Revisiting Cult Classics

Revisiting: “Fright Night” (1985)…

Where were you when “Fright Night” hit the big screen?

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There are numerous vampire movies. Some movies, even counting the divisive productions, are significantly better than others. Tom Holland’s Fright Night (1985), the original rather than the remake, is every bit a cult classic vampire movie as The Lost Boys (1987). Holland’s movie, while being a financial success at the box office, achieved cult status after the VHS release hit store shelves.

Let’s not forget, in the mid-1980s, DVD, Blu-ray, and streaming services weren’t a thing. VHS players, like coffee pots in the kitchen, were in virtually every living room across the United States.

Fright Night, with more than a few comedic scenes, is a successful blend of genres that shouldn’t work. Comedy, horror, school peer groups, teenage desire, and family drama all seem to play a part. There is something for almost everyone in this movie.

If Fright Night were made today, given how practical effects aren’t used as much, the reliance on CGI would be too great. Fright Night works because Richard Edlund’s studio utilized practical visual effects. The physical transformations seen in the movie, some more grotesque than others, were well executed.

Peter Vincent, somewhat reminiscent of characters portrayed by horror icons Peter Cushing and Vincent Price, is played by Roddy McDowall. The character’s name is a clear homage to both Cushing and Price.

In the opening scenes, on his television screen, Charley Brewster is watching a movie starring Peter Vincent. Vincent is deliberately played as a bad actor. Seriously. Did anyone else catch, as the so-called vampire killer went in for the kill, that Vincent is holding the wooden stake with the pointy bit toward himself?

McDowall’s character, not exactly Van Helsing, is a late-night television host who claims he’s a vampire killer. Vincent, long past his prime, doesn’t believe what he spouts on television.

Living paycheck to paycheck, noting his dwindling audience, Vincent can’t make ends meet. Vincent, when Amy Peterson offers him $500, quickly accepts it.

The use of a prop from one of his movies, a mirror, reveals the existence of vampires. Vincent is visibly quaking in his shoes. He can’t get out of the vampire’s house fast enough. It’s a fun scene. McDowall’s character, with his confidence drained in seconds, is terrified. He doesn’t know what to do because he’s never faced a real vampire.

Charley Brewster, in many ways, is a stereotypical “boy next door” character. Trying to get into his girlfriend’s pants, as we see early in the movie, is initially his primary goal. Curiously, but not entirely all that surprising, Brewster is easily distracted. He doesn’t always give Amy Peterson, his girlfriend, the attention she deserves.

Brewster’s knowledge of vampires, limited by his youthfulness, stems from late-night horror movies and Vincent’s failing television series. He lives with his mother in a quiet Iowa suburb. His father, not referenced in the movie, is out of the picture.

The cast, further to McDowall, includes Chris Sarandon, William Ragsdale, Amanda Bearse, Stephen Geoffreys, and Art J. Evans. When Fright Night was cast, judging from their acting credits, the cast members were at different points in their respective careers. Some of the cast members, while a few were fairly new, had been working within the industry for decades.

Everyone who knows Sarandon’s work, and there are very few people who don’t, will immediately connect his face with Prince Humperdinck and the movie The Princess Bride (1987). Here, in Fright Night, Sarandon plays the vampire antagonist Jerry Dandrige.

In several scenes, something I immediately picked up on the first time I saw Fright Night, Sarandon can be seen eating fruit. Between takes, with fellow cast members, Sarandon had apparently joked that his character could be part fruit bat.

Ragsdale, when cast in Fright Night, had only appeared in one movie. Before Fright Night, playing a service station attendant, Ragsdale can be seen in Screams of a Winter Night (1979). Personally, because I haven’t seen the movie, I can’t say anything good or bad about Screams of a Winter Night.

Bearse, even though she had performed admirably in Fright Night, didn’t return for the second movie. Since making Fright Night, one of her earliest movies, Bearse starred in Married… with Children (1987–1997), The Earth Day Special (1990), and Anger Management (2013). I can’t help wondering why, three years after Fright Night hit the big screen, Bearse’s character wasn’t included in the 1988 sequel Fright Night: Part 2.

Edward “Evil Ed” Thompson, played by Stephen Geoffreys, got what was coming to him. The character, aptly nicknamed “Evil Ed”, isn’t exactly my favorite. I found him annoying. It’s as simple as that. I wasn’t remotely surprised, with there being three teenagers, one of them got bitten. Some three years later, in 976-EVIL (1988), Geoffreys did a better job playing Hoax Arthur Wilmoth than he did with “Evil Ed”.

Evans, possibly better known for playing Leslie Barnes in Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990), plays Detective Lennox. It is a fairly brief appearance. If you had seen Fright Night in 1985, five years later, there is a small chance you would have wondered where you saw Evans. Evans, largely portraying supporting characters, is an actor with a huge screen presence. He appeared in numerous television series and movie productions. Evans, never typecast, would try any genre.

Rounding out the cast, just as important to the story as the main cast members, note the presence of Jonathan Stark, Dorothy Fielding, Stewart Stern, Robert Corff, Pamela Brown, Nick Savage, Ernie Holmes, and Heidi Sorenson.

Many men familiar with Playboy magazine knew of Sorenson. Sorenson, playing a prostitute that quickly became one of Dandrige’s victims, was a well-known Playboy Playmate.