Thursday, August 25, 2011
The original Fright Night from 1985 was a bona fide horror comedy that delighted in subverting audience expectations at every turn. Now, its inevitable remake arrives at a time when the vampire is suffering another fate worse than death-- one that any sun-fearing bloodsucker would know to avoid: the danger of overexposure. From Twilight to True Blood, vampires are everywhere these days and their modern designation as brooding romantics has robbed them of much of their original grandeur.
So how does this newest entry fare? Well, it gets points for moving the action to Las Vegas, which has a largely nocturnal population, and for the inspired casting of Colin Farrell as Jerry Dandridge, the pallid, predatory charmer who moves in next door to Charlie Brewster (Anton Yelchin) and proceeds to seduce both the hapless teen’s mother (Toni Collette) and girlfriend (Imogen Poots) into becoming fellow children of the night.
Despite its slick direction, the film suffers from an uneven screenplay that tries too hard to please fans of the original by shoehorning in characters that have no place in the restructured plot. Exhibit A: Peter Vincent, the fraudulent vampire slayer so memorably portrayed by Roddy McDowall in the original and resurrected here by David Tennant as the foppish, leathery spawn of Russell Brand and a Hot Topic employee. Charlie has no reason to trust this dime store Van Helsing and yet he does, almost inexplicably.
Charlie’s friend, Evil Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), whose character arc remains one of the original’s great strengths, is relegated to expository dialogue and his third-act encounter with Charlie reeks of slapstick instead of unanticipated tragedy. These superfluous characters only serve to steal valuable screen time from Farrell and when he’s not around, this new Fright Night often resembles what its protagonists fear most: a pale, bloodless imitation of life.
Final Rating: 2 ½ out of 4 stars
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