Fright Night (2011)

October 16, 2024 9:33 PM

A teenager suspects his new neighbour is a vampire.

Following a fairly similar plot to the original, Charley (Anton Yelchin) becomes concerned about his new neighbor Jerry (Colin Farrell) when his former friend Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) disappears.

Starring Toni Colette as Charley's mom, Imogen Poots as Amy, David Tennant as Peter Vincent, and Dave Franco as a hs bully with a cameo by Chris Sarandon. Written by Marti Noxon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer show) and directed by Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl).

posted by miss-lapin (11 comments total)

Lots of fan service in this "You're so cool Brewster!", Jerry eating the apple, the toothy make up, but has some new wrinkles like how Jerry gets around not being invited into Charley's house. The biggest shift is making the movie about toxic masculinity. Noxon obviously has a lot of experience writing for contemporary vampires and vampire hunters.

I will say it's not as satisfying as watching the original, but it has some merit.
posted by miss-lapin at 10:06 PM on October 16, 2024 [1 favorite]

The choice to make this 3-D was definitely not great.
posted by miss-lapin at 10:23 PM on October 16, 2024

I didn't realize it was supposed to be 3D. We watched this during a Thanksgiving vacation in Las Vegas, because that's when my wife says is the perfect time to watch vampire movies. It was enjoyable enough! Not great, but not bad either. Right down the middle.
posted by mrphancy at 10:28 PM on October 16, 2024 [2 favorites]

I agree with most of the above. This is in a weird zone where it has enough going for it and is different enough than the original to justify its existence, but once it clears that bar, it doesn't go much further. It's okay, a fun enough watch. The casting is the best part.

RIP, poor Anton Yelchin.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:52 AM on October 17, 2024 [3 favorites]

It was...inert. Completely lacking the flair of the original. It left no lasting impression on my brain.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 8:39 AM on October 17, 2024

I really like this one, it just suffers from the "never remake a movie people still watch" problem. But the cast is perfect, and I love the recurring bit where the David Tennant character's favorite drink is an absinthe-green elixir that is of course...midori. I also love that its one of few movies that makes a proper setting out of the burst housing bubble. (There are more movies about the financial crisis side of it than the lived-reality side of it, which is pretty crazy. Funnily enough, the other foreclosure crisis movies I can think of from this time are also horror movie adjacent. Truly, it's the closest we ever got to suburban gothic.)

The original Buffy movie (and first season of the show) had serious Fright Night/Lost Boys vibes, so I'm sure whoever chose Marti Noxon for the script felt pretty smart.
posted by grandiloquiet at 8:46 AM on October 17, 2024 [2 favorites]

I know I've seen this (and RIP, Anton Yelchin indeed; I get weirdly sad when I think about how short his life was) but I could not tell you anything about the plot itself. I do remember we get a Chris Sarandon cameo but that's about it.
posted by Kitteh at 8:49 AM on October 17, 2024

There is nothing funnier to me than David Tennant saying "Midori me" to one of his ladies....
posted by ersatzkat at 8:52 AM on October 17, 2024 [1 favorite]

I didn't realize it was supposed to be 3D.

You can get the blu in 3-D if you want to relive the "full experience."

You can tell from some of the shots that it's 3-D. The most obvious is shot is when the dying Jerry's head looks directly at the viewer near the end of the film, and it's clear it's held so long because it's meant to be coming out at the viewer. Because of the cgi and 3-d, it's pretty silly looking now. One of the reasons the original holds up better is the practical effects. The toothy mouth cgi just doesn't compare to the practical version.
posted by miss-lapin at 12:11 PM on October 17, 2024

I forgot to add, I think the walk Tennant does here as Vincent is the beginning of the walk he uses now for Crowley.
posted by miss-lapin at 12:13 PM on October 17, 2024 [4 favorites]

I never put together until right now that Anton Yelchin as Tom Hiddleston's hipster dirtbag Renfield in Only Lovers Left Alive is probably a genre in-joke about this movie, which I saw once, and it was, like, fine, but no comparison to the original. A great cast, agreed!
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:25 PM on October 17, 2024 [2 favorites]