The hook could not be more simple. It is a classic retelling of the boy who cried wolf, updated for modern genre conventions, for the video store generation: What if you realized your next door neighbor was a vampire and absolutely nobody believed you? Writer/director Tom Holland brilliantly showcased both the inherent absurdity of the premise and the genuine horror of actually being in that situation. FRIGHT NIGHT did for vampires what SCREAM did for slashers, and it did it a decade earlier. It absolutely relies on, expands upon and sends up those iconic old tropes ranging from Universal to Hammer. The movie works like gangbusters regardless, but I can promise that the experience is truly elevated by having seen the films it’s commenting on.
FRIGHT NIGHT is so much more than a genre satire, though. It is a movie about false faces. About the person we present to the world to mask the person we are. Charley is facing this from the moment the movie starts, struggling to be macho and kind of pressuring his girlfriend Amy for sex, when he is just as scared and insecure and inexperienced as she is. He goes through several layers of this, as he comes off as frightened and paranoid for much of the movie when that’s actually hiding an assured sense of bravery that comes further into focus as the movie goes on and Charley realizes just how much he has to lose. His nemesis Jerry Dandridge is, of course, the exact opposite. He’s the perfect neighbor. Charming, pleasant, but behind that public face he is a pure predator.
This is one of my favorite movies of all time and one of my comfort films and yet even now I can watch it and pick up new things. There's an underrated level of craft here that's underappreciated, and I don't just mean the absurdly phenomenal effects. There's a terrific moment in which Evil Ed and Peter Vincent reminisce over one of Vincent's old roles, and Evil Ed says "the guy didn't have a reflection, and that's how you knew he was a vampire." I only just noticed that as Ed says this, his is the only reflection cut out of the mirror in the shot behind them, foreshadowing his transformation into a vampire. That's such a small moment, but there is so much deliberate work that goes into making that little moment happen.
FRIGHT NIGHT is very funny, but it's never treated like a comedy, which is one of its greatest strengths. It's a truly great teen movie out of a decade of great teen movies, because it's about insecurity from beginning to end. You're not cool, but you're cooler than your extremely weird best friend, you've got your first girlfriend and are totally insecure about the relationship, so caught up in when and how you're gonna fumble that relationship that you don't realize you're already fumbling it.
The movie it deals smartly with insecurity in sexuality, too. There's an attraction in addition to (or in expansion of) Charley's fear toward Jerry. Roddy McDowall gives my favorite performance in horror history as Peter Vincent, embodying one of my favorite tropes: the cowardly hero. It is unbelievable how over-the-top and layered and subtle he can be all at once. Peter is someone who couldn’t be further from the hero he used to be famous for playing in the movies, and yet the only one who really believes he can’t be that person is Peter himself. FRIGHT NIGHT is one of my all-time favorite films, in any genre, one of my top three favorite horror films of all time. It is pure comfort food with rich characters, a deeply engaging roller coaster, and some of the very best creature effects ever committed to film.