Thursday 20 November 2014

Fright Night (1985)

Fright Night

IMDB rate: 7,1
Genre: Vampire
Starring: Chris Sarandon, William Ragsdale, Amanda Bearse

First time seeing the first Fright Night movie. I had already seen the remake some time ago, and if you're interested in reading about it, I placed a link at the bottom of this page. Normally when I watch a movie on Netflix I just click the first one I haven't seen yet, but for some reason I kept skipping this movie. I enjoyed watching the remake, but watching an original movie after watching the remake is always somewhat different, because instead of 'upgrading' the movie, I somewhat 'downgrade' it for myself. Of course, this is just nonsense since it's not being downgraded at all, it's just the first and original take on that specific movie. 

I enjoyed this movie quite a lot actually, perhaps even as much as I enjoyed the remake. If I'm comparing the two I wouldn't say the remake is an exact slight upgraded copy of the original, as with the Carrie movie. I think they're both different enough to call the Fright Night remake a worthy sequel. I say Carrie because I was incredibly bothered with how much it was an exact copy of the original, without making the bad parts better or something, I didn't enjoy that remake at all. 


I think both remake and original have it's own charming things about it, as well as their own less good stuff. For example, I did not like this (Evil) Ed at all. I thought Stephen Geoffreys acted terribly and his character was annoying and loud. I liked the Ed in the remake though, played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse. While I liked Anton Yelchin as Charley in the remake, I liked William Ragsdale a lot as well. Colin Farell was a good vampire, but Chris Sarandon in the original gave a much more serious look to it, which was even better in my opinion. I'm also more of a fan of Peter Vincent in this version, because an older man is way more suiting for that role, plus he's an amazing actor. I did not enjoy the fake grey color of his hair though, but that's just a side note. Would've loved to see more of him though.

The turnings in this movie have a lot more of uniqueness to it compared to the remake. The werewolf and vampire transformations were pretty good looking considering it was done with just make-up, in this time it's all a lot more easy since everything can be done with a computer. Both look great of course, but it gives me a bit more respect for the first version. 


What I like most about the Fright Night movies is that Jerry never denied towards Charley that he's a vampire. This movie doesn't have a build-up that lasts way too long, it goes straight to the point, which I like. Something specific I liked about the remake was when Charley tried to show someone what he meant about Jerry being a vampire and that something actually happened that showed that Charley was right. In most movies nothing happens at those moments and I love that Fright Night didn't participate in that standard.

It's perhaps a bit strange to compare the remake to the original movie instead of the other way around, but I can't help it that I often see the remake before the original movie. I just grew up in the wrong time, I guess :). Loved this Fright Night, loved the remake. Both great movies, equally enjoyable. 

My rate: 7,5/10



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