For as much as I feared vampires throughout my teen years (thank you ever so much Stephen King,) the original Fright Night remains a not-so-guilty 80s pleasure.
Sure it's cheesy now but that was the essence of 80s horror. So I didn't know how I would feel about a Fright Night makeover - UNTIL I saw who was cast.
Colin Farrell as Jerry, the next door neighbor quite literally from hell? My doctor, David Tennant, as the cheesy, cowardly Peter Vincent?
I would have bought my ticket last year when I first heard it was filming if I could have.
Needless to say, even though I am one of those frustrated screenwriters who grits their teeth at every remake that clutters the cinema, I was looking forward to this movie.
The good news is it was money and time well spent.
The bad news is I have to wait until tomorrow to watch it again.
Jerry is a vampire we haven't seen much since the Twilightification of the vampire mythology. He's not brooding. He doesn't sparkle. He's a cold blooded killer who rather likes what he does to the point he'll keep his victims for days on end to draw out their deaths for his own amusement.
He also has no patience for a dead guy. There is no slow build to this movie, as Jerry has a substantial appetite that doesn't discriminate. He doesn't just separate the weak from the pack and then strike, he'll take down entire families at a time. When he catches the scent of Charlie Brewster (Anton Yelchin,) his clueless mother (Toni Collette,) and his too-hot-for-a-nerd girlfriend (Imogen Poots,) it doesn't take him long to make his evil intentions known. The movie only lasts the span of mere days, which means the stakes have to raise exponentially by each ominous setting of the sun.
Farrell literally sinks his teeth into his role as super nasty Jerry, who is long on menace and short on seduction. This separates him from Chris Sarandon, who originated the role in 1985. He brings a bad boy swagger to the role as an unapologetic beast with zero humanity. This makes him a very scary guy, so much so that I, who normally likes to see that CF bad boy persona, wanted to look away and cringe my way out of my seat every time he was on screen.
Unlike William Ragsdale before him, Anton Yelchin has a lot more moxy when it comes to immediately doing something about the vampire threat in his neighborhood. Turns out there appears to be a beneficial side effect to LARPing in that it prepares you in dealing with the undead. Unless, of course, you're Ed (Evil Ed from the original, played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse in the remake.)
It's not easy being a geek.
There are some surprises despite the rather well-tread vampire lore, one of the more surprising surprises was how our mild-mannered 10th Doctor turned into a foul-mouth, cowardly douchebag. But it's David Tennant, so there's still a lot to love, not the least of which he screams my name no less than THREE times. (I COUNTED.)
(Although being Ginger on screen doesn't necessarily work out much to HER advantage...)
My only complaint was that some of the storytelling felt a little convenient, and those things I originally praised about the new movie (lack of human servant for Jerry, no need for back story for the connection between Jerry and Amy) ended up an unnecessary plot point which made the story more hokey than it had to be. I cringed for the wrong reasons during Peter Vincent's "reveal". But even that quibble is minor. It certainly wasn't a deal breaker by any stretch because HELLO... it's David Tennant.**
**Hubby says that the plot point didn't seem convenient to him and actually helped explain the Peter Vincent character. I still think it doesn't fit the Jerry character, hence how inorganic it came across to me.**
"Fright Night" doesn't break any real ground for a more traditional vampire movie, but it's a helluva lot of fun. In that respect it is much like the first Fright Night, with a lot more "Fright" for your buck.
Four out of Five stars.
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