Month of Horror - Day Eleven: Fright Night

"Who are you that interupts my nightly feeding?"

Fright Night is the type of movie I would have loved when I was a kid--had I been allowed to watch R-rated movies. Don't worry, The Little Vampire was a fine replacement. So were the made-for-TV Goosebumps shorts. This movie has all my favorite things from back then, monsters, jokes, and boobs. Tonight, we right a childhood wrong and watch a movie that I'm sure to like more than Disney's Halloweentown or any of the other God-awful Horror Films for Families I was subjected to throughout my formative years.

When an attractive gay couple moves in next door to a nosy teen with voyueristic hobbies, trouble ensues as the boy accuses one of them of being a vampire. He builds a bullshit case with a slew of "evidence" like "he killed a woman" and "he drank her blood before shoving the remains in his car trunk." Typical bullshit like that. Like any young homophobe, he enlists the help of his straight, white, virgin girlfriend, his annoying buddy, and the local pedophilic TV host. Together, this ragtag group performs a series of Vampire Tests and then decides to commit a hate crime.

History has given us a plethora of lovable sidekicks. Millhouse, Gromit, and Ethel Merman, just to name a few. In some cases, you like the sidekicks more than their more celebrated counterparts. Chewie, Goose, and Pedro just to name a few. Other times, you hope the sidekick dies. Fright Night's "Evil" Ed Thompson is the most annoying character ever recorded onto celluloid. He's worse than Jar Jar. Worse than the Klumps. He's even worse than postpubescent Rudy Huxtable. The high levels of "awfulness" in voice and the lack of sleeves on his t-shirts puts this little jackass on my list. That's right, Evil Ed made the list, right between "Deities" and "Florida."

As a vampire movie, Fright Night works. It plays with the mythology, provides an appropriate amount of gore, and has an 80s soundtrack soon to be downloaded by this writer. The Lost Boys is definitely the best vampire flick of the decade, but this one's up there. The only problem with movies like this are that the first act sets up a group of antagonists and the last act is comprised of taking them out...one by one by one by one. It takes forever and the killings in Fright Night aren't that spectacular. That being said, when the straight, white, virgin gets lured into a life of vampirism, whoever was in charge of make-up should have won an Oscar. Want proof?