I had heard and learned a lot about Fright Night ever since Disney decided it was time to take it to the street again. Having never seen the original, I was always curious what the film was about after seeing the poster with the ghastly looking vampire on it. My fascination continued to grow when I started seeing the stills and trailers for the remake starring Anton Yelchin, Colin Farrell, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, David Tennant, Imogen Poots and Toni Collette. I had seen some footage at Comic Con and still remained slightly skeptical. Would the film be enjoyable? Would it be frightening or creepy? How would all the horror elements like the vampire teeth, the blood, and the killing come together in 3D? And finally, would it look right? To sum it all up, I can honestly say that I found Craig Gillespie’s Fright Night to be better than I expected and thought it was immensely entertaining.
Fright Night is about a kid named Charlie Brewster (Anton Yelchin) who has ditched his real friends in order to become popular in high school. He is now dating one of the hottest girls and everything in his life seems to be good, that is until Jerry (Colin Farrell), his new neighbor, moves in. After dissing his best friend Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), Charlie learns the truth about Jerry, that he is a vampire preying on everyone in his cozy little Las Vegas neighborhood. It’s up to Charlie to prove that Jerry is in fact a vampire, enlist the help of some unlikely people, and then stop Jerry before everyone he loves gets hurt. It’s also rated R!
Before I dive any further into this review, I just want to let you all know that I’ve never seen the original (it happens) so there will be no comparisons in the article. Anyway, like I said earlier, I thought Fright Night was extremely entertaining. For a big budget summer flick, this comedy/horror delivered everything films like this promise and usually never deliver on, such as scary as shit looking vampires, witty dialogue, comic relief when you least expect it, and gruesome deaths. These attributes are what made this film really fun to watch despite the fact that the acting may not have been up to the highest standards, but seriously does anyone expect that?
Everyone in the cast makes the film work. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of Anton Yelchin, mostly because of his raspy voice and unconfident looking nature, but he is a good actor and he played his part fairly well. Colin Farrell was great as Jerry even though some of the dialogue led to either intentional or unintentional laughs, either way it worked for me. Mintz-Plasse was funny when he was on screen but he didn’t have much of a presence. The same thing goes for David Tennant who played Peter Vincent, the star of the TV show Fright Night. He stole almost every scene he was in even when he wasn’t actually funny. The damsel in distress, Imogen Poots, held her own while Toni Collette pulled off the attractive and responsible mother role.
The movie is about 106 minutes long but it moves at such a brisk pace that you never feel bored. The opening scene gives you a taste of what you can expect later in the film when it comes to vampires killing people and the scenes following that are set up so that you learn the situation and then moves on to all the good stuff, aka 
vampire hunting and running. What I really want to praise Craig Gillespie on is the car chase when Jerry is trying to capture Charlie, Jane and Amy. There is a three or four minute scene (which they showed at comic con) where the camera moves around inside the car without any cuts, showing motorcycles being thrown through windows, cars crashing into each other and everyone freaking out. It looked similar to the famous Children of Men car scene except this one was in 3D which made it feel like one of those amusement park theater experiences.
This is a perfect segue for me to talk about the 3D. While a majority of the film did not need to employ the technology, it worked wonders in other cases like when a vampire would step into the sunlight and disintegrate. Not only did that look cool by itself, but it was the fire ashes that scattered around after the immediate implosion that looked unbelievable in 3D.
My one chief complaint about the film is that it’s actually not as bloody as one would have expected. I know vampires are cleaner monsters but in a majority of the vicious scenes there wasn’t much splatter to be seen. That was really the only thing that bummed me out a bit.
For what it is, Fright Night delivers the goods and works as a great Friday night movie to enjoy with some friends. It doesn’t promise the world to you but it makes sure that you leave with a smile on your face and not with some cynical look of disgust like you just walked out of something shitty like Skyline. In conclusion I’d like to say well done everyone; it has been a while since vampires were really entertaining to watch.
Rating: An immensely entertaining Friday night flick to enjoy with your friends (7/10)
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