FRIGHT NIGHT

This film is a horror-comedy, but it's not very funny and it's not scary at all, so I guess its a failure.  Everyone involved, cast and crew, is talented and hardworking enough to deliver a solid film, but I don't think anybody really wanted to remake Fright Night and hence any passion for the material is lacking.  The 3D effects also take a big dump all over everything, even if you see it in 2D like I did. I suspect 3D is to blame for the murky, dirty, foggy, indistinct fuzziness that coats most scenes, and I'm positive 3D is too blame for all the crap flying at the screen.  Why couldn't they just tell a nice story about a boy who thinks his neighbor is a vampire?

The boy is Anton Yelchin, flexing some Star Trek-earned star power to headline a film over Colin Farrell, who continues to be the best part of movies I don't really like, and who has the most fun in this movie as Jerry the Vampire until the final reel when he turns into a CGI blob that resembles famed actor Colin Farrell.  First off, his name is Jerry, but his unassuming nature doesn't stop there.  He says 'hey' and 'catch you later.'  He drives a pickup truck.  And it's a Las Vegas suburb after all, a single rectangle surrounded by endless darkness with the glittering lights of the Strip in the distance, so what's unusual about a guy who works nights?

Yelchin doesn't listen to the warning of his friend Evil Ed played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse because he doesn't like hanging out with him anymore now that he has cool friends.  That's a pretty douchey move for a main character to ditch a friend for not being cool, and I kept expecting some sort of redemption or lesson-learning, but no.  Yelchin eventually apologizes to his girlfriend of all people, the improbably named Imogen Poots who does a good American accent, and she tells him that she knew he was not cool and that's why she liked him.  Oh...  So he didn't need to ditch his longtime best-friend?  Probably should have told him that before SPOILER he had to kill him.

Its seems like the main character's flaw is supposed to be some kind of 'we didn't listen!' guilt at not heeding warnings (Jaws is name-checked) instead of guilt for abandoning his best friend for specious reasons even though he clearly feels awkward and ashamed when he visits Evil Ed's house and Ed's parents are so happy to see him and obviously glad that their son might have his only friend back (also despite the brevity of their scene Ed's parents are played by Brian Huskey of the UCB and Lisa Loeb of the Lisa Loeb which was distracting to me and probably no one else).

Twilight is also mentioned and mocked, but this film hired the same cinematographer as the Twilight series, the amazingly named Javier Aguirresarobe, and paid him to shoot a movie that isn't enjoyable to look at, so I guess the joke's on them.  The opening scene of the movie weirdly seems like an argument against trigger locks, as a cornered victim fails to remove one in time to defend himself, but that was probably just my mind wandering and not the intent of the filmmakers.  The intent was to be scary, but loud noises are startling, not scary, and they deliver heavily diminished returns if used to excess.  The only genuinely tense scenes I remember involve a claustrophobic (but well lit thank heavens) hidden room in Jerry's closet, and a scene where Jerry, when refused the permission to enter a household that all vampires require, cooks up a plan to force the occupants out.

A Children Of Men-inspired car chase shot from within the fleeing car is too obviously CG-enhanced to pack any of the punch of its inspiration, but it does lead to a cameo from Chris Sarandon, the villain from the original Fright Night, perhaps best known today however as the villain from The Princess Bride.  Chris Sarandon is also the ex-husband and namesake of Susan Sarandon, and the father of her only child Tim Robbins.  Also, Toni Collette is in this movie, playing Yelchin's mother, until she bumps her head and the movie decides to leave her out of everything else.  No really.

Also, two people get in a cheeky little argument about whether silver hurts vampires or werewolves, and the movie seems to side with werewolves.  I coulda sworn I saw some some awesome show about vampires on the History Channel and they said silver has been associated with hurting vampires for hundreds if not thousands of years, and that only in more recent times had silver switched over to being the weakness of werewolves, mostly thanks to Hollywood switching around/completely inventing new aspects of monster mythology.  Again, this is the sort of thing I thought of when I wasn't scared or laughing.  I think I laughed when Jerry ducked under a beam of sunlight and then hissed at it before casually continuing his villainous monologue.

David Tennant, one of the Whos, plays a vampire-hunter themed Vegas stage magician that Yelchin turns to for advice and his character is a mess; at first you think he doesn't really believe in vampires, but then it turns out he has an enormous collection of occult artifacts and has supposedly become quite the expert in the supernatural, but then it turns out he's just a dedicated performer and he really does think it's all bullshit, but then the vampires attack and he admits he knew they were real all along because they ate his parents but he wanted to pretend they didn't really exist by performing vampire-themed magic and collecting vampire-artifacts, but then he refuses to help and flees not once but twice before showing up to help and realizing Jerry the Vampire is the very same vampire that ate up his dear old mum and dad.  And he does this (does he?) with very little screen time.

Tennant's co-star/assistant/live-in girlfriend Ginger reminded me of Sofia Vergara and then the credits said her name was Sandra Vergara so that's probably why.  Also, I think the daughter's boyfriend from Modern Family was one of the random stupid high school kids.  I saw Nicotero and Berger in the credits, they who form the N and the B of the great KNB effects house, but the film utilizes mostly blurry CGI for effects.  Once again, with my mind wandering I was free to notice things like this.  Almost as an apology, the film has very stylish closing credits.