Movie Review of Fright Night

Fright Night is a remake of the 1985 film of the same name. Charlie Brewster lives just outside of Las Vegas and his life is finally looking up. He has the girl and the popular friends, and overall he’s enjoying his life. Then, he gets a new neighbor and people start going missing. He is then reliably informed that the new neighbor is a vampire.

An interesting, if straightforward, story
The plot of Fright Night is straightforward: the disbelief stage, the frantic stage and then the final stage. It progresses at a relatively fast pace, never stopping on one idea long enough to bore the viewer. The film manages to be funny without digressing into a pure comedy, throwing in gags and jokes every now and then to balance the intense action oriented story.

While the vampire aspect and even the type of vampire aren’t unique, the almost-lighthearted nature of the film makes it stand out from the milieu of strictly-horror vampire films. Charlie is a somewhat funny, not too impressionable character, making it easy for people to slip into his view. It takes a workaday scene like a new neighbor and then adds a vampire element to it. Most people can relate to the first and thus have a better time of ‘being’ Charlie.

Good script and good effects
The script is good in that all the characters have a good deal of dialogue. It plays about from character to character, dark humor and snarky humor balancing the mood well. The film has great effects and lighting—not too overt, since most effects besides the whole vampire aspect are subtle. Still it has very effective lighting and angles that convey the scenes effectively.

Tennant
I could not write this review and talk about Tennant without having to deal with the self-shame of it. Tennant is a brilliant actor, while even playing a douchebag ‘magician’ who drinks excessively and lives a shallow, albeit fun, playboy lifestyle. Tennant is funny, well-developed and remarkably attractive. His character in Fright Night is usually the sort usually played by actors like Russell Brand, pure comedians, so it is interesting to see a dramatic actor handle such a role. Besides Tennant, the acting is good overall. Colin Farrell plays an exceptional vampire, mixing darkness and vicious glee in wonderful proportions.

Fright Night is a fun, intense, unique take on the familiar vampire slaying story. With a good cast, a well-crafted script and quality casting, it is a great popcorn movie.

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