Now we get to the review I've been eager to do from the get-go, because I fucking love
Fright Night. In fact, this is my personal favorite of all the movies we're going to look at this month, as well as one of my favorite horror and vampire movies in general. It's definitely my favorite of the influx of vampire movies that came about in the 80's, which it kind of kicked off. I do also enjoy
The Lost Boys and
Near Dark as much as the next person (and you will see those reviews in a few days), but I've always had the biggest soft spot for
Fright Night. A big reason for that is because I saw it long before either of those other movies or, in the case of
Near Dark, before I'd even heard of it. In fact, I first learned of it before I even knew of
The Lost Boys, specifically from the back of the VHS box for Tom Holland's other major contribution to the horror genre, the original
Child's Play. I've said before that I often looked at the back of that and other horror VHS boxes at our video rental store as a kid, and there, Holland was credited as, "Creator of the popular
Fright Night." They might've had a copy of
Fright Night itself there, but I don't know if I ever saw it (I don't know how I wouldn't have remembered that poster artwork). I wouldn't see it for the first time until late 2001, when I was fourteen. AMC, in their final year of actually being "American Movie Classics," began airing
Fright Night as part of their annual MonsterFest marathon that October. I remember how that one in particular had a "You Don't Know Jack About..." theme to it and, in the five nights leading up to Halloween, they would pick a particular topic for each one. However, in doing so, they ended up confusing me as to what
Fright Night was actually about, as I remember they played it during one night that was meant to be dedicated to Frankenstein. Thus, I thought that maybe it was about a bunch of different kinds of classic monsters in general, with Frankenstein's monster among them, and it wasn't until it was shown outside of MonsterFest, in the months afterward, that I realized it was specifically about vampires. I can't recall when exactly I saw it for the first time, but it wasn't too long after MonsterFest, and I know I was enthralled with it from the word go. In fact, I got the newest VHS the following March and held onto it for a long time, until it finally got a really great home media release in the late 2010's.
There's just so much to love about Fright Night. For starters, you've got a cast of very memorable and likable characters, played by both talented newcomers and a pair of old pros in Chris Sarandon and Roddy McDowall; a simple premise that's carried out extremely well; a nice, relatable setting; lots of great makeup and monster effects; a memorable score and soundtrack; and an excellent pace that it manages to maintain for its entire 106-minute runtime, and which builds nicely to a very fun third act and climax. Also, while it's not really a full-on comedy or a satire, it does have a sense of fun about itself and never becomes too dark and grim. But, most of all, you can tell this was made by somebody who has an immense love and reverence for the horror genre, particularly the classic Gothic horrors of the past. And just like how Joe Dante and John Landis brought werewolves into the modern era with The Howling and An American Werewolf in London, this was Holland's attempt to do the same with vampires, and I think he succeeded with flying colors. It's not perfect, as I do think some of the characters are a bit underwritten and there could've been more done to flesh them out, and there are some moments that haven't aged well, but the movie is so entertaining that it ultimately doesn't matter.
Seventeen-year old Charley Brewster lives in an average, suburban town with his single mother and, despite the occasional spat, deeply cares for his girlfriend, Amy Peterson. He's also a fan of Fright Night, a late night horror movie television block hosted by Peter Vincent, an actor who once starred in a series of movies as a vampire hunter. One night, while making out with Amy, Charley sees two men carrying a coffin into the old house next door, and his mother tells him that it's recently been bought by someone who fixes up houses for a living. The next day, after coming home from school, Charley sees a very attractive woman from an escort service arrive and head next door and, later that night, while doing his homework, he's startled by the sound of a scream from over there. He sees the woman's photo on the news the next day and learns she was found murdered that morning, the second local murder in as many days. Upon coming home that afternoon, Charley snoops around outside the house, only for his neighbor's live-in carpenter to scare him off. Come nightfall, Charley keeps an eye on the house from his bedroom, only to doze off and wake up to see his neighbor about to make love to a woman through an open window. But he's then shocked when he sees the man bare a pair of fangs and go in to bite the woman's neck... until he sees that Charley is watching him. After he pulls the window blind shut, Charley rushes outside to see the roommate putting the woman's body in the back of a car. He also hears a bat fly overhead, then sees the neighbor step out of the shadows. He then realizes that the man, Jerry Dandrige, is a vampire, and attempts to warn his mother, then Amy, but neither believe him. Charley even brings a police detective by but Dandrige's roommate, Billy Cole, manages to provide easy answers to the detective's questions, and Charley does himself no favors when he says that Dandrige is a vampire. And that night, Charley is horrified when he learns his mother invited Dandrige inside their house. Hours later, Dandrige returns and confronts Charley, offering to let him live if he stops interfering in his business. But Charley refuses, and just barely manages to escape being killed by stabbing Dandrige in the hand with a pencil. Now thoroughly enraged, the vampire flees but calls Charley on the phone, threatening to kill him the next night. With no hope left, Charley attempts to enlist the help of Peter Vincent, who has just been fired from hosting Fright Night. However, Peter doesn't believe Charley either, and soon, not only is Charley's life in danger, but so are those of his friends, particularly Amy, whom Dandrige has his eye on.
Starting out as an actor, Tom Holland's career behind the camera began when he wrote the 1978 TV horror movie,
The Initiation of Sarah, while his feature screenwriting debut was 1982's
The Beast Within. His first cult success was with
Class of 1984, but he hit the big time when he wrote
Psycho II, with his screenplay being so good that it convinced Anthony Perkins to return as Norman Bates and also prompted Universal to turn it into a feature, as it was originally meant as a TV movie. While working on another screenplay for
Psycho II-director Richard Franklin, which became 1984's
Cloak & Dagger and had some
Rear Window elements to it (it was based on a short story by Cornell Woolrich, who wrote the story that became
Rear Window), Holland came up with the base idea for
Fright Night. It then percolated in his mind for a while, as he tried to figure out how to take this very simple premise and turn it into a full-length story, and once he came up with the character of Peter Vincent, Holland was able to write the first draft in three weeks. Also, being a lifelong horror fan, particularly of the Gothic horrors of Universal and Hammer, Holland wanted to resurrect the vampire subgenre, which had long since been considered passe. Most important of all, he intended for
Fright Night to be his directorial debut, and while the execs at Columbia Pictures had initially intended to buy the script from him and hire another director, he now had enough clout as a writer to leverage his way into the director's chair. Plus, since it wasn't exactly a high priority film for the studio, he was left alone and allowed to do what he wanted. And it paid off, as
Fright Night made nearly $25 million on a budget of around $7- to $9 million, and got pretty good reviews all around.
Just like how, in
Rear Window, Jeffries is who gets the story going, Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale) is, as Holland describes him, "the engine" of
Fright Night. Charley is just the typical American teenager, braving the various ups and downs that come with it: tough schoolwork and late night studying (neither of which he's good at), weird friends, and his girlfriend, Amy, whom he does care about but who he also gets sexually frustrated with. On top of that, he enjoys watching horror movies on the late night TV block called
Fright Night, and is a particularly big fan of its host, faded horror star Peter Vincent. But, when he and his mother get a mysterious new neighbor, Charley proves to be a little too nosy for his own good. His preoccupation with watching them move in, while carrying what looks like a coffin, not only frustrates Amy but later contributes to her breaking up with him. And after he realizes he saw a recent murder victim enter the house, his snooping around the entrance to the cellar and spying on his neighbor, Jerry Dandrige, with a pair of binoculars leads to him getting far more than he bargained for. Discovering that Dandrige is a vampire, and that he got a glimpse of his latest victim, Charley tries to tell both his mother and Amy, but, of course, they don't believe him. He then opts to go to the police, bringing a detective to Dandrige's house, but the interference of Dandrige's live-in carpenter, Billy Cole, and Charley's frustration getting the better of him and prompting him to flat-out voice his suspicions about Dandrige, cause him more trouble. And just when he thinks things can't get any worse, his mother invites Dandrige over, destroying one of Charley's advantages. When attacked and confronted by Dandrige in his bedroom later that night, Charley is given the choice of living by simply looking the other way. But, whether you want to call it morally commendable or foolish, he refuses, and just barely manages to survive Dandrige's attempt to kill him. Now, however, he's truly a target, and Dandrige tells him that, come the following night, he's dead meat.
I have a few issues with Charley's character. First of all, I don't get how, if he's such a fan of horror movies, why he doesn't already know how to defend himself against a vampire and why he has to go to Evil Ed for that info. Second, and more significantly, since he's seventeen, Charley should know that Peter Vincent is just an actor and not an actual vampire killer. Granted, he's desperate since he's just been marked for death but no one will believe him, and while watching
Fright Night following Dandrige's
threat (why would you watch something that often concerns vampires when you've just been threatened by one?), Peter declares that he believes in vampires and personally knows that they exist because he's battled them so many times. But still, Charley should know where that line between fantasy and reality is. And when he meets Peter and he says that his claim about believing in vampires was just part of the show, that should've let Charley know right then and there that this wasn't going to go the way he hoped. But, no,
he keeps hounding and freaking Peter out until he drives away. That really is the big fundamental flaw with the movie, and was built into it by its very creator, as Holland said what cracked the story for him when he wasn't sure where to go beyond the basic concept was the idea that a kid in this situation would go to his favorite horror actor or host for help. Maybe it's because we live in such a cynical time now, where horror hosts, with few exceptions, are no longer a thing, but I still find it difficult to swallow. If Charley were a lot younger, like in elementary or
even early middle school, it wouldn't be as much of an issue. But because he's seventeen, it does make him look deluded and crazy when he's pleading with Peter as if he's talking to Dr. Van Helsing, or when his emotions get the better of him and he stupidly tells Lieutenant Lennox that Dandrige is a vampire. And that's another thing: Charley does some really dumb things. Obviously, snooping around the house when he believes someone was murdered in there counts, as does that outburst in front of the lieutenant. But there's also how he acts when Dandrige seems to pass
Peter's vampire test, making him look even worse in both Peter and his friends' eyes, and how he doesn't keep an eye on Amy while they're in the nightclub, allowing Dandrige to find and entrance her. Yeah, he was trying to call Peter on the payphone and ask for his help, but he could've kept her within eyesight while doing so. And before that, he wastes time by attempting to call the police, only to, of course, get shut down.
These flaws aren't deal-breakers, though, mostly because, at the end of the day, Charley is a really likable guy. Again, while you could say it's really dumb on his part, the fact that he doesn't agree to Dandrige's offer to ignore his killing spree in exchange for his own life, and then initially plans to sneak into the house, find Dandrige's coffin, and stake him, is commendable. Also, even after Evil Ed plays that trick on him, when he hears him scream for real when Dandrige turns him, Charley is still genuinely
concerned for his friend, thinking it sounded more sincere that time. (Though, he doesn't react at all when he later sees that Ed is now a vampire, and the two of them never have an interaction afterward, which I think was a missed opportunity.) And, most importantly, when Dandrige abducts Amy, Charley is willing to do anything to save her. He's ready to fight him right there, in the middle of the club, and when he's initially unable to get Peter to help, he's willing to go into Dandrige's house by himself in order to get Amy back. He's absolutely devastated when he finds
that Amy is now becoming a vampire herself,
feeling that he's too late and has lost her forever. But, when Peter
says there may be hope, if they can kill Dandrige, that gives Charley the incentive to keep going. He also feels guilty when, down in the basement, Amy says the whole thing is his fault, which allows her to reel around and attack him while in full monster mode. And, in the end,, Charley is the one who kills Dandrige by exposing him to a beam of sunlight.
Though she finds his horny nature towards her to be a tad overwhelming, and is aggravated enough to break up with him when he becomes preoccupied with his new neighbor and starts ignoring her, Amy Peterson (Amanda Bearse) does genuinely care about Charley. Despite that break-up, she really becomes concerned when he talks about telling the police that Jerry Dandrige is a vampire, and especially later when she and Evil Ed find him planning to sneak into Dandrige's house and stake him in the heart. Fearing his "delusion" has reached dangerous levels, Amy is able to talk Charley into waiting until she and Ed go see Peter Vincent and enlist his help. When they meet him, she tells Peter about their plight, but it's only when she offers him a $500 savings bond that he agrees. The four of them then go to Dandrige's house the next night in order for Peter to perform the vampire test to pronounce him human, and Amy is immediately taken with Dandrige when she meets him. Though he's able to drink some supposed holy water without any ill effects, Charley continues pressing the issue, much to the others' chagrin. But, after they all leave and Dandrige begins stalking them as Charley walks Amy home, she slowly realizes that Charley's right. The two of them duck into the nightclub, where Charley tries in vain to call for help. But Dandrige manages to seduce and abduct Amy back to his house, forcing Charley and Peter to come for her.
Amy, as it turns out, looks exactly like a woman whom Dandrige loved many years, perhaps centuries, ago. While this seems to hint at the old reincarnated love subplot, whether or not she is the woman's reincarnation is never brought up. But one thing's for sure: Dandrige does unleash something in Amy, as first seen in the sequence where he dances with her in the club. While it's partly because she's under his influence, you can see this kind of playful, sensual side come out of her, as she gives as good as she gets
during the dance. I always think of this moment where he goes in to bite her neck, but she pulls back, looking at him with an expression on her face that seems to playfully say, "Mm-mm," and you expect her to wag her finger as well. She pulls away, then does a sexy movement with her fingers across her blouse's collar, and goes back over to him, puts her hands on his face, kisses his chest, and then goes down on her knees, in front of his waist. Moreover, Holland wrote in his script that she was to go from a
girl to a woman during this sequence, and if you really look at Bearse, you can see a subtle physical change to where she looks much more mature than the innocent, girl-next-door she's been up to this point. It continues when Dandrige fully seduces her back at his house. As they make out in front of the fireplace, she's initially hesitant and even a little scared, but she then slowly acquiesces; the whole while, she never seems to be under hypnosis. And when she becomes a full-on vampire during the third act, she's truly a "vamp," as her hair is longer and now
reddish instead of brown, her breasts are bigger, and her voice deeper and more sultry. She attempts to seduce Charley, and when he repels her with a crucifix, she preys on his guilt over letting this happen. Then, when he puts the cross away, she comes at him in full monster mode, and isn't released from it until Dandrige is killed.
While all of the characters are memorable, Evil Ed (Stephen Geoffreys) definitely stands out because of just what a wacky, weird guy he is. In fact, when I first saw the movie, I wasn't even sure if he
was a guy, with that high-pitched, slightly effeminate voice, cackling laugh, and his sort of androgynous appearance, especially with that hairdo. Also, even though he's the only student at his school whom Charley interacts with besides Amy, I'm sometimes unsure if they're really friends, given how Charley always seems annoyed by him. Yeah, friends can annoy you just as much as make you feel good (trust me, I know this
very well), but the only really cordial interactions the two of them have is when Charley comes by Ed's house and asks him how to defend himself against a vampire, or when Charley first falls for Ed's joke about being attacked. Moreover, despite his jovial tone, Ed's reaction to Charley's appearance there is, "And to what do I owe this dubious pleasure?", followed by him angrily telling him to stop referring to him as "Evil" and asking, "Why should I help you anyway?" Then, when Charley gives him eight bucks, Ed does give him some advice, the first of which eventually proves to be effective, but that scene doesn't feel like an interaction between two friends. Regardless, even though Ed, like everyone else, doesn't believe Charley's claim about a vampire living next door to him, he, like Amy, is horrified when he plans to go into Dandrige's house and stake him. And when the two of them meet with Peter Vincent, Ed, being the real, hardcore horror fan, suggests a vampire test to prove that Dandrige is human, naming one of Peter's old movies as an example. But, after Dandrige seemingly passes the test, only for Charley to continue insisting he's a vampire, Ed loses his patience and goes off by himself when they leave afterward. He then pulls that prank where he acts like he got attacked, and when Charley and Amy leave, he yells, "There are no such things as vampires, fruitcake!" However, immediately after that, Ed becomes the ultimate believer in vampires.
While you can easily guess that Ed is an outcast among his peers because of how bizarre he is and also because he is definitely a nerd, I wish the movie emphasized it a little bit more. We do get that sense from how Charley and Amy are the only other kids he hangs around with, and how, again, even they are often put off by how obnoxious and depraved he can be, but I wish there was a scene or two showing him getting bullied and beaten up, as Dandrige says when he gives him the opportunity to become a vampire.
Since Ed gets emotional and cries when faced with this, and does agree to basically sell his soul to the Devil, tearfully taking Dandrige's hand, there is clearly truth in it, but I think a bit more context could've made this scene more impactful. In any case, Ed relishes being a vampire, and especially enjoys scaring Peter, whom he accuses of being a total fake and coward. While most people love, "Oh, you're so cool, Brewster!", my favorite line and scene from Ed is when, after Peter comes across him in Charley's
house, in his mother's bed, wearing a Raggedy Ann wig while pretending to be her, he says that Mrs. Brewster is working the night shift but left a note. He takes it out, looks at it, and goes, "Mm-mmm! His dinner's in the oven!" However, when Peter burns his forehead with a cross in his apartment, Ed is completely distraught, not just because of the pain but also because, when he looks into the mirror and sees no reflection, it seems to sink in what he's allowed to happen to himself. However, he projects his anger onto Peter, exclaiming, "What have you done to
me?!", before backing away from his cross in frustration and threatening that Dandrige will kill him for this. But it's when he later attacks Peter as a wolf, only to get impaled and, slowly and painfully, turn back to his human form that Ed seems truly aghast at what he's become. He's in so much pain that he reaches for Peter, pleading for help, both when he's still partially a wolf and when he's become completely human again before "dying."
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Though she's not a major character, and completely disappears after the first act, I do have to mention Mrs. Brewster (Dorothy Fielding). While it's not stated in the movie itself, she and Charley's father are meant to be divorced, which explains her interest in Jerry Dandrige and why she's so charmed by him (she frets that he may be gay, given his "live-in carpenter," but Charley, who just saw the really hot prostitute head over there, tells her that he doesn't think so). It also explains why, at the beginning of the movie, she's so interested in what's going on in Charley and Amy's relationship, telling them, after she overhears their argument, "It says right here that the divorce rate is 76% higher among couples who don't argue before marriage." Overall, she comes off as a tad ditzy and scatterbrained, unknowingly almost getting her son caught by Dandrige and Billy Cole when she walks outside and calls for him while he's spying on them from the bushes. After that, she insists on fixing him some hot cocoa and touches his head to see if he has a fever, much to Charley's frustration. When he tells her what happened and asks, "Now, do you know what that means?", her reaction is: "Wait, let me guess. What?" Like everyone else, she doesn't believe Charley's claim that Dandrige is a vampire, and, even worse for him, she soon begins working the night-shift, leaving her completely ignorant of what happens for the rest of the movie.
Holland has said that when he wrote the character of Peter Vincent, he hoped he would be played by Vincent Price, since both the character and his name were a tribute to Price, as well as Peter Cushing. But, by this point, Price was in his 70's and not in the best of health, and had also put the horror genre behind him. Since Roddy McDowall had been in
Class of 1984, it wasn't much of a stretch for Holland to cast him instead, and it paid off, as Peter Vincent is both one of McDowall's most memorable roles, alongside his various parts in the
Planet of the Apes franchise, and, for sure, one of
Fright Night's most enduring characters. As McDowall himself described him, Peter is, "An old ham actor... a
dreadful actor." You see this in the clips from his old movies, where he always appears in this alter ego of "Peter Vincent, the Great Vampire Killer." Not only is his acting exaggerated and corny ("Stop, you creature of the night!") but, when he prepares to kill a vampire during the first of these clips, he comes at her with a stake, which he holds the wrong way! (Hopefully he didn't drive it in like that or that would've
really hurt.) Regardless, he achieved some sort of celebrity thanks to these movies and gained a cult following, with Charley and Ed being among them, but now, in his 60's, he's relegated to reveling in his "glory days" by showing them on this late night, local horror program. He does seem to enjoy himself in the show's wraparounds, where he gets to proclaim his greatness and talk up his movies, but otherwise, his life is pretty pathetic. And eventually, he doesn't even have that, as he's fired from hosting
Fright Night due to low ratings, which he blames on the influx of slasher movies at the time (he doesn't seem to consider that people didn't watch simply because of how cringe-worthy he was as a host). And in a scene at his apartment later, he finds a notice of eviction waiting for him in the mail. So, at this low point in his life, he especially isn't interested in dealing with a crackpot who claims to have a vampire living next door to him.
In general, Peter's reaction to Charley when he shows up at the TV studio, asking him to help kill a vampire he claims is his neighbor, is pretty understandable. Though he initially humors him when he claims to believe in vampires, as Peter himself said the night before, he's naturally weirded out when he persists, to the point where he's all but raving when Peter gets in his car and drives away. And when Amy and Ed come to him and ask them to help cure Charley of his "delusion," Peter is hesitant to get involved, telling
them, "Your friend needs a psychiatrist,
not a vampire killer." He even claims that he's just been offered a role in a major movie, which is obviously his vanity and ego creating a coverup for why he can't do it. This same vanity and ego also prompts him to dress up in a nice smoking jacket when Amy and Ed first appear at his apartment, showing some kind of interest in him. But when Amy offers him a $500 savings bond, Peter proves to be so desperate for money that he swallows his pride and agrees to go
through with the charade. After arranging for them to go over to Jerry Dandrige's house so Peter can give him a vampire test, based on one of his old movies, he's more than willing to play the part, as he dresses up in his old costume and introduces himself to Charley in this persona, as if the two of them had never met before. However, he does a bad job of assuaging Charley's fears, as he simply takes the vial of "holy water" with him, supposedly leaving his stakes and crosses in his car, and insists that he first must prove that Dandrige is a vampire before he kills
him. Once inside, he continues up the act, coming off as so sure of himself, and becomes offended when Charley more or less accuses him of lying about the water being blessed. And when Charley whips out a cross, Peter, not noticing how Dandrige backs away from it, makes him put it away, saying he's already made enough of a fool of himself. But, on the way out, Peter learns that Dandrige really is a vampire by absentmindedly pulling out a small mirror and seeing that he's not reflected in it, a revelation that horrifies him. Panicking, he quickly gets the kids out of there
and flees back to his apartment, only to later be confronted by the now vampiric Ed. He manages to repel him with a cross, despite his fear, but when Charley comes to him, asking for his help in saving Amy, Peter is reluctant to do so.
This begins a great character arc for Peter, where he admits to Charley that, unlike the character he played in the movies (he says "Peter Vincent" isn't even his real name), he's scared out of his mind over learning that vampires are real. Though Charley pleads with him, saying he can't save Amy without his help, Peter tearfully says he can't. But, at some point between then and when Charley heads to Dandrige's house, Peter decides to man up and appears in his vampire killer persona and costume, bringing with him his box
of stakes, crosses, and a gun. He's also smart in that he first suggests they sneak in through the backdoor, though that quickly becomes a moot point when it's clear Dandrige knows they've arrived. And then, he suggests they come back at dawn, while Dandrige in his coffin, but Charley says that Amy could be dead by then. However, despite wearing the costume and putting on the attitude, Peter still isn't quite there yet. When Dandrige shows up and Peter tries to ward him off with a cross, his lack of faith makes it useless. And when Billy Cole backhands Charley over the
stairwell, Peter flees the house. That said, he doesn't flat-out abandon him; instead, he goes next door to warn Mrs. Brewster, as well as try to call the police, only to again run into Evil Ed, who cut the phone line.
This is where you get a major turning point in Peter's character, when he unintentionally impales Ed with a broken table leg while he's in wolf form, and then watches as he slowly and painfully reverts back to his human form. Seeing him return to the kid he met earlier, now scared and horrified at what he let himself become, Peter feels great sympathy for him, right up to the point where he dies. After he composes himself, Peter, determined to not let Charley and Amy suffer the same fate, pulls the table leg out of Ed's
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body, then heads back over to the Dandrige house, having to stop and muster up his courage before going in. From there, he continues to become more courageous and like a real hero, as he manages to get Charley out of the room he's locked in, shoots Billy (not that it matters, since he proves to be undead, but still), and, shocked to see Amy becoming a vampire, searches the house for Dandrige in order to kill him and save her soul in the process. When they finally confront Dandrige again, Peter is able to find his faith and repel him, confidently telling him that he's out of
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time, as the sun is rising. During the climax in the basement, he manages to find Dandrige's coffin, break into it, and stake him, and when that doesn't work, he and Charley work together to smash all the blacked out windows, letting the sunlight in. Charley is the one who saves Peter, blasting Dandrige with the ray of sunlight that finally destroys him, and once it's all over, the two of them and Amy happily embrace. And at the end of the movie, he's back to hosting Fright Night, only this time, he's showing other movies besides his own in order to, "Let the vampires rest for a little while."
Like with Roddy McDowall, the filmmakers really struck gold when they were able to cast Chris Sarandon as Jerry Dandrige. Sarandon absolutely excels in this role, managing to play both sides of the character to perfection. On the one hand, he's everything you expect from the modern portrayal of a vampire: handsome, suave, charming, always well-dressed, and just effortlessly cool. You do see him a little bit beforehand, notably when Charley sees him preparing to bite one of his victims, but when Charley formally meets him after Mrs. Brewster has invited him over, he's painted as the smoothest, most composed and confident guy on the planet. He's kicking back in a living room chair, the upper part of which blocks his face, as his legs stick out, gently crossed, and he has his right arm out around the side of the chair, slowly tapping his fingers, one of which has a nice ring, against it. Even though he knows this kid has discovered his secret, he's not worried in the slightest. He smiles, shakes Charley's hand, and just comes off as extremely friendly and inviting, something he also does when Charley goes to his house with Peter Vincent and his friends for the vampire test. There, he manages to charm Amy by romantically kissing her hand when they're introduced, while Ed is impressed with his layout and everything he has. So, you have no problem understanding why everyone falls for him and why, besides how far-fetched they are, nobody believes Charley's claims about him. But, in both of these scenes, Dandrige also manages to surreptitiously let Charley know that he's in for it, like when he says that, now that his mother has invited him over, "I'll probably drop by quite a bit. In fact... any time I feel like it." Then, when Charley stumbles backwards and heads back up to his room, Dandrige says, "Nice to meet you, Charley. See ya... soon." And when, after he seemingly passes the vampire test, Charley continues to press the issue, Dandrige tells, "You already caused your friends quite enough
pain. You wouldn't want to cause them any more, would you?"
When that other side comes out, Sarandon proves to be just as adept at being menacing, like in the scene where he sneaks into the Brewster house late at night and confronts Charley. He tosses him into his closet, stomps towards him, grabs and pulls him out of there, and, holding him up by his neck, tells him, "Do you realize how much trouble you've caused me? Spying on me. Almost disturbing my sleep this afternoon. Telling policemen about me!" He then comes close to forcing Charley out the window, where he would be
impaled on the fence below, and when Charley stabs him through the hand with a pencil, Dandrige, after removing it, is so enraged that he's about to kill him right then and there. When he hears Mrs. Brewster, whom he trapped in her bedroom, calling for Charley, Dandrige decides to let it go for now but makes a gesture with his hand that all but says, "You are so dead." Once he's back over at his house, he calls Charley on the telephone, and when Charley doesn't immediately say anything when he answers, Dandrige lets him no there's no point, as he can see him through
the window. He then tells him, "You started this, Charley, and I'm gonna finish it. I've just destroyed your car, Charley. But that's nothing compared to what I'm gonna do to
you... tomorrow night." With that, he slowly closes the window blind while smiling at Charley, enjoying the fear on his face. And as expected, Dandrige is also really menacing in the scenes where he stalks Charley, Amy, and Ed through the foggy streets and alleyways, making the latter two realize while doing so that he is indeed a vampire.
And yet, even when he's up to something extremely evil, Dandrige still sometimes has such a devil-may-care attitude that it makes it hard to completely hate him. For instance, when he sneaks into Charley's room to surprise and attack him, he casually whispers Strangers in the Night. When Charley confronts him at the club when he has Amy, Dandrige nonchalantly stops Charley from punching him, forces him to his knees, and says, "You shouldn't lose your temper, Charley. It isn't polite." He then rather affably tells
him that he's not going to kill him in the middle of the club, before demanding he and Peter Vincent show up at the house. And during the third act, when he hears Charley yell in anguish upon seeing Amy becoming a vampire, Dandrige, who stopped and waited for it, looks so proud of himself. The smile he has seems to say, "Ah, music to my ears." The best moment, though, comes when he confronts Charley and Peter when they show up to rescue Amy. Having already made it clear that he sees Peter as a joke, as he told him earlier that he found his old movies "very
amusing," Dandrige then makes fun of the way he says, "Welcome to
Fright Night," before confidently crossing his arms and adding, "For real." Charley demands to know where Amy is and Dandrige casually answers, "Up here. All ya have to do is get by me." Then, Peter pulls out a cross and says, "Back, spawn of Satan," only for Dandrige to laugh in his face and go, "Oh,
really?" He proceeds to effortlessly crush the cross and throw it away, before derisively telling Peter that he needs faith for it to be effective against him. And when Charley is incapacitated by Billy Cole and Peter runs out of the house in a panic, Dandrige just snickers at his cowardice.
For as much as he is the villain, there are moments of humanity within Dandrige, which was something Sarandon insisted upon. First, instead of killing Charley right then and there in his room, he offers to let him live if he just ignores his killing spree. And when Charley refuses, Dandrige, rather than enraged, seems instead to lament this, as he shakes his head and says, "Fool." In the documentary,
You're So Cool, Brewster! The Story of Fright Night, Sarandon confirms that Dandrige's attitude there was one of,
"Why does it always have to be this way?", and when Charley injures him in his resistance, any hesitation he had about killing him goes out the window. Also, in the same scene, Dandrige tells him, "Of course, I could you something that
I don't have: a choice," suggesting he does hate his cursed existence, but not enough to where he's going to let someone interfere or possibly end it. Moreover, in the scene where he confronts Ed in the alleyway, both Sarandon and Tom Holland have said that Dandrige is being sincerely
compassionate when he gives Ed the opportunity to become a vampire, telling him, "I know what it's like being different. Only they won't pick on you anymore... or beat you up. I'll see to that." He offers Ed his hand, and when he glances at it and then at his face, Dandrige gives him a reassuring nod, which seems to seal the deal. There's a definite romantic side to him as well, with the sensual music he puts on whenever he's with a woman, seemingly to put her at ease so she won't be scared or suffer when he goes in
for the kill. Finally, it was also Sarandon's suggestion that Amy remind Dandrige of someone from his past. Like I said, we never learn if she is this woman's reincarnation or if it's just a coincidence. In fact, we don't even learn who she was, save for when Dandrige says, "She's someone I knew... a long time ago." Whatever the case, though, he's so taken with Amy from the moment he meets her that he's determined to have that woman back in some form. Rather than it just being a case of possessiveness, there seems to be some real, tender longing for her onDandrige's part, given how, when they're making out, he's not being ravenous towards her, and at one point, he has a look where he seems to silently plead with her to reciprocate his feelings. And when he's destroyed at the end, his last word as he disintegrates is Amy's name, as he hopelessly calls for her.
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This movie also takes the idea that there are two sides to a vampire: the normal-looking human side and the full-on monster, to serious extremes. Dandrige is able to bring this latter side out in bits, not just in his fangs but also his fingers, which become long and develop claws in some shots, his eyes, which sometimes turn bright red, and his voice occasionally dropping a few octaves. However, there are instances, such as when he gets really angry or loses control in some way,
that the monster side comes through either partially or all the way. There are several stages to his vampire side, such as one that is still very human-like, albeit with discolored skin, evil yellow eyes, sharp teeth, and the long, clawed fingers, and the truly monstrous one, where his face takes on the look of a human bat, with pointy ears, a high hairline, and orange eyes. This latter form, which is kind of like a more monstrous version of Count Orlock, is glimpsed after Charley stabs him through the hand with a pencil, but you see it in full-on throughout the climax in the basement. Its hideous visage is added to all the more to by half of Dandrige's face being melted due to his being exposed to the sun while in bat form earlier. Speaking of which, while he does indeed become a bat, it's a big, ugly, hair-less bat, with a long, dog-like snout and head, which I've always liked the look of.
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While there's a lot about Billy that's left ambiguous, one thing that's definitely not is how much he seems to love bullying Charley once he's on his and Dandrige's radar. When Charley brings Lieutenant Lennox to the house and charges Billy and Dandrige with being behind the recent murders, Billy gets increasingly petulant and mocking towards Charley as his accusations grow more outlandish. Notably, when Charley suggests they search the basement, Billy, taking a note from Lennox, says, with a very
condescending sneer on his face, "Yes, Charley... what's down there?" And when he finally breaks and says that Dandrige is a vampire, Billy, aside from the odd crack here and there, just sits back and lets Charley hang himself. He watches as Lennox drags Charley back outside to the car and chews him out, and then stands on this balcony near the top of the house and menacingly looks at him, as he realizes it's getting late and Dandrige will soon come for him. Moreover, when Charley returns with Peter Vincent and his friends, Billy continually screws with him every chance he gets, and is about to lunge at him when he pulls out a cross in front of Dandrige, before Peter grabs it away. This is followed up on when Charley and Peter return to rescue Amy, as just when Charley manages to repel Dandrige with a cross, Billy backhands him over the stair railing. Thus, it's only fitting that Charley is the one who actually kills Billy near the end.
That leads into the question of what exactly Billy is. Despite Peter assuming, because he walks around in the daylight, he's human, the way he takes a bunch of point blank shots and then decomposes and disintegrates after Charley stakes him suggests otherwise. For me, it's pretty simple: while not a vampire, he's still clearly undead, and could probably be called a "ghoul." Tom Holland said in the documentary that, "He's bitten, but he hasn't turned
yet." I've also heard some suggestions that, up until the climactic night, Billy is human, but that Dandrige turned him the night before, figuring he might need some help. Others feel that he's human all the way up to the moment where Peter first shoots him and that, when they briefly confront Dandrige and he looks down at Billy as he lies at the bottom of the stairs, he resurrects him right then and there. Either theory could work since, other than a mean backhand, there's seemingly nothing supernatural about Billy until that final confrontation on the stairs. But, then again, when he walks up towards Charley and Peter, he confidently shrugs when Peter threatens to shoot, so he seems to know he has some kind of advantage. Whatever Billy really is, his death scene is amazing, as we'll get into.
The movie's second half, however, is where Holland really lets loose with the camera, with a memorable moment that starts on a high-angle shot of Ed after he's pulled his little prank on Charley, done from a kind of walkway. It follows him as he walks under it and, as he heads down the alleyway, it levels out and is accompanied by that same sound from the earlier scene that began on the rooftop, until it reveals Dandridge standing in the alley, watching him, before he begins to follow. When Dandrige later enters the nightclub, he's shot in a way that really makes him
stand out, like when he looks down on the dance floor from a balcony and, notably, when Amy sees him as he walks through the crowd, going from one side of the screen to the other, partially obscured by all the dancers, and getting closer each time she sees him, until he appears right in front of her. Not only is the dance between them well shot and choreographed, but there's also a nice juxtaposition to where she's dancing with him, and it cuts back and forth from them to a shot of a large mirror, where it looks as though Amy is dancing by herself. There are a good
Of course, even the most ordinary places can prove to be spooky at night, like the misty, twisting and turning alleyway that Ed walks down, which leads to a dead end where Dandrige corners and turns him, and the street where he begins stalking Charley and Amy. That leads to Club Radio, which they duck into, only for Dandrige to enter and seduce Amy. This location, which was actually the Young's Market Company Building, had already been made into a nightclub for Brian De Palma's Body Double the year
before and you can see why, as it was easy to convert it into one. Even though the only thing really special about it is the multi-colored lighting, it still makes for a great setting, and Tom Holland liked the balcony that allowed Dandrige to look down onto the dance-floor. Speaking of which, the most memorable setting by far is Dandrige's home, which looks like an old, Gothic, Victorian-style mansion, or, in other words, the kind of place you would expect to run into a vampire. The spot that sees a lot of action during the third act is actually the immediate interior, with a small staircase leading up to the second floor landing and a stained glass window. On the left wall in the foyer are numerous clocks, in order for Dandrige to definitely know both when it's time to rise from his coffin and when he needs to retreat from the sun. Off to the right of the staircase on the ground floor is a big sitting room with a fireplace, full of stuff that Dandrige has brought with him, likely from the centuries he's been around, including paintings of his past lovers, such as the one who resembles Amy. Speaking of which, this is also where he seduces and turns Amy, doing so on a cover in front of the fireplace. There's a bedroom off to the right on the second floor landing which is where Charley and Peter find Amy as she slowly becomes a vampire, and is also possibly where Charley first saw Dandrige preparing to bite a victim, while the doorway on the staircase's left side on the ground floor leads down to the basement. Like I said before, the basement is really dark and spooky, full of all kinds of old junk, and is where Dandrige hides his coffin behind a secret panel. There's also another entrance into it, from which Amy appears as a full vampire.
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However, outside of the movie clips, the actual monsters are not played for laughs at all. Dandrige, Billy, and the others are treated as genuinely terrifying threats, and scenes such as Ed slowly turning back from his wolf form, Billy melting and disintegrating, Amy losing herself to the vampirism, and the final struggle to destroy Dandrige during the climax, all come off as genuinely freakish and intense in some cases. The only instance where I think things get a little too silly is how over the top Chris
Sarandon sometimes is during the third act, talking in an exaggerated, melodramatic voice, and really clipping certain syllables, like when he tries to get Amy to rise and kill Charley and Peter, intoning, "I command you... to... a-wake--kuh... Kill them. Bothhh," or when he confronts Peter on the stairs. Also, the way he seems to spin around after Charley stabs him through the hand with the pencil is also a bit laughable. But, otherwise, they're treated with the utmost respect, and even those fake movie clips, as intentionally bad as they are, are done with absolute reverence, which is to say nothing of the incorporation of traditional vampire tropes and the references to past movies. Besides clips from The Premature Burial, Scars of Dracula, and Octaman (albeit with different names and new music added to them), and the posters in Peter's apartment, that moment near the end where, after being staked, Dandrige's body sticks straight up and pulls the stake out of his heart, is a double reference to both Nosferatu and Hammer's Dracula Has Risen from the Grave. Ed becoming a wolf goes straight back to the original Bram Stoker novel of Dracula, which has typically been left out of most vampire movies. And Peter discovering Dandrige is a vampire because of the mirror in his cigarette box is from the original Bela Lugosi Dracula.
Again, all of the traditional vampire tropes are utilized here in some form or another, like aversion to crosses, their casting no reflection in mirrors, the ability to turn into creatures like bats and wolves, and death by both sunlight and stakes through the heart. However, the latter proves ineffective against Dandrige, suggesting that, just as using a cross requires faith to be effective, extremely powerful vampires like him are immune to staking. A trope that's also most definitely utilized is the vampires' sensuality, which speaks for itself with Dandrige's
There are also two memorable monster death sequences during the climax, the first of which is Billy's. After Charley stabs him with a stake on the stairs, he stands there, as bright green slime begins leaking out of him, his hands decompose and disintegrate, gallons of that gunk pour out of his shirt sleeves and pants legs, his flesh rots away, his hands are reduced to bone, with sand pouring down around them, more sand comes out of his pants, and his head becomes a slimy, steaming skull. What's left of him then falls backwards, crumbling to bits, and his skull slides across the floor and hits the base of some furniture. And finally, there's Dandrige's death when he's exposed to sunlight, which blows him through the basement and up against the back wall, where his flesh burns off his skeleton and his body is engulfed in flames, before he finally explodes. (Johnson actually got to recycle an unused version he did of the library ghost at the beginning of Ghostbusters for that effect.)
Edlund and his team also got to work some of their visual effects magic on the movie, sometimes in ways you might not notice. One that I didn't for the longest time, probably because the VHS I had for many years was fullscreen, is in the scene where Dandrige, after sneaking into Mrs. Brewster's bedroom, walks towards the door and, in the background, is a big mirror, which he, of course, casts no reflection in. You see this when he opens the door, which looks as though it's opening by itself in the mirror, and it's a
really well done shot when you do notice it. Another example is the aforementioned matte work they did to create the countryside in the background of wide shots of the town, something I honestly didn't think about until it was brought up. And I had no idea whatsoever that there was some blue screen work done for Billy's death scene until I saw that documentary. Other visual effects, like that opening shot of the moon, the glowing red eyes of Ed's wolf form, the cross burn mark on his forehead
disappearing after he's died, the sun rising behind Dandrige through the smashed stained glass window near the end, the work done to put the flying bat into the scenes, and the burning effects that the sun has on him, are more obvious but still look good for the time, nevertheless. And like I said before, the shot of Dandrige's shadow turning into the bat when he jumps off the stairway is particularly awesome.
Above else, the movie is very well-paced, starting out nice and slow (as well as with a fun fake-out, with the opening shot of the full moon and the loud wolf howl, followed by the sound of two people talking about it, as the camera pans through the town, only to eventually reveal it's a movie playing on Charley's TV), and gradually building in its craziness. First, you just have Charley's curiosity when he sees Jerry Dandrige and Billy Cole carrying the coffin into the house. Then, when Charley sees the prostitute arrive and
head over to next door, only to hear a loud, blood-curdling scream that
night, and then sees her picture on the news the next day, which reports her
body has been found, he becomes downright suspicious. He sneaks around the house when he gets home from school, but Billy Cole spots him as he's painting over the basement windows and chases him off. That night, Charley decides to stay up late and keep an eye on the house. which leads him to spot Jerry Dandrige as he's making out with a woman in a window, and then learn his secret when he sees him bare
his fangs, preparing to bite her. Unfortunately for Charley, Dandrige
spots him and menacingly closes the window shade, revealing his long,
clawed fingernails in the process. Following that, Charley runs outside and spies on Dandrige and Billy as they dispose of the woman's body, and is nearly caught when his mother, whom he woke up a few seconds ago in order to try to tell her what he saw, comes out on the front porch, looking for him.
After Charley makes an ass of himself when he brings Lieutenant Lennox over and raves about Dandrige being a vampire, the next major scene comes the following night, when Dandrige comes over to deal with him. That scene, as I said before, is genuinely spooky and suspenseful, with a glimpse of a shadow flying past a window, followed by Charley being awakened by a loud bang on the roof and then hearing Dandrige's footsteps up there. Armed with only a small crucifix, he goes downstairs and into the living room, hearing a light scraping sound. He breathes a sigh of relief when he sees it's only a tree branch scratching the outside of a window, unaware that Dandrige has entered the house upstairs, through his mother's bedroom. He walks out of the room, pulls the door until it breaks forward and becomes wedged into the doorway, and sneaks into Charley's room. Charley then goes back up to his bedroom and keeps watch on the house through the window, when Dandrige emerges from the closet behind him, leading to their confrontation. Grabbing Charley by the neck, Dandrige throws him across the room and into the closet, then picks him back up and slams him against the wall. Dandrige then makes him the offer to live if he just ignores his continued feeding, but when Charley refuses, he opens the window that Charley nailed shut and begins slowly forcing him out. As Charley struggles, a picture of Amy falls out and is impaled on one of the spikes on a fence down below. Seeing that, he grabs a pencil and stabs Dandrige through the hand, leading him to let go and reveal his true, monstrous vampire form, in the movie's first major special effects showcase. Dandrige is just about to kill Charley right then and there, when he hears the sound of Mrs. Brewster trying to get out of her bedroom. Reverting back to his human form, Dandrige leaves, but destroys Charley's car and lets him know that he's dead meat come the next night.
Fright Night also really lucked out in the music department, as they got Brad Fiedel, who'd just scored The Terminator. While I don't think his work here is quite on that level, it's still great stuff, managing to capture the movie's balance of terror and light-heartedness. For instance, scenes like Dandrige's first attempt to kill Charley, Ed's transformation scene, and much of the climax are scored in a manner that comes off as really eerie and even nightmarish, and there's also a kind of cheesy, almost semi-Jaws sort of sound that you hear a few times, like in the scene after Lieutenant Lennox leaves and Charley realizes it's getting dark. At the same time, there are some pieces that accentuate the movie's more tongue-in-cheek and also genuine parts, such as a soft, pinging, curious one for when Charley first snoops around Dandrige's house, a sad piano bit that gets at what a pitiable character Peter Vincent is, a light-hearted melody for the end when Dandrige has been vanquished and Amy has been saved, and the intentionally melodramatic music put to the movie clips. However, I think the piece of music that everybody, myself included, thinks of is the song called Come To Me, this really sensual theme, done on an electric violin, that plays throughout the movie as a leitmotif for Dandrige. It's actually music from a cassette tape that he plays whenever he's seducing a woman, but you often hear it in the actual score and it's very fitting for him, making him come off as menacing and dark, but also cool, like in the scene where Charley first meets him, and, of course, passionate and romantic. That latter aspect really comes through when he plays the music in the scene where he seduces and bites Amy, where it comes off as nothing less than the best make-out music imaginable, as it's so damn sexy. Initially, there were lyrics to the song, sung by Fiedel himself, but Tom Holland felt that scene in particular worked better with just the music and he was definitely right.
There are plenty of other songs on the movie's soundtrack, all of them specifically made for it rather than purchased pre-existing music. Most of them are heard during the scene at Club Radio and purposely reflect whatever is happening in the scene. When Charley and Amy find they can't escape from Dandrige, a song called Armies of the Night by Sparks plays, followed by Good Man in a Bad Time by Ian Hunter when Dandrige enters the club and seduces Amy. Then, during their dance scene, you hear one of my favorites, a song called Give It Up by Evelyn King, which perfectly captures how Amy changes and gives herself over to Dandrige. And, when Charley tries to save Amy, the soundtrack switches to You Can't Run from the Beast Inside by Autograph, which alludes to how Amy has now seemingly given herself over to Dandrige completely. And finally, you have the title song, performed by the J. Geils Band, which I actually heard before I ever saw the movie itself, as when I first caught it on AMC, the credits had literally just started rolling. However, it's such a energetic, upbeat, likable song that I didn't care, and like the score, it really captures the spirit of the movie itself: spooky but also a lot of fun.
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