SALON

Thursday, Aug 18, 2011 8:45 PM UTC

“Fright Night:” Farrell’s mesmerizing in campy remake

With sly nods to the past and fun modern touches, a horror reboot is both clever and chilling

By

Topics: Fright Night, Horror, Movies,

Colin Farrell in "Fright Night."

Colin Farrell started his career as an acclaimed actor in films like “Tigerland,” but for years, the impossibly eyebrowed Irishman seemed better known for his epic debauchery than his movies. He kept taking creative risks, but “Alexander”? “Cassandra’s Dream”? Seriously, who cares? But somewhere around the brilliant “In Bruges,” Farrell found his unique and darkly hilarious groove. And as Jerry, the nonthreateningly named but unmistakably lethal bloodsucker in “Fright Night,” Farrell looks like he’s having the time of his 400-year-old life.

The original “Fright Night” was a sly mini-masterpiece — a blend of self-referential goofiness and genuine chills that helped pave the way for the droll horror of the “Scream” franchise and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” It makes perfect sense, then, that the new version was written by veteran “Buffy” scribe Marti Noxon. And she’s fully in her zone here, infusing the film with clever gags, quiet dread, scream-in-your-seats shocks and unexpected moments of creepiness. And for the horror faithful, there are enough casual references to both “Buffy” and the original “Fright Night” to stave off cries of sacrilege.

But the remake also modernizes in fun ways — from characters’ use of lock-picking phone apps to its employment of 3-D. I’ve never been a 3D-fan, but here — with vampire talons and fangs that leap out at the audience, exploding fireballs and whizzing arrows — it makes campy sense. The technology doesn’t seem remotely like fancy “Avatar” shtick; it’s more like classic “House of Wax” fun.

As with the 1985 version, the plot centers on dweeby teenager Charlie Brewster, whose world is turned upside down when a new neighbor turns out to have deadly appetites — and an eye for his mom (Toni Collette). And like the original, the movie’s title refers to both the bloodthirsty menace next door and a campy horror show hosted by a lame showman. But this time around, the “Fright Night” within “Fright Night” is a Las Vegas revue. Its maestro, Peter Vincent (former “Dr. Who” star David Tennant, no stranger to beloved cult classics) is now an eyelinered, egomaniacal, Midori-swilling cross between magician Criss Angel and Russell Brand’s Aldous Snow, a man whose entire personality is his greatest illusion.

Director Craig Gillespie (“Lars and the Real Girl”) coaxes lively performances out of most of his cast, notably Tennant, whose Vincent is a noble soul shrouded in bravado and too-tight leather pants. The only glaring misstep is that as Charlie, Anton Yelchin is so blandly unweird that neither his vampire obsessiveness nor his hot girlfriend seems entirely convincing. Watching the ever reliable Christopher Mintz-Plasse as his dorky yet authentically poignant pal Ed, it’s hard not imagine how much bolder the film might have been with him as the unlikely vampire slayer.

Yet the movie belongs, heart and soul, to Farrell. Conspicuously sniffing around for blood, slouching in doorways and purring, “Hey guy,” he’s at once self-mocking and utterly menacing — and almost as despicable as his paunchy cokehead character in “Horrible Bosses.” There’s an air of swaggery freedom about his Jerry; he’s amused and intense at the same time. It’s the knowing cockiness that he can do whatever he wants, and the audience will be helplessly mesmerized. And he’s right.

Mary Elizabeth Williams

Mary Elizabeth Williams is a staff writer for Salon and the author of "Gimme Shelter: My Three Years Searching for the American Dream." Follow her on Twitter: @embeedub. More Mary Elizabeth Williams.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 7 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations