Psycho's Movie Reviews #142: Fright Night (1985)

Fright Night is a 1985 American horror film written and directed by Tom Holland (in his directorial debut) and produced by Herb Jaffe. It stars Chris Sarandon, William Ragsdale, Roddy McDowall, Amanda Bearse, Jonathan Stark, Dorothy Fielding, Stephen Geoffreys, and Art Evans. The film follows young Charley Brewster, who discovers that his next-door neighbor Jerry Dandrige is a vampire. When no one believes him, Charley decides to get Peter Vincent, a TV show host who acted in films as a vampire hunter, to stop Jerry's killing spree.

The film was released on August 2, 1985, and grossed $24.9 million at the box office. Since its release, it has received positive reviews from critics and has become a cult classic. Fright Night was followed by a sequel, Fright Night Part 2, in 1988, and a remake in 2011, which was in turn followed by Fright Night 2: New Blood in 2013. In October 2020, Tom Holland confirmed that he was writing a direct sequel to the original film titled Fright Night: Resurrection that would bring back characters from the original film and would ignore the 1988 sequel.

Plot

Seventeen-year-old Charley Brewster is a fan of a horror television program called Fright Night, hosted by former movie vampire hunter Peter Vincent. One evening, Charley discovers that his new next-door neighbour Jerry Dandrige is a vampire responsible for the disappearances of several victims. After telling his mother, Charley asks his girlfriend, Amy Peterson, and his friend, "Evil Ed" Thompson, for help before contacting the authorities. Detective Lennox goes with Charley to Jerry's house to question him, but his "roommate" Billy Cole tells them that Jerry is "away on business". Charley reveals his suspicions about Jerry's vampirism, and Lennox leaves, furious. That night, Charley is shocked to see Jerry inside his house, having been invited in by Charley's mother. Later, Jerry visits Charley and offers him a choice: ignore his vampiric activities, or else. Charley refuses, brandishing a crucifix at Jerry. When Jerry tries to push him out the window to his death, Charley stabs Jerry's hand with a pencil. Jerry destroys Charley's car in retaliation and threatens Charley over the telephone.

Charley turns to Peter Vincent for help, but Peter dismisses Charley as an obsessed fan. Amy, fearing for Charley's sanity and safety, hires the destitute Peter to "prove" that Jerry is not a vampire by having him drink what they claim is "holy water", but it is only tap water; Jerry has claimed to Peter that drinking actual holy water would be against his religious convictions. Peter discovers Charley is right about Jerry's true nature after glancing at his pocket mirror and noticing Jerry's lack of a reflection, causing him to accidentally drop the mirror; Peter then flees, but Jerry learns of his discovery after finding a shard of mirrored glass on the floor.

Jerry hunts down Ed and turns him into a vampire, then Ed proceeds to visit Peter and tries to attack him, only to be warded off when burned by a crucifix to the forehead. Meanwhile, Jerry chases Charley and Amy into a nightclub. While Charley tries to call the police, Jerry hypnotizes and abducts Amy, who resembles Jerry's lost love, and bites her. With nowhere left to turn, Charley attempts to gain Peter's help once more. A frightened Peter initially refuses, but then reluctantly resumes his "vampire killer" role. Entering Jerry's house, the two are able to repel Jerry using a crucifix, though only Charley's works since he has faith in its spiritual power. Billy appears and knocks Charley over the banister, while Peter flees to Charley's house. There, he is surprised by Ed, who attacks him in the form of a wolf, only to be pierced through the heart with a broken table leg held by Peter. Removing the stake from Ed's body, Peter goes to rescue Charley and battle Jerry.

Charley is locked in with Amy, who is slowly transforming into a vampire. Peter frees him before she awakens, and says the process can be reversed if they destroy Jerry before dawn. Billy confronts Charley and Peter, and is revealed to be undead. They destroy Billy, who melts into goo and sand. Peter is able to lure the overconfident Jerry in front of a window using a crucifix, which now works due to his renewed faith in its abilities. As the sun rises, Jerry transforms into a bat and attacks Peter and Charley before fleeing to his coffin in the basement. Charley and Peter pursue Jerry; the latter breaks open Jerry's coffin and tries to stake him through the heart while Charley fights off Amy, who has almost completed her transformation. By breaking the blacked-out windows in the basement, Peter and Charley expose Jerry to the sunlight, destroying him and returning Amy to her human form.

A few nights later, Peter returns to his Fright Night TV series and announces a hiatus from vampires, presenting a film about alien invaders instead. Charley and Amy watch the program as they embrace in bed. Charley gets up to turn off the TV and glimpses red eyes in Jerry's now-vacant house, but dismisses them. Unbeknownst to both Charley and Amy, a new neighbour has just moved in.

Production

Development

While writing the script for Cloak & Dagger, Tom Holland amused himself when he conceived the idea of a horror-movie fan becoming convinced that his next-door neighbour was a vampire, but he did not initially think this premise was enough to sustain a story. "What's he gonna do", Holland asked, "because everybody's gonna think he's mad!" The story percolated in his mind for a year and finally one day while discussing it with John Byers, then the head of story department at Columbia Pictures, he finally figured out what the boy would do. "Of course, he's gonna go to Vincent Price!" In that era, many local TV stations in the United States had horror hosts (such as Zacherle, Svengoolie, and the nationally syndicated Elvira), so Holland decided it would be natural for the boy to seek aid from his local host. "The minute I had Peter Vincent, I had the story. Charley Brewster was the engine, but Peter Vincent was the heart." Once he'd conceived that character, Holland knocked out the first draft of the script in three weeks. "And I was laughing the entire time, literally on the floor, kicking my feet in the air in hysterics."

Holland wrote the film for himself to direct, in part because he was so disheartened by the film that was ultimately made from his previous screenplay, Scream for Help, and he had developed enough clout from the successes of his screenplays for Class of 1984, Psycho II, and Cloak & Dagger that the head of Columbia Pictures said, "Let's take a chance on the hot screenwriter kid", not figuring that Fright Night would be as successful as it ultimately became.

Casting

The Peter Vincent character was named after horror icons Peter Cushing and Vincent Price, and Holland specifically wrote the part for Price, but at this point in his career, Price had been so badly typecast that he had stopped accepting roles in horror movies. Guy McElwaine, then the head of Columbia Pictures, suggested Roddy McDowall for the part. McDowall had already starred in the Holland-penned film Class of 1984, so Holland was immediately receptive to the suggestion. "He understood the part", commented Holland, "and he also understood what he could do with it, and he really wanted it!" McDowall was particularly interested in the genesis of the character. "In the film, I perform as being in my late 20s or early 30s in the film clips of my old movies-all the way up to my 60s, when I'm the washed-up has-been", McDowall adding that the role interested him because, "I'd never played anything that old." Holland and McDowall built a lasting friendship, and McDowall eventually invited Holland to a dinner party where he introduced him to Vincent Price, who was flattered that the part was an homage to him and commented that the film "was wonderful and he thought Roddy did a wonderful job."

Chris Sarandon's agent gave him a copy of the script and he replied, "there's no way I can do a horror movie," but he decided to give the script a once-over and was immediately captivated by it. "I thought this is one of the best scripts I've read in a long time", Sarandon said, "beautifully constructed, it was obvious that this was a labour of love, it was clear that the writer/director's approach to it was one of wanting to have fun with the genre without making fun of it, the characters were beautifully drawn." Sarandon was worried about being typecast as a villain, but the script resonated with him because the story was deeper than just an average monster movie. "Forgetting about vampirism, what this film is about on one level is an older man trying to take a younger man's girl away from him", commented Holland. Although he liked the screenplay, Sarandon was still leery of working with a first-time director, so he flew to Los Angeles to meet Tom Holland and producer Herb Jaffe. Holland and he had an immediate rapport (and went on to make several more films together), and Sarandon was awed that Holland had the film so completely mapped out that he "literally described the movie shot-by-shot all the way through – page-by-page, scene-by-scene. It was basically the way he shot it."

Jonathan Stark was not a fan of vampire films, but he also liked the script. The Billy Cole character was written as a hulking giant, so Stark padded himself with extra clothing when he went in to audition. At auditions, he read the scene in which he is being questioned by the detective, which was written to be played straight. "I'm thinking if I'm sitting there being evil", Stark commented, "the lieutenant's gonna get suspicious. Why not throw him off the trail by being funny?" Holland liked his take on the character, and Stark was told that he had the part – but because he came in to read at the start of the audition process, months passed before filming commenced and Stark worried that he had lost the role. The gap worked to his advantage, however, because it gave him time to hit the gym and bulk up so he would not have to wear padding in the film.

William Ragsdale had auditioned to portray Rocky Dennis in Mask, but he lost the role to Eric Stoltz. Casting director Jackie Burch remembered his audition though, and thought he would be right to portray Charley Brewster. Ragsdale auditioned several times and ultimately received the news that he had landed the part on Halloween night 1984, beating out several other future-stars like Charlie Sheen.

Due to a mix-up, Stephen Geoffreys had an awkward audition for Anthony Michael Hall's role in Weird Science, and he made an indelible impression on Jackie Burch, who suggested him for Fright Night. Although he was not a horror-movie fan, Geoffreys loved the script, so he called his agent and emphatically declared that he would love to audition for Charley Brewster. "No, Steve", his agent replied, "you're wanted for the part of Evil Ed." Geoffreys was simultaneously baffled and heartbroken. "What do they see in me that they think I should be this... well anyway, it worked out."

The most difficult role to cast was Amy Peterson. "There wasn't the perfect girl next door until Amanda Bearse walked in", Holland commented.

Pre-Production

Once his cast was in place, Holland got input from each of the actors and made numerous revisions to the script. Some were slight and others were major – such as the ending, which originally featured Peter Vincent transforming into a vampire as he returned to host Fright Night. The September 6, 1984, draft of the screenplay, which is circulating online, is very close to the final cut of the film, but a few more changes were still to come.

The cast and crew were given the luxury of having two weeks of rehearsal time in late November 1984 prior to filming. Holland blocked out the scenes on a soundstage and the cast performed the entire film like it was a stage play. Having begun his career as a classically trained actor, Holland encouraged the cast to write biographies of their characters so they would completely understand their motivations and be able to draw on that information while filming their scenes. All of the kinks in the story/performances were ironed out during the rehearsal period, so when time to film came, Holland only shot two or three takes of each scene and then moved on.

As originally written, Jerry Dandrige was more villainous, so Sarandon tried to find various ways to humanize the vampire, including suggesting the implication that the Amy character was the reincarnation of his long-lost love. "I wanted to give the audience something to hold onto in terms of understanding that this was someone who was at one time--and still is, in certain respects--a thinking, feeling human being", Sarandon said. "This is a man who has been hunted for all his post-human existence, but who has fallen in love a number of times, and who in a sense, longs for a normal existence." Sarandon also did research into bats and discovered that most of the world's bat populations are frugivores, so he concluded, "Jerry had a lot of fruit bat in his DNA." This explains why his character is frequently munching on apples, which Sarandon decided his character was using to "cleanse his palate"[8] after draining blood from his victims.

Stark and Sarandon had not picked up on Holland's intended gay subtext when they were developing their characters. "I didn't have any sense of it as being anything other than Renfield and Dracula", Chris Sarandon recalled. "I think there was sort of an asexual quality to the relationship that was sort of borderline homoerotic but not in the sense that it was creepy." For the scene in which Jerry pulls down the window shade and it looks as though Billy is about to perform oral sex on him, Stark remembered, "I'm cleaning his hand and Tom Holland said, 'No, get down on your knees.' 'Okay, Tom.' Then when I saw the film, I thought, 'Oooooh, okay.'"

McDowall also did a lot of work on his character, and made a conscious decision to pattern his performance after the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. "My part is that of an old ham actor, I mean a dreadful actor. He realizes it but doesn't admit it. He had a moderate success in an isolated film here and there, but all very bad product. This poor sonofabitch just played the same character all the time, which was awful. And then he disappeared from sight, 15 years beforehand. He's been peddling these movies to late night TV, various syndicated markets – he'd go six months in Iowa, six months in Podunk." McDowall commented to Fangoria, "He's got such a sad life, he's sort of cowardly and then he finds his strength as a human being." Despite the pathetic character he was portraying, McDowall was a pillar for the cast and crew. "He was a kind of Yoda on the set", commented Sarandon. Recalled Ragsdale, "He had his video camera on his shoulder and he was shooting, like, family movies the whole time."

Sarandon recalled that Holland collaborated with choreographer Dorain Grusman in shooting a disco dance scene to have Bearse's character physically changing so that "she goes from this rather dewy, innocent-looking girl to this femme fatale; she kind of grows up right before your eyes." The scene also established Amy discovering Jerry actually was a vampire.

Filming

Principal photography commenced on December 3, 1984, and wrapped on February 23, 1985. At the time of production, Fright Night was Columbia's lowest-budgeted film and they did not have high expectations for it, so they were focusing all of their attention on the John Travolta/Jamie Lee Curtis film Perfect, which they were certain was going to be a blockbuster. "They never even came to the set", Holland said. "I was left alone. It was totally my film without studio interference."

Generally, filming went off without a hitch, but a few mishaps did occur, including an incident in which Ragsdale broke his ankle while running down a staircase. The schedule had to be reorganized, but filming continued. "Nobody panicked. In fact, I think that the thing I'll remember most about this movie is everyone's spirit and humour." The cast and crew seemed to meld with a singular vision of making the best movie possible. Early in production, Holland invited Fangoria writer Abbie Bernstein to visit the set as often as she liked, and she took him up on his offer. Of the wrap party in March, Bernstein wrote, "It's fun and pleasant, but it lacks the intense camaraderie of the set."

Make-Up and Visual Effects

Richard Edlund was the head of visual effects, and his team had just completed work on Ghostbusters, which worked to the advantage of Fright Night. "They had made all of their mistakes with how to do the matte shots and everything on Ghostbusters, with their huge budget", Holland commented, "so they really knew how to do [the special effects] as inexpensively and efficiently as it could be done at the time."

The most excruciating part of the makeup process for the cast was the contact lenses. In those days, the lenses were hard plastic, which Steve Johnson hand-painted (throwing some glitter into the mix), lacquered, and sanded. The cast could only wear them for a maximum of 20 minutes because they were virtually blind in them, and they were thick and painful, and dried out their eyes. A set was made for Stark to wear when he was in his final pursuit of Peter and Charley, but he kept tripping on the stairs. Holland told him to take one out, and he was then able to perform the scene. Three sets were made for Amanda Bearse, but one of them caused her agonizing pain, which she initially tried to endure. When it finally became too much to bear, she took the contacts out and the crew realized they had forgotten to buff them. For the scene in Mrs. Brewster's bedroom, Geoffreys kept his contacts in for nearly 40 minutes, resulting in scratches on his eyeballs for months afterward.

For the transformation sequences, up to 8 hours were needed to prepare Sarandon's makeup. Sarandon was uncomfortable spending that long sitting in a chair doing nothing, and since he had experience doing his own makeup for his work on the stage, he volunteered to help. He did some of the stippling, and while the makeup men were applying prosthetics to his face and head, he worked on the finger extensions. Sarandon has often joked that the rubber fingers caused difficulties whenever he had to urinate, so costume supervisor Mort Schwartz constantly offered to help him. "I said to Morry, 'Thank you, no, I'll just use a coat hanger!'" Co-star Ragsdale recalled one instance when Sarandon spent an entire day in the makeup chair, and when he was finally fully transformed into the monster, a producer informed him that they were not going to be able to shoot the scene that day. "And Chris said, 'Okay,' and turned around and went and took it off, it was amazing!" Ragsdale exclaimed. "I would have gone through the roof, but he didn't. His will had been broken by that point!"

The makeup for Evil Ed's wolf transformation took 18 hours. While he had the wolf head on, the crew began pouring what they thought was methylcellulose into his mouth to create the illusion of saliva, but when Geoffreys began to complain about the taste, Mark Bryan Wilson realized they had been using prosthetic adhesive, which was gluing his mouth shut.

On Christmas Eve, during the shooting of a scene where he is running down a staircase, Ragsdale accidentally tripped and broke his ankle, resulting in the film being temporarily put on a hold until he could recover. "Rod Martin, a trainer for the Los Angeles Raiders, came in every day to wrap the foot for me, and the shooting schedule was rearranged to put off the action sequences until it mended." said Ragsdale. Many scenes were shot with his foot in a cast, including the scene in which Jerry comes to Charley's room to attack him. For shots in which Charley's feet were visible, the costumers slit Ragsdale's shoes in several places, slipped them on and then covered the portions of white cast that peeked through the slits with black cloth. For the scene in which Jerry is carrying Charley by the throat with one hand, Sarandon was simultaneously pushing Ragsdale along on a furniture dolly.

The shot of Jerry pulling the pencil out of his hand was achieved by having a spring-loaded, collapsible pencil glued to his palm and an eraser-tip loosely attached to the back of his hand. When he turns his hand and pulls the spring-loaded piece from his palm, out of shot a monofilament wire jerked away the tip, so when he turns it back, it appears as though he has pulled it straight through his hand. "So we go to the editing room", FX man Steve Johnson recalled of an early cut, "and Tom had put a reaction in the middle of it, ruined the entire shot!"

The crew attempted to achieve the illusion of the cross-scar vanishing from Evil Ed's forehead live on-set, but the effect was a resounding failure. In that predigital age, Edlund's crew was able to alter the film using optical photography to achieve the effect.

Filming of the sequence with the bat was difficult for effects veteran Randall Cook, who kept winding up on film while puppeteering the creature. Further complications ensued when the bat tries to bite Roddy McDowall's character and he forces a bone into its mouth; getting the puppet to bite was difficult, and then McDowall jerked the bone too hard and broke the bat's skull. The bat was quickly patched, but the required repairs forced them to wait two days to shoot more close-ups.

Release/Reception/Box Office

Fright Night garnered critical acclaim, holding a 92% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes; the average rating is 7.35/10 based on 36 reviews. The site's consensus reads: "Fright Night deftly combines thrills and humour in this ghostly tale about a man living next to a vampire."

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four and wrote, "Fright Night is not a distinguished movie, but it has a lot of fun being undistinguished". Variety praised Sarandon's performance, writing that he "is terrific as the vampire, quite affable and debonair until his fingernails start to grow and his eyes get that glow". Colin Greenland gave a negative review for White Dwarf #75, stating "We may be justified in suspecting that a film which has such contempt for its characters has contempt for its audience, too."

Fright Night's widest release was 1,545 theatres. The film made $6,118,543 on opening weekend (1,542 theatres, $3,967 average). The domestic gross came to $24,922,237. It performed the best of any horror film released during the summer of 1985 and was the second-highest grossing horror film of 1985, surpassed only by A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge.

Budget $7–$9.25 million

Box office $24.9 million

My Review

Before I first watched Fright Night, I admit I was unsure about what to think about it. All I knew about it was from what I had been told from my Dad (though his likes/dislikes are generally on par with mine, they sometimes border on plain stupid). But when I saw it to the end, I was almost totally converted.

Although the beginning is a bit cheesy and reminiscent of stereotypical horror B-movies, it soon becomes clear that this is part of what makes Fright Night so original. All the typical horror film genres are there: horror, romance, comedy (well maybe comedy isn't a typical horror element); but what makes this horror flick stand out a mile-and-a-half from the rest is that it's a very offbeat tale. It's creepily cheesy but gets away with it because it's atmosphere is so good.

All this and I haven't mentioned the acting or special effects yet. Sarandon seems to give such an effortless performance as the vampire and as a result is almost perfect. I had thought of what a modern day vampire would be like before I saw Fright Night; but Jerry Dandridge just blew all these ideas away and has to be the coolest (and I don't often use that word) and sexiest vampire ever, and is one of my favourite movie villains. Roddy McDowall can't hold a candle to Sarandon but is still very good, and Stephen Geoffreys is one of the funniest and memorable movie characters ever to grace a film screen too.

The special effects are good for 1985 and unlike where in modern films the SFX are the main point in the movie, here they add to the already present chilling atmosphere. And although on the one hand, Fright Night is quite dated, it also captures the atmosphere and the essence of the 80s. The soundtrack is excellent for the film, but paradoxically not very memorable (apart from one or two good songs).

{I wish I'd been born before 1981 (maybe 1961) so that I could have lived in the late-70s and 80s, and would have memories of the best music from that time, and not the boybands/Beatles clones/dance ditties (not decent tunes mind) we have now.}

I love movies of all genres, and Fright Night was an example of a movie that I watched many times as a 14 year old and loved every minute of it. At 19 I revisited it once hearing of its remake, and it is every bit as good as I remembered, in fact it is one fangtastic (pardon the pun) movie. The film still looks great, with atmospheric costumes(great authentic fashions!), sets and lighting with skilled cinematography, cool make-up and impressive(even for now) effects. The score gives its film its perfect sense of quirkiness and creepiness. The story is straightforward admittedly, but also very well paced and compelling, and the script has the odd scary moment but is very wickedly funny. The acting is great, William Ragsdale and Amanda Bearse appeal, and Roddy McDowell is magnificent but it is Chris Sarandon's funny, creepy and very sexy performance that makes Fright Night such a delight. All in all, a true delight. 9.3/10!!!!