Category Archives: Thoughts

A few days ago I saw the remake of Fright Night (1985). My first impressions were mostly positive. It was fun and balanced the line between horror and comedy much like the original. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the original was better.

For the most part, I just assumed this was a case of me being old and seeing a remake of a favorite film that I first saw when I was in high school was making me be overly critical. However, the more I tried to narrow down why I felt the original was better I kept coming back to one key difference which is really disturbing.

If you’ve not seen either film, the plot basically revolves around a typical teenage boy who discovers that a vampire has moved in next door. It’s a little like a hip version of Hitchcock’s Rear Window.

In the original, the main character of Charley Brewster, played by William Ragsdale, is a sympathetic geek child of the 80’s. He is passionate about his fandoms, spends his nights watching old B&W horror movies on a late night TV show called Fright Night, which is hosted by a former star of these films, Peter Vincent, played by the awesome Roddy McDowell.

This version of Charley is loyal to his friends and a good kid, who just happens to love the old school horror films like the Universal Monster series or many of the selections from Hammer Films. It’s because of his interest in these old films though, that when he tells people there’s a real monster living next door, no one believes him.

In the new film, Charley, as played by Anton Yelchin, is kind of a douche. He’s the kind of person who gives up his friends and his interests, all to get a hot girlfriend. Now, I’m all for having a hot girlfriend, but what we’re really being sold here is the idea that women will only be interested in you if you’re a shallow idiot, and anything that isn’t partying “Dude”-like behavior is somehow childish and should be abandoned if you want to “grow up.”

Now this isn’t a new message by any means, there’s a long history of the media promoting the idea that in order to become an adult it’s time to put away the toys, get a job. Live. Work. Die.

What is surprising is that this antiquated thinking would be at the heart of a movie targeted to an audience who has spent the last decade basically proving this old notion wrong every day for the last decade.

At one point in the new film, they try to give us a moment where Charley revisits his past and maybe feels some regret about giving up on his friends, but ultimately that just re-enforces how much I dislike him. It’s made even worse at the end when the hot girlfriend confesses that she knew all along he used to be a geek and that it’s what made him different and why she finds him attractive. It’s almost patronizing. She may has well have said, “you were so cute when you were a kid, but I’m glad you don’t read comics anymore.”

It’s been mentioned by many and in much better ways than I can articulate, that we are currently living in the age of the geek. It’s finally ok to be interested and passionate about fandoms. Superheroes and sci-fi rule the box office and have become a staple of television.  Being told to pack away your toys these days sounds like an old man yelling at you to turn the music down. Perhaps “if it’s too loud, you’re too old” should now be “if you’re still hiding your Boba Fett action figure in a box in your mom’s basement, you’re too old.”

The original Charley stands as one of the great classic inspirational characters which helped bring about this cultural revolution we’re experiencing today. He was just like us, a kid who loved monster movies and through him, we could see ourselves up there on the screen.

The new Charley is not one of us.

-Timothy