(Today’s guest review comes from local blogger and paranormal expert, Michael Banti. Be sure to check out his blog Weird Fresno for all the latest on scary stuff around the area.)
The Dumb Drum guys asked me if I wanted to attend a sneak preview of the remake of the 1985’s horror/comedy classic Fright Night. Having enjoyed the original and being wary of any remake, I had my reservations. Let me just say it here: I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It had enough humor, suspense and horror to keep me entertained throughout all 106 minutes.
I won’t go much into plot. If you’ve seen the original, the remake pretty much follows the same story line (until the end but it still does it justice). Basically Charley Brewster (played by Star Trek’s Anton Yelchin) discovers his next door Jerry (Colin Farrell) is a vampire. Unsure of what to do and concerned for both his mother and girlfriend’s safety, Charley seeks out legendary vampire expert Peter Vincent (Dr. Who’s David Tennant) but is initially turned away. Only after an encounter with Jerry does Vincent “recover his faith” and team up with Charley to destroy Jerry.
Like I said I really enjoyed the movie. Being a fan of David Tennant from his Doctor Who days had me excited to see him in something different and as usual he didn’t disappoint. And the rest of the cast did well, especially Farrell who had added a bit of sleaziness to the typical vampire charm which I liked. Christopher Mintz-Plasse was also in this film though I wish it was for a longer extent as he had a bit of an antagonistic role that I would have liked to have seen developed further. Also check out for a cameo by Lisa Loeb who still looks smoking hot after all these years.
Only complaint I have about the movie is that the preview I saw was in 3D, which I have a severe disliking for. And given this was a vampire movie, a lot of scenes were obliviously in dark areas and the 3D make it hard to focus and I had a bit of a headache. So if you do go see this movie, save yourself a few bucks and check it out the normal way.
Given all the shitty vampire movies as of late (I’m looking at you Twilight), the genre as a whole has taken a downturn. Vampires used to be a bunch of bad asses, but as of late they’ve been portrayed as a bunch of sparkly emo wimps. Hopefully movies like Fright Night and last years Let Me In (one of the best vampire movies I’ve seen in years) will turn the tide so to speak and vampire movies won’t suck (see what I did there?) as they have in the recent past.