Tag Archives: fright night 2011

Frightfully Good

3 Sep

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.

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Frightful Anticipation

31 Aug

I am so desperately looking forward to “Fright Night“. I haven’t looked forward to a film as much in a long time. Yes, I know it will be full of annoying teenagers, in the audience and on screen. Yes, I know it may well be terrible. You may already have seen it and be able to tell me for sure – but don’t! Let me wallow in the anticipation of Colin Farrell as a vampire – and not one of your angsty, spotty, woebegone teenage vampires, either – a proper, grown up, evil vampire.

What vampire film-makers seem to have forgotten in recent years is that a vampire has to be such that you want them to “kiss” you.  It’s not so much about external good versus evil, as the internal pull of the things you shouldn’t want, but do.

David Tennant is in “Fright Night” 2011 too, as a slayer, and he is good in just about everything, even the drippy “Single Father”. I’m trying not to find out too much about the film so as not to spoil it. I haven’t seen the original, so apart from the one-line synopsis, I know nothing.

The film is out on Friday. Usually I’m strictly an Orange Wednesdays kind of girl, but in this case I may have to make an exception.

[See my review of Fright Night.]

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