FRIGHT NIGHT
3 out of 5 stars

this 1985 remake was better than i had expected! this is one of those horror comedy genre hybrid movies, but there wasn’t much comedy or vampire humor... plus, the boy/girl relationship was very twilight-y in the tween sense, but redeemed itself a little with colin farrell’s hotness and david tennant’s crazy/drunk magician persona. can’t go wrong with a drunk magician! :P

so, if you haven’t seen the 1985 version, the story goes as such... charley brewster (anton yelchin from j.j. abrams’ star trek) is a normal 16 year old boy, living in the suburban section of las vegas, with his mom jane. (toni collette) he even has a hottie GF named amy, who drives a lime green VW beetle, and loves charley like crazy. (even tho he’s a little bit of a dweeb) in a scene sim. to the roll call scene from ferris bueller’s day out, charley notices that a LOT of kids are missing in class. he looks at his former BFF ed (christopher mintz-plasse), who wants to meet after school to discuss something really “important”. they meet at their friend adam’s house, and ed tells charley that jerry (colin farrell who is smokin’ hott!), charley’s neighbor, is a VAMPIRE. charley doesn’t believe ed at all, but then ed is attacked by jerry and doesn’t show up to class the following day. charley decides to do his own investigating by breaking into jerry’s house, doing vampire research at school, and even seeking out the one and only peter vincent, the crazy self-proclaimed vampire hunter and magician who is currently performing at the hard rock hotel & casino. (david tennant- provides most of the comedic moments) peter vincent proves to be pretty much useless when he kicks out poor charley from his apt, so it’s up to charley to take on the 400 year old vamp by himself to protect amy and his mom....from being jerry’s “snacks”. :P

like i said, the story is OK and predictable, but both colin farrell and david tennant really act well in their respective roles. the boy/girl relationship is very cliche, so no imagination there... the graphics for the title/end credits were very well done and stylized, so extra points for that. overall, dreamworks did a good job revamping an 80s original, but how come i didn’t laugh once? they spent waaaaay too much time perfecting jerry’s vamp/demony face and not enough time writing the jokes... :/