Fright Night

Due in a large part to the 'Twilight' series and the TV series 'True Blood' we are being inundated with films about vampires. Hollywood is not just trying to come up with new stories but finding older ones like this to re-vamp.

Growing up I loved to go to the video store. I not only liked to hire movies but to look at video covers and the wonderful art work they had, especially of horror films. They usually had some really horrific artwork that would scare me and that is not even from having seen the film. One cover I really loved was for 'Fright Night'. It is one of my favourite pieces of poster art. The film itself was pretty good but I can't remember much of it. I did have pretty high expectations for this remake with regards to the people involved. Director Craig Gillespie I am a fan of from the movie 'Lars And The Real Girl' as well as his work on the TV series 'The United States Of Tara'. Writer Marti Noxon I'm a fan of from her work on the TV series 'Buffy: The Vampire Slayer'. It also has former Dr. Who, David Tennant in it. While it may not have lived up to the extremely high expectations I had for it the film is still quite a lot of fun. Because of 'Twilight' most vampire stories have been soft and mushy and romantic, with the exception of 'True Blood'. This film rightly portrays the vampire as a dark soulless killer. He is not interested in love and just romances women to entrap them to feed off of them. While the film is scary it does not take itself too seriously and has some great light hearted moments. The comedy is blacker than you might expect but it does fit in better with the tone of the film.

Anton Yelchin is rising through the ranks and becoming a decent actor. He does a good job here and nicely plays the freak-out-teen real well. He has already displayed great action heroics in 'Star Trek' but gets to be more hardcore here. Colin Farrell makes an excellent vampire. He knows how to be vicious and nasty as well as playful and seductive. This is a vampire that does not sparkle thankfully. As a fan of David Tennant I am a little disappointed he does not have a bigger part in the film but he is brilliant in the scenes he is in. Much like Roddy McDowall in the original film he provides most of the films comedy and he is hilarious.

A decent vampire film that proves they are not all big softies. The 3D effects work quite well and you should see it this way if you get the chance.