Fright Night (2011)
Certified: 14
Duration: 106 minutes
Directed by: Craig Gillespie
Starring: Anton Yelchin, Colin Farrell, Imogen Poots, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Toni Collette, David Tennant
KRS release
In remaking 1985’s most successful horror film, Craig Gillespie has brought to the screen a nice mix of style, comedy and horror. The original Fright Night continues to have a cult audience mostly for its 1980s style and the nostalgia that reeks around it. This new version aims to score with its audience by bringing to the screen a sense of self awareness, striking visuals and a heightened sense of on-screen energy and comedy.
High school has been good to Charley Brewster (Anton Yelchin). He has a gorgeous girlfriend in Amy (Imogen Poots) and new friends in Mark and Ben (Dave Franco and Reid Ewing) while his acne is all but a memory. The thing is his old friend back from his nerdy days Ed Thompson aka “Evil” (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) still wants to be his friend and is now fixated on his neighbour Jerry (Colin Farrell) whom he believes to be a vampire. Obviously enough, Charley does not believe Ed.
That is until he discovers that he has disappeared and sees some unusual video footage of Jerry. With Jerry encroaching him and showing signs that he likes both Amy and Jane, Charley’s divorced mother (Toni Collette), Charley feels that his life is under threat. Thus he brings in Peter Vincent (David Tennant), a flashy showman whose show focuses on the occult, especially vampires. Peter will soon discover how right Charley is in his fears.
Colin Farrell looks to be having fun in this movie as he delivers his dialogue with a certain amount of panache. He is the film’s driving force and it is obvious from the start that he is having fun playing the villain. The way he looks at the delectable Imogen Poots and Toni Collette clearly marked him down on the side of delightful overplaying.
Anton Yelchin, Chekov from Star Trek, makes for a good hero and it’s nice to see his jaw drops from the vampire realisations that come to him. He plays his role with the right amount of posturing that a high school hero would invariably show off. Ms Collette brings class to the film while Ms Poots is sexy; and both are delectable material for the film’s resident vampire Christopher Mintz-Plasse plays another high school nerd, a role that he seems to be destined to play. I would like to see what roles will come his way when he becomes too old for high school. David Tennant (Dr Who) brings along a sort of over-the-top Russell Brand style performance as the pastiche-styled version of Van Helsing. Fright Night works because the balance between comedy and frights is tightly walked and thus never turns into over-baked spoof.
This does not mean that the film veers away from the horror angle, not at all, as this film has plenty of lasagna sauce splattered on the wall. It does, however, make sure to remain loyal to its origins and to a different breed from the cutesy cutesy vampires that have been springing out from the Twilight phenomenon. This is a vampire who likes his drink and seems to be intent on plowing through every dame/housewife in this Vegas version of Wisteria Lane.
What Fright Night brings to the screen is a sense of fun, complete with great background, landscapes and effective computer-generated imagery. It is also nice to see that crosses and the usual paraphernalia still work wonders against vampires as the film does not veer off into a too much post-modern view on the fanged ones’ mythology.