Fright Night vs. Fright Night

I finally watched the 2011 Fright Night remake a little over a week ago. I only tweeted my less than impressed opinion because I felt there was no point in wasting my time and energy writing a full review. After someone tweeted a review defending this as better than the 1985 original (and some of the replies agreed with it), I changed my mind. Sort of. This post will mostly point out the biggest differences between the two movies and why these changes don't really work. Warning: SPOILERS ahead.

There is one moment in the remake that was genuinely surprising, a single one: Charlie's failed rescue of his neighbour. That's it.

The 2011 remake injected stereotypical American high school dynamics into the plot, so we end up with an ex-geek Charlie who abandoned his bestie Ed (and a third friend who dies right in the beginning) when he started dating hot, popular Amy. There are even a couple of bullies who mock Ed. It's Ed (and the third friend) who have been investigating all the disappearances and vampiric attacks. There seems to be a lot of those. Clearly this Jerry is way sloppier than original Jerry. Even worse, he's been attacking people who live in the neighbourhood!

I don't get why the remake switched Charlie and Ed's roles in the Jerry investigation. Was it so instead of seeing Charlie investigating, we could witness the same tired teen drama about the not cool kids trying to get in with the popular crowd we've seen countless times before? It's also hard to believe that a whole middle class family disappeared and no one bothered to look into it. You can't just say everybody thinks they moved without telling anyone. Didn't they leave any friends behind? You know, someone who would notice they simply vanished?

In the original, the mundane setting was part of the fun: who would expect a vampire to move in next door in a normal neighbourhood? In the remake, seeing how no one notices people disappearing and a house exploding, all this might as well have been taking place in a ghost town. And no, having the characters talk about how people are moving out doesn't explain it.

Ed's turning is crap. In the original, it was easy to see why outsider Ed would be seduced by Jerry's sympathetic demeanour. Here, not only had Jerry been actively trying to kill him just five seconds earlier, but also Ed is just your typical American teen movie nerd, nothing more. And for all his complaining about Charlie abandoning him, he still had a friend. A friend Jerry killed. Did Ed forget about that? When you add this to the way he talks about Amy later, he comes across as a piece of shit. Why should I, or anyone seeing this, care about him?

The original Peter Vincent was a soon-to-be unemployed actor who used to play a vampire hunter in old horror movies that Charlie watched. The new and improved one is a Vegas artist who makes horror-themed shows. He also has a collection of genuine vampire-related artifacts, real knowledge about the undead, and later we learn that he saw his parents being killed by a vampire, more specifically, Jerry. WTF?! Why do this? Why? What's the point of turning the character into its complete opposite?

The team behind 2011 Fright Night clearly believes bigger is better, and added a long sequence that sees Jerry dig up a gas pipe from the Brewsters' backyard and use it to blow up their house because he hadn't been invited in, after which he follows and attacks them as they try to escape by car. May I remind you that Charlie and his mother live in a residential area? Yes, it's night-time, but it doesn't seem to be that late and it's definitely not that dark.

We're expected to accept that the explosion caused absolutely no permanent or even temporary damage to Charlie, his mother, and Amy. But somehow, when Charlie's mother bumps her head after fainting, she ends up unconscious at the hospital. Surely there were less dumb ways to keep the character away from the action.

Another weird decision was introducing the loophole that says crucifixes only work if the person holding them has faith during the roadside confrontation. Sure, most people were probably shocked when the cross caught fire, but if that's a thing, why does Charlie later fill his mother’s hospital room with crosses to protect her? He already saw it's useless.

Original Jerry didn't really have a backstory. The only hint at his past was the painting of the Amy lookalike. The vampire lore used was the same one that appears in most vampire movies. The 1985 Fright Night didn't overcomplicate things. In the 2011 Fright Night, there are different species of vampires with their own crests and Jerry's particular kind likes to turn people and live in groups. This of course allows for a bigger final fight, when Charlie and Vincent have to face a whole nest of vampires rather than just Jerry and his familiar, Billy (who, by the way, doesn’t exist in the remake) (hmm, how is Jerry doing all the things that require him to walk around during the day?)

In the original, the painting explained Jerry's interest in Amy. In the remake, we have to accept she's just that awesome. It's also weird comparing the two kidnapping scenes. In 1985, a bouncer tried to stop Jerry because Amy is a teenager. In 2011, a bouncer just rolls his eyes at Charlie and says Amy, who's being bitten at the time, seems to be enjoying it. Jerry leaves with an unconscious Amy thrown over his shoulder and no one cares.

The finale has a quick confrontation between Jerry and Peter Vincent, but of course who really matters is Charlie. It's pretty ridiculous that a centuries old supernatural creature with a bunch of undead minions can't beat those two. At least in the original, Jerry only had Billy and Ed, who's injured before Charlie and Vincent go to save Amy.

The script of the 2011 remake of Fright Night was written by Marti Noxon, who was a producer and writer on Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. This explains a lot.

The glaring differences in tone and characterization is why I don't understand how anyone can say this is better than the original as if it's some sort of upgrade. The 2011 remake wasn't even trying to be the same type of movie, and the result is downright forgettable. Is it because the original isn't violent or dark enough? None of the changes added anything to the 1985 Fright Night, they just served to take all its originality and replace it with stereotypes and generic storytelling.

After watching the 2011 Fright Night, I can't help wondering why the people behind it even wanted to remake the original in the first place. With some light rewriting this could have easily been an original movie.

By Danforth