A few weeks ago a couple of friends and myself sat down and watched on Blu-ray the remake of 90’s vampire flick, Fright Night. I had seen the original film during its first run in 1985 and while I didn’t haste the film, nor did I love. My friends were more favorably inclined towards the original.

Long story short, we all enjoyed the remake, personally I enjoyed more than the original, but I do not think the same could be said for my companions. However, the discussion afterwards comparing the remake to the original caused me to understand that I had only a vague memory of the film. (Unlike many films from the 80’s, I had never bothered to re-watch this one on VHS.) Thanks to the wonder of Netflix, I placed the original in my queue and this week I have started watching it.

It started as a join watching with my sweetie-wife and myself, however her interest in the film flagged and she decided against finishing it. (We switched to watching The Eagle and I’ll let you know about that film in a later post.) After she retired for the evening, I continued watching Fright Night (1985) but I have to say I like it even less than I did when I saw it in the theater.

First up on the dislike queue is the music. Now, this was made slap bad in the middle of the 80’s and while it avoids the obligatory music video segment of the movie, it still has all the hallmarks of the bad bad film music of that era. It has an electronic score, mainly a couple of synths, used quite poorly.  Every time it’s just visuals and music,  I literally want to turn the sound off. Fright Night (2011) had a much more conventional score and at least we can say it was not intrusive.

So far I have found the characters in Fright Night (1985) far less credible and far less likeable than in Fright Night (2011.) Charley in 1985 was a teenage guy who had a problem taking ‘no’ as an answer and when the ‘no’ becomes a yes he’s suddenly quite interested in guys in the next door backyard. There’s been nothing presented at this point is explain why a teenager boy with hormones out of control would suddenly care for what is happening outside his window over the teenage girl ready to have sex with him, like right now, and yet the whole film turns on the moment. Without that moment there is no plot, no conflict, and no story.

“Evil Ed” (1985) is a character that make me want to grab a baseball bat and do my best Robert De Niro impersonation. He’s annoying, whiny, less than helpful and generally a waste of screen time. Ed (2011) is a much more sympathy character. A friends who has fallen by the wayside as Charley has suddenly started moving in much cooler circles and in high school that is the end all of existence.  However in 2011 is it Ed that propels the plot into motion and its Charlie’s guilt about his actions that propels character growth.

Peter Vincent has been reworked so radically that there really is no point of comparison between the two characters. They share a name and they are both in show business. Aside from two great characters actors bringing them to life there is little to say in the way of comparison.

Fright Night 1985 was a horror film with light elements, but a pretty basic vampire movie, while Fright Night 2011 was more of an action horror movie with lighter elements. Between the two I’d rather watch the 2011 again than the 1985.