“A few days ago I’m making my weekly phone home to mom. She’s asking me about my decor plans for the new apartment. “”Please tell me you’re not gonna put vampire stuff everywhere?”” “”It’s a distinct possibility”” “”Ay, Dawn, you’re not over that yet?”” “”Nope!”” Yeah, not exactly a revelation I’m into vamps (as long as they dont \m/ sparkle). So it shouldnt be a surprise that I was kinda pumped for Fright Night.
Full disclosure time. No, I haven’t seen the original. The Regal Fenway actually had an early afternoon showing that I considered going to, but I didnt wanna give up my morning workout, ‘specially since I’d planned on getting in some desperately needed extra cardio. Besides, I figure there’ll be a BluRay rerelease that coincides with the remake release. I can be patient. I rather love my typical Saturday routine of lay in bed finishing whatever DVD I fell asleep to >work out > shower > midafternoon movie > whatever. You know what makes it great? When I really enjoy that movie, like I did today.
Fright Night was all around campy goodness, as expected, and quite frankly hoped for. Loved the jabs at those sparkly vamps. Suspense was well built. Great vampire visuals, although I am rather picky about my creatures of the night and I could have done without such extreme monsterific demon faces. Fun use of 3D. One of the few that has actually projected out into the audience, even if some of the effects felt a bit rushed. Biggest selling point? The \m/ fantastic cast.
Okay, cast gets their own paragraph, or section thingy. I’ll run down the note worthy peeps in the order that IMDB lists them.
Anton Yelchin – I adore this kid, and I love all the nerdy goodness he’s been involved in: Star Trek, Terminator, and now vampires with Fright Night. He was our sweet yet surprisingly tough (well surprising if he were a character in the real world, not surprising to the story since you kinda knew it had to happen) leading man. He truly carried a lot of the film with such ease and charm. Can’t wait to see more wonders from this boy on the big screen.
Colin Farrell – *swoon* Okay, you can add bad boy Jerry the vampire to the ranks of Angel, Spike, Eric Northman, Damon Salvatore, and Lestat (I told ya I know my fanged fellows). He certainly had all the elements of a vampire that I can love: smooth and suave, cruel and cunning, and other pairs of alliterative adjectives. I also really like the fact that Farrell has finally gotten past the off screen bad boy reputation enough such that he can pull off the bad boy on screen without unintentionally coming off as a douche. It’s also always fun to see an actor with his level of stardom going for the B movie camp and really enjoying himself in the process. That’s something that shines thru in his performance.
Toni Collette – I’ve known her most recently as Tara (as in United States Of) so it was refreshing to see her in a different role for the first time in a while (for me at least). Here’s another person of high acting caliber going for the fun role, bringing a new level of quality to the movie.
David Tennant – If you cross Aldous Snow with Stuart Townsend’s version of Lestat, you’ve got Tennant’s Peter Vincent. Actually, I was really quite proud of myself for being able to identify The Doctor (as in Who), mostly because I see him so many times in ROFL Razzi. What I found most impressive is that the way his character starts off, he could have easily been the most annoying thing in the film (and in all honesty, he probably was if only by comparison) but his arc led him to be one of hte most sympathetic characters by the end. That takes skill.
Christopher Mintz-Plasse – Love love love this boy. I’ve seen just about all his movies (you can guess the one I’m missing), and Im always psyched when he’s the token nerd/geek/dork. He’s someone this nerd/geek/dork totally supports to represent our people, and I love how he’s perfected and evolved that niche role over time. I kinda wish there had been more of him in the film. He started out strong, then disappeared for a while. Total bonus points for rocking the black nail polish. I’m sure I’ve said before that guyliner is my kryptonite. My secondary kryptonite would be black nail polish. I was in heaven for a few minutes there
Dave Franco – I thought that smile was familiar. I took one look at that boy and thought of James Franco. Then I realized that this was his baby bro. How many times have I watched their acting lessons on Funny or Die?
Soooo yeah, fun afternoon at the movies. The downside (and why it loses a point) is because it did sorta drag for a bit in the middle. I’d been thinking this could be a candidate for my bday movie night, but actually I think I need to bring back the vampire movie night for The Vampire Cat Lestat’s bday, in which case this should be on the agenda.
Fright Night – \m/ \m/ \m/
PS – Like the new logo? Brought to you by my buddy and favorite artsy type Felisia”