On the more light hearted side we've got 1985's FRIGHT NIGHT, a movie you can file under "I can't believe you've never seen this one before!" Well, now I've seen it, so get off my ass.
A suburban teenager (William Ragsdale) begins to suspect his new neighbor (Chris Sarandon) is a vampire after he sees his new neighbor doing clearly vampire-type-stuff right in front of the window. His girlfriend (Amanda Bearse) doesn't believe him, his mom (Dorothy Fielding) wants to invite the vampire over, and the only guy the teen can turn to is B-movie horror icon turned local creature feature host turned recently unemployed actor, Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall).
Of course, McDowall doesn't believe the teen either, but it isn't long before the vampire stuff starts piling up so much that he's forced to become a real-life vampire hunter, anyway.
The first half of the film is a nice little comedy with likable characters. Even the vampire's pretty likable. The second half transforms into a real special effects spectacular with some genuinely inventive scenes. All throughout, the movie sticks to its vampire mythology and walks us through all the usual rules – crosses, mirrors, holy water, stakes, etc.
Much of the film's humor comes from the matter of fact way the characters approach these things. In too many movies like this characters are made to act in ways that no human would act because the writers want them to do contrived things. In this one, the teenage hero just flat out tells the cops what's going on, right in front of the bad guys. None of that weird secret-keeping that people do in movies like this. So, that's funny, plus the look on the villain's face when he sees that the kid is ratting on him is funny, plus the incredulity of the cop is funny, and so on.
One of the greatest conceits of the film is that McDowall (and the others) are actually frightened of the vampires. In too many films like this regular people just transform into badasses at a moments notice, as the screenplay needs them to. Not in this one. In this one, our heroes are actually scared of the fact that the vampire could destroy them as easily as a person could squash a fly. There's humor in that, but also pathos, as you actually believe these characters are three-dimensional. That's the greatest trick you can play – work three-dimensional characters into a genre picture.
Of special note here is Chris Sarandon's great vampire performance, giving us both what we expect from a vampire and keeping a unique little human twist in there as well. He has a great way of seeming simply annoyed by his human foes, the way a real vampire might. He views the hero of the movie as a pesky kid, not his arch nemesis, and that's a big reason the movie works as well as it does.
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