Last night I had the pleasure of attending a special advanced preview of the remake of “Fright Night” - just one of the many perks of having Sky. I was interested going into this one as I liked the film as a kid, but wasn’t a massive enough fan to be affronted by the idea of a remake. And in fairness, it’s exactly the sort of film that’s perfect for a remake, as it’s not exactly The Shawshank Redemption in terms of plot or depth.
Anton Yelchin is Charley, a reformed geek who’s managed to snare himself an attractive girlfriend. His ex-best friend Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) is convinced that Charley’s new neighbour is a vampire and sets out to try and prove it to Charley. It’s not long before Ed has gone missing and Charley starts investigating for himself; roping in “professional” vampire hunter Peter Vincent (David Tennant) for help.
There’s a lot to like about Fright Night. The script managed to juggle some excellent shock moments with appropriately dark comedy, and it was no surprise to see that the screenplay had been written by Marti Noxon, who cut her (fanged) teeth doing exactly the same dance on Buffy and Angel. Yelchin is a good lead, and his progression from sceptic to believer is convincing. After this, Star Trek and Terminator: Salvation he seems to be the go-to person for reboots/sequels. David Tennant is excellent comic relief, playing a hybrid of Doctor Who and Russell Brand, and Mintz-Plasse does his funny/geeky thing, and could have done with being in a few more scenes.
Colin Farrell is brilliant as the antagonist, although (if the gossip magazines are to be believed) playing a narcissistic villain isn’t too much of a stretch. Whether you buy into that or not, he’s excellent as Charley’s evil vampire neighbour. Toni Collette is great as Charley’s mum, and it’s weird that each film that I see her in she seems to be getting older yet at the same time skinnier. If I had more time I would chart all of her films on a youth/weight axis.
On the negative side, the 3D is completely unnecessary and actually detracts from the viewing of the film. I’m not going to jump whole-heartedly on the anti-3D bandwagon, but producers do need to bear in mind that 3D comes with a 30% light reduction, so scenes that are dark anyway become really difficult to watch. And horror movies are primarily set in the dark so the two aren’t a natural match. There were a couple of scare moments which were completely lost due to it being so difficult to tell what was going on.
The CGI vampires are also a bit unnecessary, I actually found Farrell a lot more sinister when he was acting as opposed to when they’d CGI’d a shark mouth onto him. Charley’s girlfriend is also a little annoying to start with but redeems herself somewhat once they start fighting the vamps.
However, despite the few flaws I thoroughly enjoyed it. It found the right balance between horror and comedy, and if you watch it in 2D I think you’ll get a lot more out of some of the darker scenes (as in brightness not theme). If anything, after the Twilightification of all horror characters lately, it’s nice to see vampires being scary again.
If you like old school horror, definitely worth a watch.
