FRIGHT NIGHT - Still Fun After All These Years
Posted: Wed Aug 11, 2010 1:28 am
I've always been a huge fan of this movie and a friend of mine just completed a double feature of it along with CLASS OF 1984 (kind of an unintended Tom Holland-Roddy McDowall twin-bill as it turns out).
I am unsurprised to report that FRIGHT NIGHT just holds up beautifully...well constructed, old fashioned in its monster love, amusingly written and splendidly cast. I know Amanda Bearse may have gone onto become a lesbian activist but she's perfectly convincing as a hetero teen in this film, but more over -- Chris Sarandon is sensual and overpowering as the vamp, and Roddy McDowall puts in unquestionably one of his finest performances ever as Peter Vincent, the TV vampire hunter who has to take on the undead for real at the behest of a teen (the amiable William Ragsdale) who watches haplessly as Sarandon's Jerry Dandridge moves in next door.
Holland pushes all the right buttons in this film, whether it's a Hitchcock "Rear Window" homage, or a truly sexual seduction sequence where Sarandon gets to Bearse -- or in the grade-A (for its time) Richard Edlund FX that close out the film. The movie manages to be "R" with fairly light gore and adult elements which aren't gratuitous -- about the only thing that heavily dates the movie is Brad Fiedel's music, which works in its love theme, but fails otherwise with its sledgehammer approach to dramatic underscoring.
Thankfully there's the memorably bouncy J. Geils Band theme song which finishes the movie out...one which is due for a remake shortly (with Colin Farrell, Anton Yelchin and the "Dr.Who" guy). I have no doubts it'll be inferior, but either way, hopefully it will give Sony a reason for offering the original on Blu-Ray!
I am unsurprised to report that FRIGHT NIGHT just holds up beautifully...well constructed, old fashioned in its monster love, amusingly written and splendidly cast. I know Amanda Bearse may have gone onto become a lesbian activist but she's perfectly convincing as a hetero teen in this film, but more over -- Chris Sarandon is sensual and overpowering as the vamp, and Roddy McDowall puts in unquestionably one of his finest performances ever as Peter Vincent, the TV vampire hunter who has to take on the undead for real at the behest of a teen (the amiable William Ragsdale) who watches haplessly as Sarandon's Jerry Dandridge moves in next door.
Holland pushes all the right buttons in this film, whether it's a Hitchcock "Rear Window" homage, or a truly sexual seduction sequence where Sarandon gets to Bearse -- or in the grade-A (for its time) Richard Edlund FX that close out the film. The movie manages to be "R" with fairly light gore and adult elements which aren't gratuitous -- about the only thing that heavily dates the movie is Brad Fiedel's music, which works in its love theme, but fails otherwise with its sledgehammer approach to dramatic underscoring.
Thankfully there's the memorably bouncy J. Geils Band theme song which finishes the movie out...one which is due for a remake shortly (with Colin Farrell, Anton Yelchin and the "Dr.Who" guy). I have no doubts it'll be inferior, but either way, hopefully it will give Sony a reason for offering the original on Blu-Ray!