A Forty-Year Retrospective of 'Fright Night'
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With Halloween here, it behooves us to look at one of the most popular genres of horror movies: the vampire. For over one hundred years on film, and much longer than that in folklore, the vampire has captured our imaginations. From the silkily sinister Bela Lugosi’s Dracula and the monstrous Nosferatu from the turn of the 20th century to the mid-century Christopher Lee / Peter Cushing re-imagining of Dracula, and then on to the 1970s free-wheeling, original takes of the vampire legend through the blaxploitation films of Blacula and re-rendering of the tale through Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot, the tall, dark, dangerous stranger has shown up in almost every decade.
In between the originality of the 1970s vampire and the many-layered nuanced 1990s Anne Rice Lestat and Louis vampire, we also had the 1980s take on the ancient menace.
The 1980s was the era of the teen ensemble movies. Films such as The Goonies, Stand by Me, and The Karate Kid showed off teenage leads, and even though there were light comedy teen flicks, there were also teen horror movies as well. The Friday the 13th franchise was launched along with A Nightmare on Elm Street. So it makes sense that the teen horror movies also included vampires as well.
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Image Source: Vampiresandslayers.net
Fright Night came out in 1985 (the same year as The Goonies!), but, surprisingly, it was released in the summer, not around Halloween time. It follows Charley, who gets new neighbors, Billy and Jerry. Charley watches a late-night show called “Fright Night”, hosted by Peter Vincent. Charley comes to the realization that new neighbor Jerry is indeed a vampire, and he ends up confronting Jerry, played by Chris Sarandon. Jerry retaliates and threatens Charley, going so far as to wreck Charley’s car, attack his best friend Evil Ed and transform him, and even trying to steal his girlfriend Amy since she reminds him of a long-lost love.
Charley figures his best resource is to turn to the host of his favorite show, reasoning that since he hosts “Fright Night”, Vincent must be an expert who can help in this situation. Even though he is reluctant at first, Vincent, played by Roddy McDowall, agrees to help. In a climatic dark basement scene, the evil vampire is defeated with faith and bright sunshine, his evil sidekick is reduced to goo, and Charley gets his girl back. All’s well that ends well, aside from Peter Vincent making his executive decision to take a hiatus from vampires on his show and the glowing red eyes from the house next door.
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Looking back, Fright Night was part of the 1980s teen movie scene. I would think that its instant success was the catalyst for The Lost Boys, another teen vampire film that came out in 1987. Fright Night pays homage to the vampire-in-the-coffin, hiding in the basement, but Chris Sarandon’s Jerry has a modern name and doesn’t look like he stepped out of a different century. The name Peter Vincent is a mash-up of Peter Cushing, who played in earlier vampire movies and the famous horror actor Vincent Price. This character also payed homage to the late-night horror hosts, such as Elvira and Svengoolie (who we still enjoy watching Saturday nights!) Fright Night became a cult classic, and it can be seen around this time of year on basic cable channels.
There was a sequel, Fright Night Part 2 in 1988, and a remake in 2011. It was Tom Holland’s directorial debut, and he went on to direct many other horror movies, such as Child’s Play, Thinner, and the remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. I think that the whole premise of evil lurking right next door to you has always captured our imagination - aren’t we always told that you never know what goes on behind closed doors? This idea is even in the kiddie Disney Channel movie Under Wraps. Fright Night showed that a vampire movie could be fun.
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Sources: Wikipedia, Screenrant, IMDb, Keithandthemovies.com
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