Theatrical Poster
Fall is on the horizon, and what better way to welcome the changing of the seasons than with Craig Gillespie’s Fright Night! Set in Las Vegas, the perfect place for a vampire to roam seeing as there’s more night life than day life, the film does a tremendous job at giving the audience not only a good scare, but some great comedic moments, great characters and some very suspenseful scenes.
Charley Brewster (Anton Yelchin) has a new neighbor and his classmates have begun disappearing. An old friend, Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), tries to convince Charley that his neighbor Jerry (Colin Farrell) is a vampire killing off their little suburb’s population. Charley doesn’t believe him until Ed doesn’t show up to school one day either. Charley then starts to believe in the vampire idea and begins watching Jerry’s every move and begins risking his, his girlfriend Amy (Imogen Poots) and Mom’s (Toni Collette) lives in danger as the vampire starts to hunt them next. Charley seeks the help of Peter Vincent (David Tennant), a magician on Las Vegas’s strip who specializes in vampire folklore and the occult to aid in his quest to destroying Jerry, and the terror he’s bringing about Las Vegas.
This film was such a pleasure to watch, and a huge part of it was from the absolutely wonderful cast. Farrell plays the role of a vampire so incredibly suave and cool, all the while keeping a very lighthearted tone. Yelchin and Poots were the big surprises in the film as well. Their on screen chemistry was spot on, and their acting was far from B-horror movie territory. Personally, I am very excited to see these two in many more films in years to come. Tennant was also another great addition to the cast as the somewhat comic relief character in the film. His transformation from magician onstage to alcoholic behind closed doors caught me completely off-guard and I knew he wasn’t going to stop there.
As a horror movie, it’s one of the more fun ones I’ve seen in recent years. A lot of horror movies coming out rely on big sound effects and cheap jumps to scare you, that is not the case in Fright Night. When the sun goes down in the film, there are no rules and anything goes. It keeps you on the edge of your seat wondering what’s around every corner. There’s one sequence in the film where Charley saves a girl from inside Jerry’s home that is one of the best sequences I’ve seen in a horror/suspense film in years; I don’t think I breathed once.
The gore in the film was also top notch and very well done. It wasn’t too over the top but just right. The few places with computerized blood also worked well, would have liked to have seen real blood, but I understand with the 3D it probably wasn’t an option to have it real.
That’s my biggest complaint with the film though, the 3D. In my area, only one theater out of 5 was showing the film in 2D and only during one showtime at 4:55PM, and that was it. I don’t like feeling forced into watching a film in 3D, especially one that I don’t feel needed it. I enjoy 3D movies, but this one I would have been much happier seeing in 2D because absolutely nothing was added to the viewing experience besides some blood flying at the audience.
Aside from the 3D, I would highly recommend Fright Night to anyone who enjoys horror films. Hollywood has been lacking in good horror films lately, and this film has every component that horror fans have been looking! Just be careful who you invite inside your home to view it with…
