Review by Matthew Finley
Tom Holland’s 1985 film FRIGHT NIGHT states its cultural raison d’etre less than 20 minutes in when obsolete late-night horror movie host and one-time b-movie icon Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall) tells the film’s young protagonist that, “…your generation doesn’t want to see vampire killers anymore… All they want to see are slashers running around in ski masks...” Director Craig Gillespie’s 2011 remake needn’t be so concerned with communicating a thesis or biting its thumb at the current pop cultural zeitgeist. In 2011, vampires are everywhere. And while jaded horror traditionalists might wring their hands and claim that the scares are gone – that it’s all smoldering, bedazzled Cullens, bodice-doffing Bon Temps-ians (ites?) and histrionic vampire diaries – there are still plenty of requisitely nasty silver screen vampires, from Aussie DAYBREAKERS to the savage li’l eunuch from LET THE RIGHT ONE IN In to whatever the hell was going on in PRIEST. This FRIGHT NIGHT, then, is less a battle cry against a swiftly tilting paradigm than a single echo in a crowded cave.
