Directed by Tom Holland
Starring Chris Sarandon, William Ragsdale, Amanda Bearse, Stephen Geoffreys and Roddy McDowall
This was another one of THOSE weeks. Every once in a while, I really struggle to come up with a movie to review. Call it selective mental block. I open up the ol' DVD cabinet, and every movie seems to be screaming "NO." I type up "classic horror films" in Google, and everything has already been hashed and rehashed. With nowhere else ot turn, I almost did something way, way out there for the Lick Ness Monster.
I almost reviewed The Evil Dead.
Now, I've pretty much done everything but outright promise that I'll never review Raimi's cult classic trilogy. Partially because I'm just not the biggest fan of them, but mostly just because what I actually have to SAY about them really isn't that interesting in the first place. All it would be is bitching for the sake of bitching. I know this, and so does pretty much every unfortunate sap that I've talked to in real life about these flicks. But with nowhere else to turn...folks, I almost annoyed the holy f**k out of everyone this week. Fortunately, an old friend showed up last weekend with a few horror DVDs, chief among them a fun little movie from the '80s that I didn't discover until college.
Fright Night was a pretty big hit upon release, grossing $24 million at the box office and eventually becoming successful enough to get a sequel and a pretty slick remake a few years back with Colin Farrell and Toni Collette. That movie was pretty good in its own right, but the original film is a prime slice of '80s cheese in the best way. Writer-director Tom Holland is one of my favorite horror movie guys, having also helmed Psycho II, the original Child's Play and a bunch of Tales From the Crypt episodes, and this is yet another movie that just GETS horror from beginning to end.
William Ragsdale stars as Charley Brewster, cool kid who is only cooler because he's into old-school horror movies. Despite also having hot girlfriend Amy Peterson (Amanda Bearse) to play around with, he still spends a bunch of time watching a horror movie marathon show hosted by Hammer-style actor Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall). The flick does a really good job establishing Charley as a likable and relatable guy, an art form that I'm sure I've mentioned several times is sadly lost on most modern film-makers. And I'm not just talking about horror movies. It's amazing to me that I can watch action movies with budgets the size of a small nation's GDP, and yet the stakes still feel so damn LOW. Reason: I don't give a s**t.
Anywoo, back to this dog and pony show. The movie's big complication: Charley's new neighbor, Jerry Dandridge. The coincidences and similarities seem incidental at first, but Charley is soon able to deduce that the guy next door is, in fact, a vampire. The irony. Once this discovery is made, the script doesn't waste any time raising the stakes, either, as Jerry has an offer for this inquisitive teen - "Forget about me, and I'll forget about you." Alas, Charley doesn't forget, and Jerry is soon making it his mission in life to f**k up Charley's personal world. Folks, Chris Sarandon is a legendary character actor, and he really gets to show it in this role. He's slime to the nth degree, a very different interpretation than the one we would get from Colin Farrell in the remake (who was much more badass and powerful), but it's one that is refreshing and quite simply evil. In between '80s dance sequences, of course.
A large part of this movie's appeal is the characters, and it speaks volumes that almost every single one got recreated by name and theme in the remake. Charley also has a nerdy friend named Evil Ed (Stephen Geoffreys), and this kid is Jerry's first target after the movie's introductory phase. With his best friend as freshly converted vampire, his girlfriend falling under Jerry's spell and his mother refusing to believe his claims, he turns to his hero. He turns to Peter Vincent. Just like every other main role, McDowall is pitch-perfect as the former Gothic horror star who feels that today's teenagers are too "impatient" for vampires, and I've got to hand it to Tom Holland's scriptwriting prowess here - the idea of a modern (in 1985) teenager and a Hammer-esque horror actor hunting down a strong bad was a fantastic concept, and it's pulled off very well. Ragsdale and McDowall have a great master-and-sidekick chemistry thing going on, and the second- and third-act chase sequences actually manage to have a decent amount of suspense due to our emotional investment.
I'm honestly struggling to think of flaws to bring the grade down. I suppose the only thing that I don't particularly care for about Fright Night is Geoffreys - the character of Evil Ed is very well-formulated, but the guy's performance just seems a little off. Christopher Mintz-Plaase was a HUGE improvement in the remake. It's also a little dated in some areas (Bearse's hair-style, the aforementioned '80s synth dance scene), but then again, Holland's concept here is remarkably timeless. The evidence of this is in the remake, where the story essentially gets re-done beat by beat with only aesthetic changes, and today's audience of kids absolutely lapped it up. Kinda like blood. (dodges tomatoes)
*** 1/2 out of ****. Check this one out, kids, it's loads of fun.
And I promise that I'll never review the Evil Dead trilogy.
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