Hey, Kid!  What are you doing?

As we all know, the 1980's was a fertile time for horror films.  We had great original movies like An American Werewolf in London as well as a bunch of sequels and remakes.  Freddy and Jason were arguably the "favorite" children of the 1980's and we also got a Psycho sequel for some reason.  Fright Night is an original movie that spawned a sequel and a reboot but the 1985 original is predictable and falls a little flat.  Essentially, a kid named Charley Brewster realizes his neighbor Jerry is a murdering vampire and enlists the help of his friends Edward and Amy and for some reason, a horror host names Peter Vincent. That's it, the whole movie is them battling the vampire with some close calls until he inevitably turns Amy and a big fight ensues where he dies.

Looking at this movie now (with 2020 vision, get it?), it just feels plain goofy. This is not necessarily a bad thing, a lot of movies during this time like the Freddy sequels were purposely self-aware and campy.  This movie however, doesn't seem to know that its plot and characters are silly and something just doesn't connect.  The acting is good, you got Jack Skellington as the main vampire, Marcy D'Arcy as a straight girl and Roddy McDowell as a Vincent Price inspired character.  Even by 1985 standards, for the amount of money this film spent on special effects, (reportedly over $9 million) they end up looking amateurish.  For instance, what they did to the werewolf in the film.  So sad.  The big grin some characters wear when in full vampire mode looks very fake.  The final forms of the vampires look scarier on paper than they do on screen.

There are some plot points that also didn't make sense to me upon watching this.  For example, when Peter Vincent hold a cross to Jerry the vampire, it doesn't work and Jerry simply crushes it and says it is because Peter has no faith.  A couple minutes later, Peter seemingly gains faith and holds a cross to Amy's vampire and it works.  There's a scene where the vampire is unscathed after drinking holy water and we're never told why but after viewing the film are left to assume it's because of the faith thing. Lastly, Jerry's manservant who can go out in the sunlight gets shot up and doesn't die but gets a stake through the heart and does die. There is no explanation if he is a vampire or why he can go out in the sunlight, sounds like he is just appropriating the Blade character.   I was also underwhelmed because the ending to this is identical to the last movie I screened, Nosferatu the Vampyre.  Another plot point that is pretty weird is Jerry seduces Amy in a very sensual way and she even takes her top off before he bites her.  This is a high school kid being seduced by a grown ass probably one hundred- year old man.  It's kind of like The Little Mermaid when you realize Ariel is sixteen and Price Eric is definitely not a teenager but a perv.   I'm no clinician but I'm pretty sure that is at the very least abuse and it is no wonder Amanda Bearse turned to women.  

I am aware that this movie came out first but I could not help to think of Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet the Wolfman because in that movie, they also seek the help pf a local television horror host that tells them how to defeat a werewolf.  The sequel to this movie came out three years later but was directed by the guy who directed Halloween 3: Season of the Witch so... no thank you.  That film and this one are both considered cult classics and a lot of people enjoy them but that doesn't make them good.  Fight me.  To be fair, this was Tom Holland's directorial debut and he would go on to direct better, good films like Child's Play. I guess what I'm saying is, like the vampires, this movie's biggest weakness is heart, it doesn't have any!  I'll see my way out.