night. Photo by Film Frame
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Also missing is the sensual aspect. The original film made not just sex, but the allure of sex an important part of the plot. Not only is Jerry stronger, faster, and in some ways smarter than Charlie, he is a bigger hit with the ladies (and live-in handymen) to boot. The remake actually goes out of its way by telling us that Charlie has tried to dump a nerdy past to get someone like Amy, and other than following the basic plot from the original, this aspect is also sort of glossed over when a more “seductive” vampire would take advantage of it. Farrell represents a much more basic evil: he is an animal, a killer, with no remorse for what he does, which doesn’t quite fit the template the remake is trying to fill. On a related note, Peter Vincent’s true motivation for collecting his vampire memorabilia is a little suspect and appears to have been hastily shoehorned in to add another “gotcha!” moment during the finale. It’s the one note about Vincent that rings hollow, and only showcases how brilliant the original was by making Vincent an old has-been actor who never believed in vampires until the perfectly staged mirror moment.
The finale is also something that needs comment. I mentioned earlier that the original does get slow at times. However, that allows the film to build steam beautifully until the finale, where not only are the protagonists working against the vampire, but time itself. And for the viewer’s patience, Dandridge gets exactly what he deserves. In the remake, the pressure to put the stake to Jerry isn’t quite as strong, and because of the more action-packed nature the ending doesn’t leave quite the same impression.
If you’ve never seen the original Fright Night, you will enjoy the remake. If you saw the original, don’t worry; no sacred cows have been slaughtered here, and what is here is still fun and well-made. It is a much more 21st-century film, with more action, explosions, and bloodletting, but it is still well-acted and a shining jewel among more recent horror comedies. As a fan of the original film, I heartily enjoyed the remake without too much remorse, so if you can set aside your Roddy McDowall flags for a moment, you probably can, too.
NOTE: I actually had no idea this film was being released in 3D. It was apparently filmed in 3D, which I will go on the record saying is not worth the extra ticket price. Most of the scenes don’t take advantage of the effect, even for scene depth, and the pop-out special effects are few and far between. I did watch this in the worst-lit theater for 3D I have ever seen, but even so I would say you’d be better off with a 2D show.
Seth Paul
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