Exploring the Sequels

#11 Fright Night (2011)

A remake that is better than the origi…nah, I’m just kidding.

1985’s Fright Night is my # 1 vampire movie of all time and one of my overall favorite horror films in general. So the 2011 remake was not my idea of a movie that needed to exist even twenty six years after the original. A remake of something already successful can be a bad idea but to even remotely triumph it needs to have the right mix of dedicated artists with a unique vision to update a story effectively with a modern take and special effects for the time period it’s made in.

There were three essential remakes in the 1980’s of sci fi horror movie classics from the 1950’s that are pillars of how to do this masterfully. Carpenter’s The Thing, Cronenberg’s The Fly, and Chuck Russell’s The Blob are all updated films that finds new themes and perspectives that turned the fun B movie originals into deadly seriously tales of personal survival and horrendous body horror. Not only did these 80’s updates become classics in their own right, each are also superior to their predecessors. I had someone a few years ago try to hipster-splain to me once that Hawke’s The Thing From Another World was still superior to Carpenter’s take. I said “okay, good deal” and moved on as you would interacting with a stranger on the street screaming obscenities while removing their clothes. It’s basically the same thing when you think about it and I want nothing to do with that kind of behavior, guys.

These remakes had reason to subsist because each generated a fresh spin on our fear of the “other”. The Thing brought us Lovecraftian cosmic horror boiled down into the microcosm of an isolated, paranoid group of scientists. The Blob expanded in scope, a tale of gelatinous alien goo as a societal mirror representing our never ending and always growing consumerist nature being sucked up by a system we’ll never control, but will always return to metaphorically, cash in hand. The Fly, mirrored our relationships with the power of youth and the false sense of control it brings, how we may be affected by the changes in our bodies that we can’t control, transforming us into something as alien within ourselves as a jellied shapeshifter or blob by the curse of bodily breakdown, represented in this case, by merging genetically with one of the most repellent of insects.

Our latest Fright Night lacks any ambition to elevate itself into new territory but director Craig Gillespie and screenwriter Marti Noxon, find ways to create narrative changes with mixed results. The basic plot construction remains. Vampire Jerry Dandridge, moves in next door to Charley Brewster and his mom. Charley must enlist the help of Peter Vincent to save his girlfriend Amy, and destroy Jerry.

Charley (the late, great Anton Yelchin) and his mom (the great Toni Colette) live in a transient desert suburb outside of Las Vegas in a plan and spec neighborhood of cookie cutter, two story homes. Jerry Dandridge (Colin Farrell) is still a undead bachelor but doesn’t have a Renfieldesque roommate/man-servant. Charley used to be a nerd (ugh, so gross), but has blossomed into a “cool” kid (thank god) with new friends and popular girlfriend, Amy (Imogen Poots). Evil Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse ) is Charley’s ex best friend, having ditched Ed post puberty. Evil Ed is the one who actually suspects Jerry of being a vampire instead of Charley and confronts Jerry Dandridge before being turned. Instead of a late night horror host, Peter Vincent has been updated to a successful Criss Angel style, vampire killing, Las Vegas horror illusionist who cowardly pretends to not believe in the supernatural.

The good:

Yelchin is an inspired update for the Brewster role and he believably portrays a recovered dork who shed his scaly dweeb skin, gained new douchey friends, and a beautiful, cool girlfriend. He is a better actor in the role and his journey from normal, vulnerable high school kid to vampire slayer is buyable. But please, and this goes for all these movies, please stop having Charley Brewster blow off his girlfriend wanting to jump his bones because he’s scoping out possible vampire activity. When you’re a virginal, sixteen year old dude, I don’t care if Dracula, the prince of darkness, is floating outside that window doing push-ups to Chappell Roan. Brewster would pay it no mind I tell ya. In a movie full of vampires and supernatural shenanigans afoot, I just can’t buy this. But we move on.

Farrell plays Jerry not like an aristocratic Bram Stoker figure adorned in red and gray turtlenecks and expensive jewelry, but instead inhabits him as a more blue collar bro wearing sweaty tank tops, entrancing his victim with his dark, roguish eyes and smile, while fixing their sink with mechanically inclined hands that will easily rip out their throat. An Everyman vampire by way of a 21st century Stanley Kowalski. But in this Streetcar there is no desire. No lost love or servant to pine for. In 2011, Jerry is the guy who owns his own construction company, sucks down a six pack after work, and calls on the company of some working ladies late at night cause that’s what a vamp like Count Brolock does. Farrell is putting in the work as new blood in the role but the writing is sucking out any life he tries to put into it. Fright Night predates the Colin Farellsance by a few years before he started playing lobsters and penguins, but I would have loved to witness current era Farrell sink his teeth in for a performance that if not bigger, at least a bit stranger.

Toni Collette’s mom is more fleshed out and plays a larger role, bring her undying talent to a still fairly one note, thankless part of realtor mom. But she gets a great moment protecting her son from Jerry by staking him with the very realty yard sign she uses for her job in a genuinely well shot car chase outside of Vegas in the Nevada desert with Jerry. This scene shines among a movie filled with poor 3D action and darkly cast CGI that dated itself the moment it came out in 2011. One of the worst CGI horror tropes I loathe is the CGI monster whose mouth expands much larger than its face with rows of razor sharp, cgi teeth. It looks like shit and it’s scary 0/10 times.

Amy’s role is expanded and more fleshed out thankfully, helping Charley through the majority of the movie until she’s turned by Jerry in the third act. She’s intelligent and confident, never a one note cliche, and gets a her own highlight scene against Farrell in Peter Vincent’s penthouse where she breaks a glass case, grabs an antique pistol, and shoots Jerry with a silver bullet. Unaffected, he sarcastically says, “werewolves”. She backs up, breaks the next glass case, grabs holy water, throws it in Jerry’s face like acid, and says “vampires”. Pretty badass. I think the remake would have actually been more justifiable and interesting if the screenwriter gender swapped Charley taking on a male or female Jerry, and Charley has to save her boyfriend Andy, or someone. Just swap the actors and bam, forty six percent better. No need to check my math.

The bad:

Christopher Mintz Plasse, in his post Super Bad McLovin era, is an inspired choice to play Evil Ed and an opportunity to branch out from his hyper natural uber nerd non-persona. But where Stephen Jeffreys played Ed as an awkwardly vulnerable teen who’s world only made sense once he became a vampire, Mintz-Plasse plays too closely to his McLovin smart ass meta nerd comfort zone, and his main purpose is to extort Charley into helping him investigate Jerry by threatening to out Charley as a dork in sheep’s clothing to his new clique with video recorded proof of Charley larping. The equivalent of high school popularity suicide, I guess? This iteration of Ed is also never given any chance to be a truly downcast and empathetic character maybe not to root for per se, but at least feel for. This Jerry doesn’t so much offer him a gift as he forces him to take it which feels forced on us as the audience. When Evil Ed finally succumbs, you discern less weight to the ruination of an innocent kid molded into the likeness of his monstrous master.

The Ugly:

I’m not a Dr. Who guy, but I like David Tennant. He’s a fine actor and cast well as Peter Vincent in theory and in talent but is written lacking any sympathetic charm that made McDowall’s Vincent such a compelling character. Peter Vincent was as integral to the plot as Charley Brewster in Fright Night 1 and 2, but here he’s not much more than a cameo with another forced change of heart after Charlie commando’s up to hunt and kill Jerry. Vincent is written as a profane, offensive asshole with little nuance outside of being a boozy sleeze, making jokes that rarely land, hiding a past of living vampire victim. It’s an unearned, streamlined arch of redemption and Tennant and the story deserved better.

In Fright Night classic Charley and Peter mostly do battle either in Charley’s house or Jerry’s abandoned, Victorian residence. Although placed in a typical 80’s suburban nook of anywhere America, it felt like a gothic sore thumb pressing down on and haunting the other street’s homes with broken green and red stained glass windows, dead vines, and overgrown foliage strangling the sides, trellis, and balconies of the exterior. The original Dandridge house spread dark character and shaded details of the kind of homestead an ancient monster would find comfort in, making it a visually dynamic structure cinematically to keep coming back to and do battle in. The remakes’s Dandridge house is a duplicate of all the others on Charley and Jerry’s street. A victim to the blandness and unoriginality of the very residential stables in which his victims sleep, juxtaposed against the richer and much more terrifying desert that surrounds it.

Fright Night lacks a voice outside of being divergent from the original. Tom Holland’s version created meta commentary through the lens of remarking on the movies he loved that became lost in our pop culture zeitgeist, while reinventing it through horror nostalgia and teenage modernity. Gillespie’s Fright Night, although a fun ride with a game cast and an inspired desire to cook new things, doesn’t rustle up a well balanced meal to bring to the table that supports its reason to be consumed by an audience.

Unlike the similar parallel themes in The Thing, Fly, and Blob, no matter the space (a scientific base in Antarctica, an entire middle American town, or within our own tiny universe of cellular structures), we can never truly escape from the indifferent science of ourselves or those cold, inhuman invaders barreling down from some dark unknown, full of fiery stars yet devoid of warmth, whose sole purpose is to devour, replace, or alter us. The basic premise of a boy battling a vampire could command that same potential as vampires after all, have only those same instincts as well. A lofty goal but I’m still holding out for a horror remake to reach such heights again.

I’ve been tough on Fright Night but its actually a fun, one time watch and one of the better cash grab reboots of that era of unremarkable remakes. So sheathe your larping swords, pour you a glass of whatever that green shit is Peter Vincent was drinking from his bar, tell your girlfriend or boyfriend, to back off and get off your bed, cause you up and got a movie to watch with no time to get down.

That’s going to close out our Fright Night series for now. There’s a sequel to this that’s actually weirdly a reboot again but it’s a rental only and I’ll come back to it and cover if it’s ever streaming for free if anyone cares to read it. Thanks for all two of you for following along!!!

Next up we’ll be discussing the 976 Evil series.

Final rankings..

Fright Night

Fright Night 2

Fright Night (2011)

..I’m going to go on and predict the Fright Night 2 reboot of part 1 is gonna fall in last place but you never know.