steven@ism70.UUCP (08/14/85)
FRIGHT NIGHT Starring Chris Sarandon, William Ragsdale, Amanda Bearse and Roddy MacDowell. Directed by Tom Holland. Written by Tom Holland. Produced by Herb Jaffe. Photographed by Jan Kiesser. Production Designed by John DeCuir. Edited by Kent Beyda. Music by Brad Fiedel. Visual Effects Produced by Richard Edlund for Entertainment Effects Group. From Columbia Pictures (1985). What do you say about a bad vampire movie? That it bites? It sucks? I'm sitting through the climactic scene in Fright Night and I'm spinning my index fingers around each other, motioning to Tom Holland, okay, c'mon, let's go, step it up. Alas and alack. I'm in some movie theater and Tom Holland is nowhere to be found. One night Charley (William Ragsdale) is making out with his girlfriend Amy (Amanda Bearse). Some guys move a coffin into the basement next door. Next door is, of course, a creepy old Gothic looking house. Charley comes to believe that charming, deadly, smarmy Jerry, his new next door neighbor (Chris Sarandon), is a vampire. Only Peter Vincent (get it? Peter Cushing and Vincent Price??!?), former vampire movie star, can help Charley kill the vampire. Peter Reiher asked the rhetorical question how did Tom Holland get to direct this movie?? Answer: He wrote Psycho II. He also correctly identified the best friend character Evil Ed as incredibly obnoxious and insulting. The actor's name is Stephen Geoffreys and he looks like a mutant Kevin Bacon. Really unpleasant. Effects are competent but old hat. Pacing is sooo slooow. Script is pedestrian; no sense of humor, nothing new to add to your standard vampire story. Didn't anybody tell Tom Holland that modern horror is scarier when you can actually imagine it happening in your own backyard? Stephen King provides loads of modern detail to make his backgrounds convincing. Production Designer John DeCuir (who also did Ghostbusters) gives us a some completely backlot Gothic mansion with a stained glass window. In suburbia??!? Photography is greyish and murky as hell. Amanda Bearse ends up looking like Linda Blair in the climactic moments, unfortunately. Get a new hairdresser, Amanda. Sarandon however, is quite good, as is Roddy McDowall. One and a half stars out of four.