Fright Night

Fright Night is a movie that, structurally speaking, I should hate.  I hated the original Poltergeist because of its disjointed nature.  To a point, Fright Night is the same.  By the end of the movie we technically have four villains.  This in and of itself wouldn’t be a problem, especially as three of them are subordinate to the vampire Jerry (Chris Sarandon).  However, the movie makes the bizarre mistake of never having these three subordinate villains interact as villains, leaving us uncertain of their relationship, and making scenes with them seem almost like random encounters in a video game.

I suspect that at some point there were two versions of this script.  One in which our hero Charley’s (William Ragdale) best friend Evil Ed (Stephen Geoffreys) was turned into a vampire, and one in which his love interest Amy (Amanda Bearse) was turned.  I imagine either of those two versions would have allowed walking corpse Billy (Jonathan Starke) more time to develop.  As it is, he seems to mostly function as an extension of Jerry, getting plenty of screentime, but being used mostly to advance the plot as the vampire’s daylight agent.

Then again, this is my usual schtick, find one flaw and go on and on about it.  But, I did open this review by saying I should hate the film on paper.  Obviously, I don’t.  The special effects, the acting, and the strong characters all make this a wonderful film.

To get into the actual meat of the film, Charley, spying on his neighbor Jerry, sees him attack and kill a young woman, and realizes immediately that Jerry is a vampire.  Furthermore, Jerry realizes almost immediately that Charley knows, and begins planning to silence him.  Charley, meanwhile, finds himself unable to recruit Amy, and that Evil is willing to help him only for money.

After an attack by Jerry in which Charley is threatened, he runs to Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowell), a Horror Host and former movie star who Charley seems to believe is an actual vampire hunter.  The character is supposedly based on Vincent Price, but honestly I found myself thinking of Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing immediately.  Vincent seems to see his films as metaphorically true art, and humors Charley until he realizes that the boy actually believes that there’s a literal vampire across the street from his house.

The movie does a good job of giving us characters who are just different enough from their archetypes to be effective.  While Charley is a fan of old horror movies, there’s no pretense that this is unusual in and of itself.  Evil and Amy are both lovers of Peter Vincent as well, even if they find Charley’s literal interpretation a bit out there.

Jerry, meanwhile, manages to present us with a fundamentally human vampire, without angsting or monologuing.  He’s able to get himself invited into Charley’s house almost immediately, but seems to actually like Charley’s Mom, and initially feels little resentment of Charley himself.  Sarandon has said that he wanted to portray Jerry as more complex than a simple movie monster, and he succeeded.  Jerry has no desire to kill anyone for any reason other than survival, and is even reluctant to kill Charley in any situation that would also require harming his mother.  Ideally, he would scare the boy into silence.

While it would be easy to portray Peter Vincent simply as a money-grubbing glory hound, or a cliché Shakespearian actor “reduced” to horror parts.  But, the movie steers clear of either of these traps, giving us a Vincent who clearly saw the merit in the horror genre, even as he resented the slasher films of the 80s.  When Amy offers him money to “test” Jerry for vampireness in an effort to snap Charley out of what they believe to be a delusion, he takes it, but is facing eviction, so it’s hardly a surprise.

…oh, and Jerry thinks Amy is the reincarnation of his lost love…

It’s kind of hard to believe that the movie is able to deal with all of these dynamics in a 2 hour runtime, but it does so flawlessly.  While Vincent is able to fake a “vampire test” to show Jerry is human, he finds himself persuaded when he notices that the man casts no reflection, and retreats to his home.

Jerry, concerned about if not truly frightened by Charley, turns both Evil, and eventually Amy, as a show of power.  Charley attempts again to recruit Vincent, who finds his courage when Evil attacks him, and he fulfills his title as “the Great Vampire Hunter,” killing Evil (…who gets better…).  The two attack Jerry’s home.

The two find themselves forced to contend with Amy as she’s transforming, and Bill who’s undead status seems to give him the immunities of vampires, without the same weaknesses, before finally battling Jerry.  The confrontation manages to be properly intense, but maintains the focus on the characters, without their drama ever being lost in the special effects.

The movie ends with Jerry dead, but Evil somehow revived, while Amy is again human.  It’s generally considered a tragedy that Geoffreys declined to return for Fright Night Party 2, as he had a great dynamic.  That said, the first film is fantastic.  I’d put it in roughly the same category as Monster Squad, as a 80s films that didn’t attempt to draw a clear line between the comedy and the horror, letting the audience decide for themselves when to scream or laugh.