FRIGHT NIGHT (1985) Review
So, it’s probably worth me getting this out of the way up front; Tom Holland’s (no, not that Tom Holland…) 1985 horror/comedy Fright Night is like a big warm, nostalgic hug to me. I’m not old enough to have been there when it was released, nor to have enjoyed its original arrival on home video, but as a kid, Fright Night was one of those films that I often saw. I first discovered it late a night during one of my many secret ventures downstairs to watch whatever spooky treat was playing on TV and quickly picked up a copy of the movie for myself on good ol’ VHS at a car boot sale. It sat proudly on my shelf alongside such other genre classics as The Shining, The Lost Boys, The Fly, The Thing, the Alien Quadrology (back when that was all it was… ah, simpler times!), and Evil Dead II. I can’t say I ever found it particularly scary, but there was something about it that just captured my young mind, and so anytime I find myself rewatching it, I’m quickly drawn in and it never fails to put a smile on my face.
What makes Fright Night so great, at least in my opinion, is that it is one of those movies that simply doesn’t take itself too seriously. As a film, the plot is somewhat clunky, beginning like a sort of half-assed version of Hitchcock’s Rear Window, that lazily attempts to hide the supernatural elements that are already pretty damned obvious given the tone and style of the movie, before shifting to a cat and mouse chase narrative that then morphs again, this time into a weird pseudo-Dracula where a romantic element is suddenly dropped onto the plot — having been sort of set-up earlier and then forgotten — and we ultimately find ourselves essentially watching one of the weirdest, quirkiest buddy movies of all time as our awkward teenaged hero and his aging, pompous ex-movie star sidekick take on the undead.
If all that sounds a bit naff, well… it is. But the thing is, Fright Night just works. It just does. And so much of that is down to Holland’s incredibly enjoyable script — which is filled to the brim with epically stupid and stupidly epic quotable dialogue (“HIS DINNER’S IN THE OVEN!”) — and flashy yet controlled direction. All of this is only made all the more fun by the cool-as-all-hell theme by Brad Fiedel, which is so painfully obviously one of the key influences on the Stranger Things theme that I’m genuinely not sure why I don’t see it brought up more in discussions about that show and its obvious homages and references.
Holland’s expert handling of would-be ridiculous and kinda rubbish material is basically his whole deal; he would repeat the trick again in 1988’s Child’s Play (“killer doll” is arguably an even more ridiculous concept than “vampire neighbor is defeated by knock-off Peter Cushing”, so… yeah!) and a couple of so-so Stephen King adaptations, while his script for Psycho II essentially does a similar thing in taking the preposterous notion of a sequel to Hitchcock’s 1960 classic and spinning it into a… well, a really fucking good movie that you should definitely be checking out!
And while Holland’s handling of the film and the tone is a massive part of it, we’d be remiss not to mention the performances, basically all of which are top-tier and deserving of praise. One of the most fascinating things about Fright Night is that just when you think someone has stolen the show and become the standout, one of the other cast members will jump in and bask in the spotlight instead. Whether we’re talking about Chris Sarandon’s wonderfully creepy and menacing yet brilliantly charming vampire, Jerry Dandridge, or Art J. Evens’ hilariously awkward and frustrated bit-part, Detective Lennox, there is literally not a single member of the core cast that doesn’t a) know exactly what kinda film this is, and b) doesn’t appear to be having an absolute blast making it. William Ragsdale does a fantastic job of heading up the cast as our hero Charlie “you’re so cool” Brewster, while Amanda Bearse does a great job at elevating an admittedly underwritten love-interest role, and then has arguably the most fun of the whole movie when she gets to… well, do something with her mouth (get yer mind outta the gutter!). I don’t wanna say, because the reveal is fantastic!
Of course, you can’t praise the cast of Fright Night without mentioning the ever-brilliant Roddy McDowell as late-night horror host and once great Van Helsing knock-off Peter Vincent (so named because he’s both “Peter Cushing” and “Vincent Price”… geddit!?), who seems to be having just as much fun playing the cynical, tired, and irritated aging actor as he does the younger incarnation who appears at several points in a bunch of faux Hammer-like productions playing on the TV. And then there’s the absolutely wild and off-kilter Stephen Geoffreys as Edward ‘Evil Ed’ Thompson, who gets most of the movie’s best lines and by far one of the most memorable and surprisingly emotional death scenes in all of vampire fiction. So fantastic are the performances that we haven’t even mentioned the likes of Jonathan Stark as the incredibly creepy familiar, Billy Cole (who also gets a fantastic death sequence… honestly, I love this movie!), and Dorothy Fielding as Charlie’s blissfully ignorant and perpetually baffled mother, Judy.
Then there are the effects. As alluded to above in the mention of a couple of death scenes, perhaps the thing that drew me to Fright Night the most as a youngster was the fact that it doesn’t shy away from grisly, gloopy, gory, and super awesome practical effects. Sure, some might be dated by modern standards, but if you’re not watching this and thinking they’re awesome then you’re missing the point! These are real in-camera practical effects, and you can feel every drop of slime and blood. The movie gleefully dives head-first into being as slimy and gloopy as possible here, sometimes even bordering on Cronenbergian territory (although, of course, it never passes over into the realms of full body horror, it’s just that kinda ‘in your face’ approach). They are a lot of fun, and if you, like me, get a fair bit of mileage out of decent and visceral old-school practical effects then this movie has already won you over, and that’s before we get to all the zany fun and excellent cast and everything!
It doesn’t all work — an awkwardly shoehorned-in music video-like sequence in the club drags the pace down a lot, especially when it comes in the middle of the cat and mouse element, and just when the film seems to be promising to go full-on The Terminator, but that’s a minor quibble in what is an otherwise excellent piece of cinema. If you’ve not seen it, you should check it out. If you have seen it, you should watch it again. If you, for some reason, think the remake is good and even an improvement, you need to go home and watch the original Fright Night on repeat until you’ve had a change of heart, because honestly… dare I say it? This is the best vampire flick, in my opinion. 5/5.
