Fright Night - 1985 vs. 2011
When they were making a remake in the 80s classic Fright Night I was.. well not surprised.. At all. There are so many few original ideas left out there so I would be more surprised if something new came along. Having said all that, some remakes are actually ok. There's not many but a few have been known to exist, such as The Thing where the original from 1951 and Carpenter's from 1982 are both insanely good, or The Fly from 1986 which is very close in greatness to the 1958 classic. After watching Fright Night 2011 I wasn't appalled actually, it was better than I expected. In the original Charley Brewster is the one discovering and is the initial believer of his neighbour being a vampire but in the remake Charley's loud mouth friend Ed is the one making the discovery, why they changed that bit I don't understand. In 2011 wonderful wonderful Anton Yelchin plays Charley and that is a plus for the new Fright Night for me, he is an amazing actor. However in this version Charley is this kid who has abandoned his friend for a cooler gang and is kind of an asshole to his friend, which is a minus. Actor wise the 2011 has an over hand, first with Yelchin and then with Colin Farrell, he is great in whatever he does and he kind of wins over the 80s Sarandon just by a nose, but the eighties version have a great win because they have the great Roddy McDowall as Peter Vincent while 2011 have David Tennant, and for Doctor Who fans that's great, unfortunately I am everything but a Doctor Who fan. The original Peter Vincent is an old man with Van Helsing kind of knowledge whether the new one is some kind of Las Vegas rock star vampire killer who drinks and have a harem around him, and frankly is quite ridiculous. There are a few big differences in the chain of events between these films, as it is in all remakes and all and all they are fine changes and the remake actually works, except the part where Charley is so ashamed of his geeky past, which is for me is, well out of the blue and doesn't really go with the story and they didn't take that from the original. Addition to all that, the Poster, both are awesome actually in different ways, the 80s great illustrated one and the 2011 with the great composition with Yelshin looking in to the camera, so there's a tie. So all and all the remake can stand on its own as a good vampire film, with a few flaws in the script, but obviously I prefer the original, I mean 80s vampire flick.. come on.
