Official Synopsis
Charley (Anton Yelchin) is a high school senior who’s on top of the world—he’s running with the popular crowd and dating Amy (Imogen Poots), the most coveted girl in school. But trouble arrives when Jerry (Colin Farrell) moves in next door. He seems like a nice guy––at first. But there’s something not quite right, and no one else, including Charley’s mom (Toni Collette) seems to notice. After his classmates start to mysteriously disappear without a trace, Charlie discovers that there is more to his new neighbor than meets the eye. Now he must do all he can to protect his mom and girlfriend Amy from meeting the same fate as his best friend Ed Thompson (Christopher Mintz-Plasse).
The basic skeleton structure of the original Fright Night is firmly intact, but director Craig Gillespie took some liberties on the story. While i can’t completely say it’s a bad idea to nix things here and there when it comes to remaking a film, you should still make sure that the areas you cut fit firmly together. I have a feeling that writer Marti Noxon was having some issues putting some of the changed areas together from the film. For example, instead of this great build of Charley basically trying to convince the world that Jerry is a vampire to the point of where he is completely isolated, the new version of the film has this build collapse into a 1-minute venture. Charley finds out about Jerry after being softly convinced by his childhood friend, Ed. He isn’t fully convinced until Ed ends up missing, and even then he still hasn’t told anyone of his suspicions. The great reveal of Jerry to the rest of Charley’s friends and family comes with Jerry trying to get Charley in trouble. Charley reveals, as Jerry knocks on his front door, to his mom that Jerry is vampire and not to let him in. There is no suspense, no drama, no feelings of isolation, just a bunch of ‘flat’. The original was great because of this build and because the audience is praying that people believe Charley before he dies. It was the great build that made the film and made Jerry a far more powerful person beyond him being a vampire.
The new one completely ignores this and just gets to the ‘bloody’ action, which isn’t what Fright Night was about.
On top of this, Christopher Mintz-Plasse’s Ed is a lifeless character (even after he dies and becomes a vampire). Stephen Geoffreys’ Evil Ed in the 1985 film was crazy, passionate and nowhere near a loner. Sure Charley and company found him annoying and a burden, but Geoffreys’ Ed pushed past those sentiments and became a ‘nothing to lose’ character that was more of a badass when he was turned. His friendship with Charley was a lot stronger in the 1985 version, which made his death at the end a lot more brutal. Mintz-Plasse’s Ed is an emo kid that needs love. While I appreciate his will to discover Jerry, his entire character is completely wrong. He doesn’t fit the bill and he needed more screen time to bloom, which he didn’t get. By the time we see him again in the film it was if we had forgotten he existed, which means we have to get to know him more (and we don’t have the for that at that point in the film). I felt like writer and director had completely gotten Ed wrong, which is sad because he was the best character in the original film.
One of my favorite characters out of the 2011 version is Peter Vincent played by David Tennant, who is just a kickass actor. His new take on Vincent is interesting. While Roddy McDowall played a down and out has-been, Vincent takes a more badass approach, as a Las Vegas stage actor (more of a Criss Angel persona). His usefulness and talent really shine towards the end of the film, but his discovery of Jerry as an ‘actual’ vampire was a bit ‘blah’. Still, he works out well in the grand scheme of this film and he ends on a high note.
My other favorite character, who was undersold in the movie, was Colin Farrell. His take on Jerry is certainly less eloquent than Chris Sarandon’s (he makes a fun appearance in the film), but Farrell brings a nervous-gotta-eat-you nature to Jerry. For example, when Charley’s suspicion of Jerry being a vampire is at its zenith, Jerry comes to visit to borrow some beer. The interaction between Farrell’s Jerry and Anton Yelchin’s Charley is nervously priceless. You can just see the mean, methodical nature of Farrell’s vampire. He wants into Charley’s house and he wants in badly. If Farrell didn’t have dialogue you could still figure out what he was thinking during scenes; that’s how good he is in this film. The movie ultimately fails Farrell’s efforts, which is sad given his performance.
As for other things, the movie just felt rushed. Instead of Charley developing suspicions about Jerry, Ed already has strong suspicions towards the beginning, which doesn’t make sense. There is no build to Farrell’s Jerry because of this and it sort of starts the film out on the wrong note. Quite honestly, Fright Night (2011) felt more like an action/bloodfest than a well thought out horror flick. This movie needed more character development and a better path between plot points. It simply felt too disorganized to enjoy.
I’ll take the original over this one.
The quality of this Blu-ray is a bit hit and miss. The body of it is pretty sweet. When you have ominously lit scenes and moments of ‘scary’ (like Jerry creeping around the back of the Brewster house, you see some great details. Mainly when the scene is lit then you get little to no graininess or artifacts, and you do get some really clean/crisp picture. Some of the best footage is when Farrell is feeding on his victims, as you get some really detailed skin textures (wonderful blue veins popping out his head and neck, etc), which makes the movie just a bit more freaky.
Where the quality really misses is when the scenes are nearly to completely black. For example, when the Brewsters and Amy are tearing it out of town in the mini-van in the middle of nowhere, you can actually see some color banding in the black. It’s not terribly obvious, but it’s obvious enough to keep repeating in the darker scenes of the film. For a film that was released in 2011 this shouldn’t be the case.
The other factor that really hurts this movie is the blatantly obvious scenes that were completely created for 3D viewers. While we didn’t get in the 3D version for review, you can tell how absolutely unnecessary some of these scenes were. I won’t go into anymore detail, as you’ll get to experience the obvious, forceful push of the 3D technology. If you’re going to do 3D then make sure it’s completely integrated into the movie, and not just a gimmick.
Overall, I think the movie does a good job with the HD transfer, but I think it still needed some more work.
As for the audio, it comes in at a beautiful 7.1 and it does deliver like any good horror film should. Plenty of jumpy moments to get the blood going and to reinforce what’s going on in current scenes. I’m thrilled that the industry is moving towards 7.1 as a standard format for recent releases.
Now, as for special features, here’s what you’re looking at:
· Gag Reel (unrated)
· Kid Cudi Music Video (uncensored version) “No One Believes Me”
· Squid Man – Extended & Uncut
· Peter Vincent: Swim Inside My Mind
· The Official “How to Make a Funny Vampire Movie” Guide
· Frightful Facts & Terrifying Trivia
· 5 Deleted Scenes with intros by Director Craig Gillepsie (Ride to School; Neighborly; Once A Freak, Always A Freak; Midori & Kerosene; and Back at the Penthouse)
The bonus features aren’t that bad, though I would have liked to have just a bit more with them. What’s really missing here is a full-fledge ‘making of’ featurette. There are quite a bit of fans of the original out there, so it would have been great just to get a bit more insight on how the changes in the new one were developed from the previous film. Even though the main film isn’t that great, especially in comparison to the original, it still deserved a bit more spice in the features department. The inclusion of the trivia and the music video is something we definitely could have done without (that’s so 1997 DVDs). Overall, the features aren’t terrible, but they should have been a bit more beefier than this. The gag reel is great, by the way.