Saturday, 10 September 2011

Fright Night

Generally I've no time for vampires; the whole Twilight saga completely passed me by in both book and film format. As a teenager I had no desire to watch Buffy The Vampire Slayer and whereas peers wax lyrical about programmes such as True Blood, the genre has never held any interest for me. Therefore I've never seen the original 1985 Fright Night on which this film is based.

But I am a fan of Colin Farrell and David Tennant and having seen the trailer for the film, I thought that it looked quite good. I would have seen it earlier, but it was only available in 3D which I point blank refuse to watch. Luckily the 2D version was available in one Cineworld cinema in the whole country, which just so happened to be in London.

The film is set in a quiet suburb near Las Vegas, where Jerry (Farrell) has moved into the local neighbourhood next door to Charley (Anton Yelchin) and his mum Jane (Toni Collette). There have been a number of attacks within the area and Jerry is suspected as being a vampire by local geek, Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). Ed tries to persuade former best friend, Charley of his beliefs, but is quickly rebuffed. Charley then meets Jerry who takes an interest in both Charley's mother and girlfriend, Amy (Imogen Poots).  It's only when Ed disappears that Charley realises that Jerry is a vampire and sets out to find a way of killing him. 

This leads him onto Peter Vincent (Tennant) who is a Las Vegas magician and reputed vampire expert, in the hope that he can help. It turns out that Peter is a flamboyant fraud and he dismisses Charley's pleas with some scorn. By this point, Jerry knows that Charley has rumbled him and proceeds to try to get into their house (for a reason not explained, vampires can only attack in a house if they have received an invitation) via Jane, but Charley convinces her not to invite Jerry in. Jerry then decides to blow the house up but Jane, Amy and Charley escape and have a high speed chase through the desert.

Now, I have to stop it there as it really will give away the ending - needless to say there is a battle, certain people rise to the occasion and a stake is used to appropriate and bloody effect.

Having read other reviews of this film, most people had issues with the 3D version, because the film contains a lot of night scenes and internal house scenes which are dimly lit. If this has been watched in 3D, an already dark film will have lost another 20-30% of its light, which I can imagine will make it difficult to watch. 

The film is forgettable, good fun, Farrell simply smoulders as Jerry and Tennant is an absolute delight as Peter and most of the laughs came from him channelling his inner Russell Brand. Collette is not given enough to do which is a shame as I rate her highly as an actress. Mintz-Plasse is playing yet another hard-done-by geek (clearly not concerned about being type-cast) and the other supporting actors are good. The film has some laugh out loud moments (thanks to Tennant), but on reflection, it isn't really funny enough to be judged as a comedy and has absolutely no scares in it whatsoever. 

Verdict: With the talent cast in this film, it should have been funnier and scarier, but for the 106 minutes it runs, it will keep you entertained, but you will struggle to remember it the next day.

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