I am definitely not a horror movie fan by any stretch, but I chose to see Fright Night because it looked like a combination of comedy and horror, and Colin Farrell was playing the vampire. Horror movie fans will probably like the movie, but it was a bit too gory for my taste.
Charley (Anton Yelchin, "The Beaver") lives in the suburbs of Las Vegas with his mom (Toni Collette, TV's "The United States of Tara"). He used to be a geek, and would hang out with his best friend, Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, "Kick-Ass"), but recently he started dating one of the prettiest girls in school (Imogen Poots, "Jane Eyre") and has a new group of "popular" friends. Charley's dad left him and his mom when he was little, so when a new guy, Jerry (Colin Farrell, "Horrible Bosses") moves next door, Charley's mom ends up having a bit of a crush on him. Ed tries to warn Charley that something's not right with Jerry - he tells him he is a vampire - but Charley laughs this off, until he sees another neighbor, Doris (Emily Montague), go into Jerry's house one night and never come out. After he figures out Jerry is a vampire, he must save his friends and mother from him, which may prove to be harder than he originally thought.
Colin Farrell is fantastic in this film as the vampire. He has become a chameleon as of late, able to play a variety of characters - we last saw him in Horrible Bosses, which was a completely different type of a role than this one - and it's fun to watch him play "the bad guy." Christopher Mintz-Plasse is hilarious as well, and Dave Franco (TV's "Scrubs," and James's younger brother) plays one of Yelchin's new friends. David Tennant ("How To Train Your Dragon") also has an interesting role as Peter Vincent, a television star who knows more than he should about vampires and how to kill them. Yelchin and Collette are fine here too, but the real starts are undoubtedly Farrell and Mintz-Plasse, although Mintz-Plasse obviously does not have as much screen time as Farrell does.
Maybe see this film. I saw it in 3D and the 3D was pretty good, but I'm not really the type to like blood "flying" in my face. If you are a horror fan you will most likely like this movie, although I have to say that it wasn't actually very scary - it had more bloody scenes than "jump in your seat"-type ones. I also have not seen the original movie from 1985 on which it's based, but I've heard that the '85 version was more funny than scary.
Fright Night is in theaters today, August 19th, and is rated R with a runtime of 106 minutes
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Liz Parker is a 2009 graduate of the University of Michigan. She currently works as an Assistant Medical Editor for a pathology website. Visit her at her movie blog Yes/No Films