Fright Night (2011)

Now one thing that you’ll find out as time goes by, is that I don’t like remakes. I have the ‘if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it’ attitude. Remakes serve no other purpose then to generate money for film makers whilst pissing off the loyal fans of the franchise. So, what’s my opinion of the 2011 remake of the 1985 film ‘Fright Night’?

It is great.

Oh yes, I was shocked too. I went into this film not entirely sure what to expect. Yes, it is a remake which initially makes you think ‘it’s gonna be rubbish’, but it has Colin Farrell AND David Tennant, two of the best actors around. Colin Farrell brings us a vicious and calculating character with the unlikely name ‘Jerry’, whilst David Tennant’s ‘Vincent Price’ brings us most of the laughs. David Tennant did certainly surprise me in his role, I expected him to be able to play such a character as he played ‘Barty Crouch Jr’ in ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’, but I never expected the former Doctor actor to say the F word!

 

Not that there are many laughs in this. Despite being classed as a horror comedy, there aren’t really that many comedy aspects. Sure there are some buts which make you laugh, but the film focuses more on the horror and survival traits, which was definitely done very well.

Back to the acting. Basically everyone was great in their roles, except for Christopher Mintz-Plasse as ‘Ed’. I mean, I suppose he did give a good performance as the nerdy friend, but as a vampire I just didn’t believe his performance. Anton Yelchin, probably best known for his role as Chekov in the ‘Star Trek’ reboot, gave a great performance as the lead ‘Charley’, as did Imogen Poots as female lead ‘Amy’, and boy did I have doubts about her, since the only other thing I had seen her in was ’28 Weeks Later’ where she played one of the very annoying children.

Now there have been criticisms about the 3D effects...and I agree with them. Granted I did see it in 2D, but there were some obviously ‘3D in 2D’ moments. Since the release of ‘Avatar’ we have seen pretty much every single film released come out with a 3D screening, as well as some films such as ‘Toy Story’ and ‘The Lion King’ being re-released in a 3D viewing. Now, it was cool in ‘Avatar’, or from what I was told it was, I’ve only seen it in 2D on DVD, but even in 2D ‘Avatar’ worked, whereas in later productions it looked stupid and unnecessary. ‘The Final Destination’ was a prime example of this, as the film makers went to such lengths to make the 3D great, but not much in anything else. However, ‘Fright Night’ in 2D, whilst there were obvious ‘3D in 2D’ moments, it didn’t actually affect the film that much. The car scene was actually made better with that, but then the rest of it was pretty much ‘meh’.

Now the special effects were really good. The transformations scenes, okay, they could’ve been done better, but the rest of it was brilliant. The effects used for vampires exploding in sunlight and Jerry healing were some of the best I’ve ever seen in a vampire film, then again the effects for Mintz-Plasse’s character losing chunks of his body and jumping all over the place were pretty laughable.

Plot wise, well, it’s pretty standard. Vampire moves in next door and guy tries to protect his loved ones. But the way it’s dine is great, especially when the film puts important characters into the line of fire where they actually fall into Jerry’s evil. But it did seem odd that a character who kept what he was doing quiet for so long, would then throw subtlety out the window and blow up a building.

So overall? It is a brilliant film which is definitely worth a watch, though I would suggest watching it in 2D rather than 3D, mainly to avoid the needless 3D shots and to save some cash.