Fright Night
Fright Night
A remake of the 1985 original, teenager Charley Brewster (Yelchin) guesses that his new neighbor Jerry Dandrige (Farrell) is a vampire responsible for a string of recent deaths. When no one he knows believes him, he enlists Peter Vincent (Tennant), a self proclaimed vampire killer and Las Vegas magician, to help him take down Jerry.
Jacob O’Neal reviewedMarch 21, 2025
I went to see this in the theater with my dad in 2011 for a few reasons. He took me to see the original movie in the 80’s. The cast was impressive. It was written by “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” writer Marti Noxon and directed by Craig Gillespie who made “Lars And The Real Girl”. Boy was I disappointed. This is one of those remakes I can’t separate from the original. I tried. In fact, I just watched it again and I was nothing but angry. Let me explain why.
Charlie, our hapless hero, played by the late Anton Yelchin, is a high school student who has the misfortune of having a vampire move in next door. In the original, William Ragsdale was a horror obsessed kid and it’s done in a way where he may just have an overactive imagination. No one believes him. His best friend, Evil Ed, and girlfriend, Amy didn’t believe him. He had to enlist the help of Peter Vincent, a horror movie host and former star of many Hammer like vampire movies. But the remake betrays all of that. Ed is now just Ed and has less personality. Charlie isn’t the believer he was in the original. Peter Vincent is now a David Blaine style Vegas magician. It takes so much of the motivation away. They had to assign new motivations to the characters and they failed all around.
The movie took all the fun of director Tom Holland’s original film and threw it out the window for attempted scares and action sequences. The cast was great and they tried. Colin Farrell, Toni Collette and Imogen Poots were all good as well as Yelchin and Tennent (fresh from his run on Doctor Who). I don’t blame Craig Gillespie for this. I blame writer Marti Noxon, who took over showrunner duties from Joss Whedon on Buffy in season 6 for the possibly worst two seasons. But I think, more than anyone, Disney is to blame. This was released through their Touchstone banner and we all know how everything they touch turns to crap in the last twenty years. This movie is crap. It’s void laughs and character development. The only reason to watch it is the cast. Period. You can avoid this movie and be happier for it.