Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four and wrote, " Fright Night is not a distinguished movie, but it has a lot of fun being undistinguished". [33] Variety praised Sarandon's performance, writing that he "is terrific as the vampire, quite affable and debonair until his fingernails start to grow and his eyes get that glow". [34] Colin Greenland gave a negative review for White Dwarf #75, stating "We may be justified in suspecting that a film which has such contempt for its characters has contempt for its audience, too." [35] Accolades [ edit ] Award Richard Edlund was the head of visual effects, and his team had just completed work on Ghostbusters, which worked to the advantage of Fright Night. "They had made all of their mistakes with how to do the matte shots and everything on Ghostbusters, with their huge budget", Holland commented, "so they really knew how to do [the special effects] as inexpensively and efficiently as it could be done at the time." [10]

The makeup for Evil Ed's wolf transformation took 18 hours. [21] While he had the wolf head on, the crew began pouring what they thought was methylcellulose into his mouth to create the illusion of saliva, but when Geoffreys began to complain about the taste, Mark Bryan Wilson realized they had been using prosthetic adhesive, which was gluing his mouth shut. [21]

Contributors

a b c d e Abbie Bernstein (August 1985). "On the Set: Fright Night". Fangoria. O'Quinn Studios, Inc. (47): 32–35. Kindy, Dave (October 30, 2023). "Antique vampire-killing kits sell big at auction. They're mostly fake". The Washington Post . Retrieved October 30, 2023. Release [ edit ] Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Anton Yelchin at a screening of Fright Night at the Deauville American Film Festival in September 2011 Fright Night location information, casting calls and release date". OnLocationVacations.com. June 22, 2010 . Retrieved January 25, 2011. In 2011, Intrada Records officially issued the score on CD. Unfortunately, some of the master tapes had gone missing, so some of the music was transferred from lower-quality tapes. The limited-edition 2011 Twilight Time Blu-ray also included the complete isolated score.

McDowall also did a lot of work on his character, and made a conscious decision to pattern his performance after the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. [5] [7] [8] [13] "My part is that of an old ham actor, I mean a dreadful actor. He realizes it but doesn't admit it. He had a moderate success in an isolated film here and there, but all very bad product. This poor sonofabitch just played the same character all the time, which was awful. And then he disappeared from sight, 15 years beforehand. He's been peddling these movies to late night TV, various syndicated markets – he'd go six months in Iowa, six months in Podunk." [13] McDowall commented to Fangoria, "He's got such a sad life, he's sort of cowardly and then he finds his strength as a human being." [22] Despite the pathetic character he was portraying, McDowall was a pillar for the cast and crew. "He was a kind of Yoda on the set", commented Sarandon. Recalled Ragsdale, "He had his videocamera on his shoulder and he was shooting, like, family movies the whole time." [15] Choice Cuts: Tom Holland Interview pt. 2 (3/24/11)". youtube.com. March 24, 2011 . Retrieved September 13, 2014. Fright Night, an arcade-style computer game was released by Microdeal in 1988 for Amiga computers. In the game, players assume the role of Jerry Dandrige as he attempts to turn his victims into vampires before sunrise. [58] Stage [ edit ]The Projection Booth Special Report: Fright Night (1985)". Projection Booth. August 18, 2011 . Retrieved September 13, 2014.

As originally written, Jerry Dandrige was more villainous, so Sarandon tried to find various ways to humanize the vampire, [8] including suggesting the implication that the Amy character was the reincarnation of his long-lost love. "I wanted to give the audience something to hold onto in terms of understanding that this was someone who was at one time--and still is, in certain respects--a thinking, feeling human being", Sarandon said. [20] "This is a man who has been hunted for all his post-human existence, but who has fallen in love a number of times, and who in a sense, longs for a normal existence." Sarandon also did research into bats and discovered that most of the world's bat populations are frugivores, so he concluded, "Jerry had a lot of fruit bat in his DNA." [21] This explains why his character is frequently munching on apples, which Sarandon decided his character was using to "cleanse his palate" [8] after draining blood from his victims. Between 1988 and 1993, NOW Comics published 27 Fright Night comic books. The original film was adapted as the first two issues of the series, Fright Night Part 2 was adapted as a stand-alone graphic novel (which was not canonical with the series), and the rest of the issues consisted of original stories following the further exploits of Peter Vincent and Charley Brewster, who teamed up to battle a vast array of vampires and monsters. Amy Peterson and Billy Cole only appeared in the first two issues, but Evil Ed returned to become a constant foil, and Jerry Dandrige was ultimately resurrected and had just begun to amass an army of Parisian vampire prostitutes when Now Comics filed for bankruptcy. [53] Production halted in 1990 with issue #22, leaving the story incomplete. After corporate restructuring, four 3-D special issues were released between 1992 and 1993. Three of these releases were reprints of stories from the regular series while the fourth featured a previously unpublished story. In 2016, the album was re-released on vinyl in a variety of limited editions by Night Fever Records. This version includes a different mix of " Armies of the Night." Once his cast was in place, Holland got input from each of the actors and made numerous revisions to the script. Some were slight and others were major – such as the ending, which originally featured Peter Vincent transforming into a vampire as he returned to host Fright Night. [18] The September 6, 1984, draft of the screenplay, which is circulating online, [4] is very close to the final cut of the film, but a few more changes were still to come.Finke, Nikki (August 21, 2011). " 'Conan', 'Fright Night', 'Spy Kids 4D' Flatline; 'The Help' Needs No Help At No. 1, 'Apes' #2". Deadline Hollywood . Retrieved August 31, 2011. Colin Farrell accidentally disses his 'Fright Night' remake". ew.com . Retrieved September 13, 2014.

A straight-to-video homage sequel titled Fright Night 2: New Blood was filmed in Romania. It stars Will Payne, Jaime Murray, Sean Power, Sacha Parkinson, and Chris Waller. The film was released direct to DVD on October 1, 2013. [18] Though billed as a sequel, the film repeats the plot of the original and remake, with none of the 2011 cast, and no reference is made to events in the previous film (for example, the character of Evil Ed, killed in Fright Night, is alive in the "sequel"). Although the Fright Night album has been out of print for decades, several songs have surfaced on other albums, both in CD and digital mp3 format.

Notes

The Peter Vincent character was named after horror icons Peter Cushing and Vincent Price, and Holland specifically wrote the part for Price, [5] [8] but at this point in his career, Price had been so badly typecast that he had stopped accepting roles in horror movies. [11] Guy McElwaine, then the head of Columbia Pictures, suggested Roddy McDowall for the part. [12] McDowall had already starred in the Holland-penned film Class of 1984, so Holland was immediately receptive to the suggestion. "He understood the part", commented Holland, "and he also understood what he could do with it, and he really wanted it!" [7] McDowall was particularly interested in the genesis of the character. "In the film, I perform as being in my late 20s or early 30s in the film clips of my old movies-all the way up to my 60s, when I'm the washed-up has-been", McDowall adding that the role interested him because, "I'd never played anything that old." [13] Holland and McDowall built a lasting friendship, and McDowall eventually invited Holland to a dinner party where he introduced him to Vincent Price, who was flattered that the part was an homage to him and commented that the film "was wonderful and he thought Roddy did a wonderful job." [5] On February 12, 2019, Sony Pictures themselves re-released the film again on Blu-ray containing a new 4K remaster, which also included the remixed 5.1 audio and the original stereo mix. While it does exclude the isolated score, the booklet, and a few other special features, it also adds a few new special features not available on either of the Twilight Time releases. [40] The most difficult role to cast was Amy Peterson. "There wasn't the perfect girl next door until Amanda Bearse walked in", Holland commented. [7] Pre-production [ edit ]