With casting news swirling around the unsurprising remake, it’s time once again to turn our gaze back to the 1980s and the vampire film Fright Night.  Unlike many of the modern day varieties of vampires, those featured in Fright Night are true monsters, hearkening to the original Bram Stoker tale of vampirism.  There’s a bit of brooding, sure, but that is in short supply with these shape-changing nocturnal predators.

The story is simple enough.  Regular guy Charlie Brewster (William Ragsdale) is making out with his girlfriend, Amy (Amanda Bearse), one night when he notices new neighbors moving into the creepy house next door.  Stranger still, they are moving in with a large coffin, taken directly to the cellar.  With Charlie’s love of old vampire films and their star-turned-cable-host Peter Vincent, Vampire Killer (the sublime Roddy McDowall), it’s no surprise that his interest is piqued.  

Charlie begins spying on his neighbor’s activities, culminating in a fateful moment of voyeurism as Charlie catches the handsome Jerry Dandrige (Chris Sarandon) sinking his fangs into a lovely young lady.  Before hitting the jugular, Jerry spots Charlie across the way and pulls the shade with crazy-long vampire fingers on display.  Charlie must now convince his girlfriend, dizzy mother, weirdo pal Evil Ed (Stephen Geoffreys) and the hunter himself, Peter Vincent, that vampires are not only real, but now just across the street.

Jerry is more interested in Charlie’s squeeze, a doppelganger of a former love, than in the rest of the gang.  When he steals away with Amy, Charlie and his crew of would-be vampire hunters must make a desperate assault on Jerry’s lair to save Charlie’s love and rid the suburbs of this well-heeled nosferatu once and for all.

Written and directed by Tom Holland (Child’s Play, Thinner), Fright Night has all the earmarks of many disposable ‘80s fare: the dated clothing, synth-heavy music and slapstick approach to comedy.  But, it’s more than the sum of those rusty parts.  Fright Night accomplishes what few horror-comedies can – it manages to be both funny and frightening.  The performances by the leads are all above par, and the bittersweet turn by McDowall as the cast-aside former star is funny and sincere.  With performance and script on its side, Holland strikes a wonderfully honest tone for the film, allowing the scares to build and the laughs to pop.  Considering this is his first feature, Holland showed incredible promise as a director.

The effects are dated, using some early CGI to handle the bat transformation, but the practical effects make up for these shortcomings with some for-the-time-remarkable gags including a wolf to vampire change that works way more than it doesn’t.  If you want to pick the shortcomings of this film apart, the effects are a great jumping point, but you’re missing the fun of this one.

fun of this one.

There are moments of such dark glee in this movie, it’s hard to dislike for long.  The over-the-top turn by Geoffreys as the occult-obsessed Ed is grin-inducing (especially his trademark, “You’re so cool, Brewster!”), as are more subtle touches like Jerry whistling “Strangers in the Night” while stalking Charlie, or the introduction of the “faith” rule in cross-handling.  While adding a bit to the vampire sub-genre, Fright Night owes plenty to Dracula, incorporating the ideas of transforming into lower beasts and mist and holding onto the romantic angle while never avoiding the monstrous.  To many, these abilities may seem un-vampiric, but I assure you it’s the modern vampire that lost his wolf-y groove and not Holland’s conceits that account for this.

Watching this film again is like finding an old friend who has seen better days, but still makes you laugh the same as he always did.  It’s an odd comfort to find the movie plays as well now as it did then, despite the sweater-clad Big Bad.  If you’ve never seen it, get busy, this is a minor classic of the time.  If you have, it awaits your return, a welcome antidote for the sparkly vampires of today.

But just what the hell is Jerry’s roommate, anyway?

Watching this film again is like finding an old friend who has seen better days, but still makes you laugh the same as he always did.  It’s an odd comfort to find the movie plays as well now as it did then, despite the sweater-clad Big Bad.  If you’ve never seen it, get busy, this is a minor classic of the time.  If you have, it awaits your return, a welcome antidote for the sparkly vampires of today.

But just what the hell is Jerry’s roommate, anyway?