The 411: FRIGHT NIGHT is the remake of the 1985 horror classic of the same name. The setup is the same too: teenager discovers that his new next door neighbor is a blood sucking vampire fiend and sets out to stop him with the aid of his best friend, girlfriend, and a celebrity vampire hunter. It is really hard to review the new Fright Night in a vacuum that does not involve looking back at and comparing it to the original film. So this is going to be a combination review and match-up comparison of the two films.

Charley vs Charley

Charley in the original film (immortalized by HERMAN’S HEAD himself William Ragsdale) was a horror geek with little to no swag whatsoever. When we first meet the new Charley (played by Anton Yelchin) he seems like, for lack of a better word, a bit of a dick. He treats his best friend like crap and is faking the funk to try and impress the douchebag cool kids at school. As things progress nuCharley begins to be less of an asshat and more of a character to root for. Yelchin is a bit of an awkward performer and its not an awkwardness that really works for him as far as I’m concerned. If he were matched up with a more charismatic villain I am pretty confident I would have been rooting for him to get butchered by the midway point of the movie. Ragsdale on the other hand was a perfect protagonist and his nerdiness worked to make the character endearing and easy to root for.
Advantage: Fright Night ’85