I love this movie. I love both the original and the remake, which is a rare treat for me!
I believe in order to have a good scary movie you have to have humor. The best contemporary horror films are not only funny, they address the genre conventions previously set out for them. Horror films are ridiculous, they’re supposed to be, we see zombie movies because we like them. But no one wants to sit around for an hour while they figure out to survive they need to remove the head or destroy the brain. I mean, we live in a society where even the CDC talks about the zombie apocalypse, to ignore that society accept this is stupid, but I digress.
This is where Fright Night (both the original and the remake) shine. Both are set in a world where the characters are clued in as you. In fact it’s not the vampire part that is so scary about this film. What is scary is that after Charlie Brewster (played by William Ragsdale and the super adorable Anton Yelchin) discovers his neighbor Jerry Dandridge (played by Chris Sarandon aka Prince Humperdink and Colin Farrell) is a vampire no one believes him. His friends even orchestrate a way to prove to Charlie that Jerry is just a regular charismatic guy. It’s a great watch, it balances thrills with camp and humor perfectly!
Factoid: Marni Noxon, the screenwriter assigned to the remake was also a writer and showrunner on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She said that although, there was never a Fright Night centric episode the writers were given a list of vampire movies to watch and Fright Night was one of them.
