Charlie Brewster and Peter Vincent in 'Fright Night' (1985)
Teenage horror movie buff Charlie Brewster (William Ragsdale) is convinced that
his next-door neighbor (Chris Sarandon), a man who moves in
during the dead of night and keeps a coffin in his basement, is an
honest-to-badness ... more vampire. Out-of-work late-night horror host Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall) isn't so sure but
plays along for a few bucks. Because the greatest weapon that a vampire has in
1985 -- before the culture went mad for Anne Rice and Buffy and the teen soap
opera of the "Eclipse" books -- is that no one really believes in the old-school
monsters anymore. The lively, self-aware "Fright Night" anticipated the vampire
movie revival with a witty and wily take on the genre and a pair of movie-buff
heroes who are hardly equipped to take on the real thing and know it. Which is
what makes them so much fun, especially McDowall as the washed-up horror movie
actor meeting real-life monsters and putting on the act of his life with equal
parts bluster and ham overkill.
