Movie review in the Friday, Aug. 19 Oregonian....
The best surprise in the surprisingly entertaining "Fright Night" remake? How much fun Colin Farrell has playing a vampire.
The actor injects a million little bits of unnecessary-but-welcome business into his performance as Jerry, a 400-year-old bloodsucker who moves into a Las Vegas suburb -- pinballing between glares, grins, hisses, moments of pure animal sleaze, and sudden transformations into the sort of fratty neighbor who keeps calling you "guy."
In many ways, Farrell sets the tone for the rest of the movie, which is quite a bit more carefully constructed than the average horror-remake cash-grab. (And I write this as a fan of the 1985 original, which holds up well.)
Director Craig Gillespie ("Lars and the Real Girl") stages several witty, patient suspense set-pieces -- and uses 3-D for trashy, splatter-in-your-face laughs -- as he pits Jerry against the recovering-nerd teen next door (Anton Yelchin). A break-in at Jerry's house and a single-take siege on a moving car are standouts.
The screenplay by former "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" scribe Marti Noxon hands several "Buffy"-style moments to a strong ensemble that includes Toni Collette, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Imogen Poots and David Tennant.
I'd argue there's only one element here that doesn't meet or exceed the original: Tennant reinvents the great Roddy McDowall's role -- a burned-out horror host dragged into vampire-slaying -- as an absinthe-gulping, Criss Angel-style stage magician, and his role feels sort of half-baked, with none of McDowall's tweedy charm. Otherwise, "Fright Night" joins "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" as proof that you actually can do this sort of thing correctly.
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'Fright Night' (The Oregonian, Friday, Aug. 19, 2011)
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