Oct 091985
 
three reels

High school student Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale), unfocused on his frigid girlfriend, Amy (Amanda Bearse), notices his new neighbors, Jerry Dandrige (Chris Sarandon) and Billy Cole (Jonathan Stark), carrying a coffin. Watching them through binoculars, he discovers that Jerry is a vampire. Fearing for his life, Charley seeks help from an old monster-movie, TV host, Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall).

It’s impossible for me to view Fright Night without thinking about how much time writer/director Tom Holland spent studying An American Werewolf in London. I can’t fault him for that. In the early ’80s, vampires needed a modern style and American Werewolf had style to spare. Both are horror-comedies, that don’t have a lot of laughs, but do have many light, playful moments.  Both take the traditional monsters (with the traditional rules) and place them comfortably in modern times. Both lack scares, but stick in action, gore, and a touch of nudity, all to a rock soundtrack. Both make substantial use of FX and makeup, with some of it working, and some not.  And both are entertaining.

Ragsdale is pleasant enough as the lead, and it’s easy to enter the story with him, but he is upstaged by Saradon, with his easygoing sexuality, and by McDowall, who has one the great voices in film.

Once the story gets going, it’s all fun, but the first third is uneven. To enlighten all the females and males who can’t recall their youth, no teenage boy will ignore a girl who is offering sex, particularly for the first time, for anything, of any kind. Period. Some guys carrying a box in a yard will not be a distraction. Nor would an atomic bomb. After this unlikely beginning, Charley takes ridiculous actions, telling his mother that Jerry is a vampire, without evidence, and calling the police, when there is nothing to find. Far worse than making Charley appear like an idiot, these scenes commit a far more grievous sin: they aren’t interesting. Gee, the police don’t believe in vampires. No kidding.

Or, perhaps I’m looking at Fright Night all wrong. Charley’s actions at the beginning might not make much sense in a vampire film, but in a tale of a young man confronting his homosexual feelings, it all fits into place. The gay subtext gets pretty overt. Charlie is far more feminine and emotional than the cold, butch Amy.  He’s distracted from certain sex with Amy by the arrival of Jerry Dandrige. Why? Have you seen Chris Sarandon? He’s a pretty, pretty man. Jerry is also living with an attractive younger man (even Charlie’s mother comments that they are probably gay) and they are very hands on. From that point on, Charlie forgets about the girl, always trying to be close to Jerry and gets very upset (jealous?) when he finds Jerry with women. Jerry eventually pops up in Charley’s bedroom, showing him that there is another side.

For help in dealing with his dilemma, Charley goes to the gayest man in town, Peter Vincent (an interesting name when looking at this for subtext). Then there is Charley’s friend, Evil Ed, who meets up with Jerry in an alley (Jerry is wearing a trench coat), where the older man tells the teen “You don’t have to be afraid of me. I know what it’s like being different…all you have to do is take my hand.” Meanwhile, Charley is hoping religion might free him from his demons. Peter Vincent also attempts to use religion, but due to his lifestyle, there is little comfort there.

Add in that Amanda Bearse was one of the first television stars to come out of the closet, and Stephen Geoffreys, who played Evil Ed, later made the films Mechanics bi Day, Lube Job bi Night, Transsexual Prostitutes, and Butt Blazer and it becomes too easy to think of Fright Night as an analogy for teenage homosexuality, though it takes a rather dim view of such desires. I can’t say that was the intention, but it’s hard to see how Holland could have put that much in accidentally.

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