Well I did go and see the first showing on the Friday that Fright Night (2011) came out, and it was great! I was grinning widely from the opening credits (good choice of music, nice reference to another good vampire film), and enjoyed pretty much all of the film.
Colin Farrell is excellent as Jerry, the worst-named vampire in history. He brings to the role that effortless menace that you can find in his gangster-type roles, along with lots of manly confidence and wry amusement.
David Tennant is a legend, as ever. It looked like he was going to be a bit of an OTT psycho until he started slurping the absynthe and pulling off his silly costume, dropping used sideburns casually over the side of his chair.
The teenagers in it were good, too. Imogen Poots was fine. Her main role was to look pretty and she did it very well. I had never heard of Anton Yelchin before but he was fairly impressive as the hero, Charley.
There were bad bits, though. One scene where Jerry can’t get into a house and so gives a strange, rambling sort of threatening homily went on for far too long. So did the scene where Charley’s best friend, Ed, comes back as a vampire; Christopher Mintz-Plasse hammed it up unbearably. Background details on the characters and the situation seemed to be sketched in rather quickly, and although the film is not short it could have done with more time for that kind of scene-setting. Perhaps they should have taken the time from the annoying, over-long scenes.
On the whole, though, Fright Night 2011 is a funny, slick, fast, knowing comedy-horror, and not just one for Colin Farrell fans. If you are a Colin Farrell or David Tennant fan though: unmissable.
K C Murdarasi 
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