Film Brain Vomit: Fright Night (2011)

I love bad movies.  Bad horror and bad action, mainly.  I credit this to my father (who, strangely enough, mocks my taste in horrible movies) who enjoyed watching movies with explosions and my brother who used to manage a second-run movie theater and would invite me to the movie nights he had with his friends.  One time, my brother and his friends commandeered a room at the University of Cincinnati and we watched Anaconda and a few others into the wee hours of the morning while munching on pizza.  Watching movies with my brother and his friends was like being in Mystery Science Theater 3000, only with martial arts masters and physics geniuses instead of robots.

Because of these movie nights and my background, I have grown the taste for bad movies, but because I also have film theory behind me, I judge "bad movies" harshly.  To me there are bad movies that are done "right" and then there are bad movies that are done "wrong."

Who knew that there was a certain way to make crap?

Creating a campy movie is a skill.  A skill, that unfortunately, most filmmakers working today DO NOT, under any circumstances, HAVE.  It seems like they try so hard to make something suck so that in 10-15 years, it will "suddenly" become a cult classic... but that is not how it works.  Not even remaking a cult film will create another cult film.

The Fright Night remake is one of these poorly done "bad" films... however, inconsistent.

Thoughts on Peter Vincent

When I first saw the trailer and was reading about the film in a magazine, I was horrified that Peter Vincent was a magician.  I automatically thought, "Oh, great.  He's Criss Angel," (I hate magicians illusionists, but I loathe that guy the most) but was pleasantly surprised that he was not that bad and strangely enough, I liked this Peter Vincent better than the original horror show host.

Peter Vincent is played by David Tennant, who I believe is mainly known for his role in Doctor Who and for being Scottish.  He is rather attractive and probably lessened the blow of how awful the film is.

Thoughts on the film itself
The effects are terrible.  Someone told me that they thought the Fright Night film needed to be updated with current graphics.  I feel like they used technology from 2000... so while the effects were updated, they were not updated quite enough.  The chase scene in the car is the worst part.  It's all obviously green screened and is reminiscent of a ride that used to be at Kings Island.  It was one of those rides where you watch a movie screen and the seats move you according to what is happening.  The one that I am thinking of is a race car (and at one point was also 007, but it could easily be vampires instead).

The digital effects were overused and called attention to themselves.  The design of the vampires when they are about to feed is horrendous.  They look like digital cartoon sharks in a Scooby Doo film commissioned by SyFy.

The film started off remotely entertaining and the nods to the original did not go unnoticed.  The mention of Twilight made me cringe.  Is that really the only "vampire" novel they could come up with that is current?  The line is supposed to be a joke, but it's more vomit-inducing than funny.  After about the 20 minute mark, the film becomes just plain terrible.  I didn't even want to pause the movie so I could go pee because I knew I'd still have to finish it when I came back.

The film picks itself back up when there are about ten minutes left, but by that time my opinion of the entire film had already formed.  I did not go into it expecting much of anything and even though it was a lot better than I expected, I still ended up disappointed.  It's not a fun bad movie, but I'd gladly watch it again over some of the other films I've watched recently.