Fright Night

Craig Gillespie‘s 3D remake of Todd Holland’s terrific 1985 horror-comedy has some good ideas and good performances but ultimately misses the mark.  Where as the original was a sharp commentary on the lack of classical and romantic creatures like vampires and werewolves in the post-Halloween/Friday The 13th world of '80 horror cinema, this remake comes at a time when cinemas and TV screens are overly saturated with vampires in all forms and all genres.  The screenplay, by Buffy The Vampire Slayer show runner Marti Noxon, uses the basic premise and structure of Todd Holland’s original script, but has none of the subtext.

The film’s Las Vegas setting is a brilliant idea for a vampire movie.  It is a night-focused town with transient people that constantly move in and out without ever putting down roots or getting to know their neighbors--a perfect location for a hungry vampire.  I’d love to see a really good vampire movie set in Vegas, but Fright Night’s central premise: what-if-you-discovered-you-had-a-vampire-living-next-door? works best when grounded in any-town suburbia not freakish Las Vegas.  Also, the conceit depends on being trapped living right next to the Vampire.  About half way through this remake Gillespie and Noxon blow up the vampire’s house and take the movie on the road to the big city.  I’m sure this is meant to be a bold move, dispensing with the original film’s narrative, but it also dispenses with the whole point of the premise and brings into question the purpose of the remake.  

Once the movie gets to Vegas it becomes too sprawling to be scary.  David Tennant plays Peter Vincent--the clever Vincent Price / Peter Cushing hybrid that Roddy McDowall portrayed so well in the original film--as a smarmy Vegas stage magician and TV star. This is not a bad idea for reworking and modernizing the character; it just has no depth or subtext so it’s not really any fun.  Colin Farrell is fine as Jerry the vampire, but his is a straight performance and not the wonderfully amusing, permed, sweater-wearing, '80s hunk Chris Sarandon played in the original (Sarandon makes a cameo in this movie, but it’s kind of a waste).  All in all, this could have been an interesting and even exciting original film if it had been able to develop its ideas and setting without being tied to a pre-existing property.  As it is, it’s just another unnecessary modern remake of an infinitely better film from the eighties.