Foggy Reviews: Fright Night - Enter Twilight Pun Here!

Fright Night is a rare surprise you should not miss, a remake that actually is able to stand aside the original and deliver the same amount of fun as it, without sharply copying it. Fright Night is just a strong blast of horror fun at a time where films tend to drag their feet in the mud and get more "serious".

The film kicks off with a fantastic opening scene, which genuinely sets up a scary creature, an actually menacing bad guy. And the good thing about the vampires are that they are full on old school, but feel like they have adapted to the modern world. Garlic keeps them away, stakes through the heart are a killer, and they love the taste of that goddamn blood. They are monsters, not shitty love pesks.

But after that first scene, the film goes from the top of it's game to the absolute bottom. We are introduced to the protagonist, Charlie, a dweeb teenager who just so happens to have gotten lucky and found popularity, at a loss of his old best friend Ed. Within two seconds of his dialogue, he is a forced hip teenager, written with the biggest crock load of Diablo Cody wannabe bullshit. Random quirks about mochaccinos and shoes are thrown in there to be charming, and obviously fall straight on there obscure face. The film could of almost of lost me if it continued down the road, luckily, after a good 10 mins of mindless quirky crap, the film actually jacks it in and jumps straight into the plot, almost a little too quick.

I know that when you are walking into the film, you have the premises of the film already in your head, but the film leaves little mystery, within 10 mins it is already said by McLovin that the next door neighbour is a vampire. Well great, but we then know we have another 30 mins of "I don't believe you" which comes ala typical with horror films. The problem is that it persists with this. There is a 10 min segment where Jerry the vampire blows up the families house, throws a motorbike into a moving vehicle, gets ran over, pokes his hand through the car floor, and it's only till then that this dumbass mother realises that he is a vampire. And then the mother falls unconscious for the rest of the film, so I'm glad that all came down to an excellent pay off *SARCASM*

But then, once you hit that 45 minute mark, the film seems to just lets go, it stops holding itself back and just lets itself got with the flow. There's very little Diablo Cody turd markings, there's a lack of story that stops it from bogging down and it quits with the very goofy camera tricks (It worked in Children of Men because they actually did that stuff, they didn't rely on CGI)

The film just becomes loose and fun, and while I may still be able to have problems with the CGI gore and effects. I can't really judge it when I ultimately got swept into the action myself, I was just sat there have a hell of a time watching a fun horror comedy. It rarely slowed down, a lot of moments are very scary and very tension filled. Heck it doesn't take long until you forget the awful first impressions Anton Yelchin leaves on you and you start to root for the character.

The film has it most fun however, when Colin Farrell and David Tennant are on screen. David Tennant is one of those few actors, who when given the right role, can do chew scenery while adding a sense of legitimacy to the character. This is perfectly portrayed through Peter Vincent, he's an alcoholic loser who just so happens to be famous and spoiled, he has many times where he comically shouts out his assistant, but pulls it off in a natural way where it feels like he just has everyone running around after him. I really hope the films lack of success won't hold against him in his future career, as he manges to say the cheesiest of lines in a way where it isn't cheesy at all, almost making him some sort of ideal action star.

However, when David Tennant isn't chewing the scenery, Colin Farrell is busy looking like he's about to have sex with it. This is Colin Farrell, if they squeezed every single drop of sleazy out of him, poured it back in, shook him up and threw him on to the set. He's very sinister and very intense, the film would be far lesser without him, as he really does escalate the film to a high level of horror, making him far scarier than anything the film really deserves, but it does, and we thank him for it.

Heck, even McLovin is given a bit of a sinister scene, and he's fun to watch.

Fright Night is almost a classic return of everything I want in a horror film, the daft lunacy and campiness of a fun blast at the cinema, equally matched up with genuine scares, so you never really know if your going to laugh or jump, or more than likely both. Very much in the vain as the original. Fright Night started of as a simple decent rental with beer and pizza, but by the end, I was left with a strong smile on my face as it was plain and simply put, A hell of a good time at the cinemas!