Bite me, it's the current cinema.

So this remake of Fright Night turns out to be kind of a pisser; who'd uh thunk it? Colin Farrell's having a time, as is David Tennant; Anton Yelchin's now poised to take all the good troubled-post-adolescent roles Jesse Eisenberg's getting too old for; Imogen Poots, nice kid. And I also dug the gore and the shamelessly shameless 3D stuff. I didn't wanna get too inside baseball about it in my review for MSN Movies, but I credit this pleasant surprise largely to exec producer Michael DeLuca, who, as a fellow crit observed on the way out, has "good quality control." Fun. Less fun is that One Day number, considered here. 

Comments

[haice]

This review reminds me of Jay Cocks at Time magazine in the early 70s doing genius work within the element.

[lipranzer]

Despite your enthusiasm for FRIGHT NIGHT - I liked the original well enough, but not enough that I see a remake as sacrilege - I must admit I immediately became skeptical when I saw Marti Noxon was involved. I'm not one of those who thinks she's to blame for everything that went bad on the TV version of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", but she certainly hasn't proven herself over time.

[bill]

Colin Farrell's involvement in the FRIGHT NIGHT remake kind of sold me. I like that guy generally, and he seemed like such an oddball choice that I just have to go along with it.

[Claire K.]

I like to pretend that Marti Noxon is the bizarro-version of Marni Nixon.

[JF]

@lipranzer: Hasn't Noxon been writing for Mad Men? I'd say that proves something. But otherwise I'm having a hard time thinking of many Buffy alums besides Joss Whedon who have proven themselves over time, or been given much of an opportunity to do so. E.g., S.M. Gellar seems to get offered parts based on her being the lead actress on a WB show rather the actress who managed to capably pull off both self-conscious screwball comedy and the painfully acute emotional realism of "The Body." I guess it might be a similar situation for some of its writers. There's not a whole lot of genre-based TV to write for that's half as smart and tonally diverse as Buffy was.

Noxon was probably one of the more talented writers in Whedon's stable, but she's acquired this problematic standing amongst Whedonites/Jossholes because of the time she spent as the show's helmer in Season 6. Which it's true doesn't quite cohere in the way that the best of the earlier seasons do and features a couple of major misjudgments (like a heavy-handed, reactionary equation of black magic and hard drugs), but overall seems to me an admirably ambitious and boundary-pushing season of TV, my go-to rebuttal whenever any skeptics've tried to dismiss the show as strictly teen-oriented. "Yeah, remember that season of Saved By The Bell where Jessie comes back from the dead, becomes clinically depressed, and tries to f*ck the pain away with a tentatively reformed vampire who's into sadie-mazie?" Buffy didn't really go south until Season 7, though even there you've got the partially Noxon-penned and just-awesome "Conversations With Dead People."

All of which is a roundabout and nerdy way to say I might have to see this.

[Josh Ralske]

I have no problem with Season 6 of Buffy, and enjoyed the earlier Fright Night ok as a teen, tho it was cheesy. I don't get how people form these intense attachments, even as kids, to things like The Smurfs and Transformers and Fright Night, but whatever. I suppose I'll feel differently when the Gilligan's Island movie comes out and they change Gilligan's hat or something.

This Fright Night was trashy fun. Not particularly ambitious, but done in the right kinda nasty spirit. And there were little moments like his stripper neighbor holding up her finger to her lips that reached a little deeper. Or Ed, not a funny-ha-ha geek, but genuinely resentful and angry. As I wa-- um, imagine such teens might actually be.

Didn't enjoy the 3D much, though.

[Donna M.]

I won't hold your age against you. I loved the original Fright Night. In fact, I have the soundtrack for the movie. When I found out they were making a remake of this classic movie, I was excited until I found out that Colin Farrell was playing the part of Jerry. Unless you saw the original movie when you were a teen, you cannot possibley understand the draw this movie holds for a certain age group. I do not know if I will go and see the movie. I cannot imagine a more seductive vampire than Chris Sarandon.

[hamletta]

Aaahh, but Donna M., I was a teen in the '70s, and I remember Chris Sarandon as the perv in LIPSTICK, and I've had a hard time stomaching him since.

Repeated viewings of THE PRINCESS BRIDE help, though.