Fright Night (2011)

[prodigy]

Fright Night! The Las-Vegas-set horror-comedy-horror Dracula homage I didn't know I wanted for Christmas! I'm sad it had such a limited run in theaters, because it seems like it had a positive reception and it really deserved one -- aside from the matter of David Tennant in eyeliner and leather pants, which stands alone, it was the best vampire movie I've seen in a couple years. As a caveat, I haven't seen the original and I have no idea why they decided to run this in 3-D in theaters, barring faddishness.

From the billing I was expecting something a lot heavier on the Shaun of the Dead side of things; what I got was actually a hilarious-in-bits but otherwise suspenseful and creepy Rear Window-ish contemporary vampire tale. Colin Farrell and David Tennant were both pretty pitch-perfect for their roles, especially Farrell, who got to creep harder than I've ever seen him creep. It had a lot of good lines, line delivery, and 2011-appropriate visual humor, but it benefited especially from some very creepy/beautiful camera shots and deliberate symbolism and social commentary. This movie definitely underscored the sexual assault/molestation element of vampire mythology and underscored it remarkably hard, all things considered, with some fairly disturbing scenes up that alley, as fair warning. I thought it contributed, though, rather than detracting.

Anton Yelchin and his little curly mop are really cute.

Otherwise I am assembling my Yulerecs and eating yogurt.

Comments

[nextian]

I loved this movie a ton. I think my favorite part of all of it was the soundtrack-- Pumped Up Kicks over the popular kids in the car, and freaking acoustic 99 Problems over the ending? How perfect is that? A bitch ain't Anton Yelchin's problem because consent is the key to sex, DA NAW, DA NAW NAW NAW

Also Colin Farrell's little suburban dad smile and wave when he's confronting them on the highway in the middle of the night.

[prodigy]

THE 99 PROBLEMS COVER, I WANT IT ON MY HARDDRIVE NOW. The soundtrack was awesome, including the suspense and scare-chords instrumentals which were neat.

I actually picked this movie up because I wanted to see David Tennant in it, whether it was good or not, but though I enjoyed his role a lot (a lot a lot) I wound up being way more impressed with Farrell. His smile and wave! His cat-and-mouse casualness when Anton's sneaking out of the house with his poor neighbor, just hanging out, the general impression you get that he believes humans pose no threat whatsoever to him. Like an adult playing hide-and-seek with kids and tokenly humoring them by pretending he doesn't know where they're hiding. He really did pull off the monster-in-seductive-human-form thing without you actually mistaking him for a pretty human after the first 5 minutes.