Fright Night (2011) Review:

Tom Holland's Fright Night (1985) is one of the few vampire film's the non-Twilight fans enjoy. Not only did have good make-up effects for its time, but it also had likeable characters and a contemporary plot that audiences had never thought about before. And because of its success, three years later spawned Fright Night Part 2 (1988), which like many sequels had a diminishing return but still had a strong following. Jump to 25 years later and we have the remake that I can't say everyone wanted to see, but for the people who were tired of the Twilight series, definitely had something different to watch here. Especially for those who never saw the original to begin with.

Charlie Brewster (Yelchin) & his family

The plot is the same as the original, a teenage boy, Charlie Brewster, figures out that his next door neighbor is a vampire and soon finds out the vampire is out to get him, his friends and family. Remember though, for any of you readers who saw the original, this is a remake so not every scene will be done the same. For example, instead of Charlie discovering the vampire on his own, a classmate friend of his tells him. This is just one of several differences between this film and the original. But that's the only difference - the scenes, and Marti Noxon did a fine job at writing the screenplay. After all it's not her first time writing a story about vampires. Noxon also wrote the story for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1996). Besides, everything else is kept relatively the same from characters, to effects and gore.

Playing Charlie Brewster is Anton Yelchin, an actor who has been filling the shoes of several famous characters now like Kyle Reese from the Terminator series, Chekov from the Star Trek series and now this. Yelchin is convincing as a teenager because he has the baby face to prove it, plus his voice isn't that deep. Playing the charismatic Peter Vincent (the famous vampire slayer) is David Tennant, who also gives a performance that is much enjoyable for his sarcastic attitude. Surprisingly, even Chris Sarandon, the original vampire from Tom Holland's classic, has a brief cameo. Watch out for him, his screen time isn't long.

Jerry (Farrell)

But if there's one character that tops them all, it's Colin Farrell's performance as Jerry, the vampire next door. The best parts are when Farrell makes his character act like a human being. The movements, mannerisms and smooth voice make him one slippery little devil. In fact, one could say that Farrell had a lot of fun with this role because of how much he smiled in every frame. Some of the scenes that he plays in are actually quite comical, even though the movie's basis is the horror genre. But there will be times where you can't help but laugh because of how awkwardly hilarious the situation may seem.

However, if there was one thing that didn't help Farrell look more like a vampire was the CGI special effects. When the vampire face of Jerry takes over it doesn't look as real as it should be. I don't know, perhaps I wasn't expecting a whole facial reconstruction when he decided to transform. He honestly didn't even look like a vampire to me, which just made him look fake. The gore and blood was there but that was also mixed too. There were some scenes where it mixed well with real objects and then there were other scenes where it look like it was added in last minute. That should have been skimmed over a little more I think. The music was great though. Ramin Djawadi's score had a main theme and contained a lot of strings and organ sounds which are key in creating horror music. Well done.

The remake to the 1985 vampire flick is a fair match to its original. The music is appropriate, and actors perform well, especially Colin Farrell. The special effects may look unfinished though.

Points Earned --> 8:10