Fright Night is a BIG DEAL for me. I used to throw parties in my early teens--horror-themed parties--and even had a 'Horror Club' in my back yard. I had a pretty cool "mini-house" that my aunt and uncles built for me, where we would make movies, watch movies, talk movies, and read Fangoria Magazine every week. Ok and we would engage in devilish sexual experiments that would take our minds and genitals to the end of sanity and then back again, but thats another story! Fright Night was always on the play list. We'd eat pizza, discuss the super-sweetness of Roddy McDowell, Ponder why they would cast an actress with NO BOOBS, and call each other "Brewster." Dialogue from the film has made its way into my films over and over again through the years. It's been my way of giving a wink to the awesomeness that is Fright Night. It's fun to hear from fans when they spot a reference.

To me Fright Night is a perfect horror film. The characters and dialogue are awesome and cheesy. The performances almost Hammer-like in their execution, especially from the Brilliant Roddy McDowell who's "Peter Vincent, Vampire Killer," is one of my all time faveorite movie characters. I mention Hammer films a lot when I talk about Fright Night, and I don't know what it is. Just the mood, vibe and atmosphere of the flick--its like a Hammer movie with state of the art FX! (for the 80's) which were amazingly created by Steve Johnson and Richard Edlund. Tom Holland really captured the look, feel and fun of classic horror melded with Halloween hijinx. And to this day I have only seen one other filmmaker do that--Tim Burton and his films--most profoundly in Sleepy Hollow--showcase the love and homage to Hammer's House of Horrors.

In August 2007 it came full circle for me. 20 years had gone by since first seeing Fright Night. At the Monster Mania Con. in New Jersey they hosted a Fright Night reunion where I got to MEET "Jerry Dandrige" himself, Chris Sarandon, "Evil Ed"--Stephen Geoffreys and "Amy" Amanda Bearse. Unfortunately William Ragsdale was not attending, and as we all know the Great Roddy McDowell passed on in 1998. Perhaps he's slaying ghostly vampiers in the after life...but in the visage of an ape...hmmm the thought is just too super sweet to contemplate! Or is it???...

Fright Night will always be in my top 10 favorite films list, and will always be one of those flicks that I can pop in over and over again when I want to feel like a kid again, sitting there and letting it entertain the hell out of me. (On a side note--for about 12 years or so I have proudly displayed a Fright Night theatrical poster, framed, on my walls, and now the sucker is SIGNED by a few of the actors that have truly given me a Fright...Muahahahahahahah!!!....Ummm...yeah...stupid, I know, but GO WATCH FRIGHT NIGHT NOW, YA MOOKS!!)

Oh, and Columbia Pictures/Sony, please put out a special edition DVD!!

Now, to end with some of my favorite quotes which are thrown about often around the Seaver household:

"See you Charlie...soon..."

"Ah, Mister Vincent, I've seen all of your films and I've found them very amusing."

"Oh, you're so cool Brewster."

"There are no such things as vampires, fruit cake."

"Welcome to Fright Night...for real."

"I am Peter Vincent, fearless Vampire Killer." (Said with backwards stake, ready to strike!)

Remembering FRIGHT NIGHT

by Casey Bowker

It's a crisp October evening and I'm fourteen years old. Me and my buddy, Chris Walk, are at the local video store taking advantage of their "five movies, five days, five bucks" deal. One of the best inventions of our time if you ask me. Anywho, we usually perused the horror, sci/fi, and action sections and picked out some choice hits and a lot of bad ones as well. This night, we were going to be blessed. We get back to my house, exhausted from peddling so fast in anticipation of the Friday night movie marathon. Chris takes out the flicks and we go through the list: Evil Dead 2, Lodus:Queen Pimp, Bad Taste, Child's Play2, and a little ol' vampire movie called Fright Night.

Chris Walk, being a junior blood-sucker in training, we went with the latter. The first time I saw Roddy McDowell's, "Peter Vincent", I was mesmerized. The way he lingered on every syllable. Letting it stay on his lips a little longer than was necessary to accentuate that he WAS a VAMPIRE KILLER, not to be trifled with! It was pure genius. William Ragdale's quirky and loveable, Charlie Brewster, Stephen Geoffries succulent "Evil", and Amanda Bearse's innocent"Amy" are all characters that I instantly fell in love with and covet to this day. But the coup de 'grat is really Chris Sarandon. Sarandon delivered a vampire master like none other. The way he pierced your soul with his brown poop like eyes. The way he danced his way through a delightful discoteque. And of course, as he devoured an apple in only one bite!

All these elements made his Jerry Dandridge one of the 80's most iconic vamps! You all know the story, or at least you should. If you don't then I will let you in on it now. It's a classic retelling of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." Charlie is a teen who is caught up in the world of his old horror movies. When too-cool playboy, Jerry Dandridge, moves in next to him, Brewster begins to think that he is the killer who is slaying the women in his town and is in fact a VAMPIRE!!! His paranoia begins to get to his girlfriend Amy and his best friend Evil; eventually they try to convince his idol and host of Fright Night, Peter Vincent, to help them make Charlie change his mind about Mr. Dandritch.

He is obsessed with a show called "Fright Night" that showcases movies like the Hammer flicks and Universal Monsters. The show is hosted by Peter Vincent. A Vaudevillian boner that is the epitome of schlocky coolness. Everything that comes out of Mr. Vincent's mouth is pure gold and McDowell plays the role to a T. So, when Charlie gets a new neighbor, Jerry Dandridge, he begins to suspect he is one of the vampires from his fave Peter Vincent movies. He drags along his girlfriend Amy, his best friend Evil, and eventually even Peter Vincent himself to try to convince them that he's not crazy. Come to find out, he was actually right all along and now it's their job to save Amy from Jerry Dandridge and save the town from a vampire's penchant for apples and hoes.

The movie is filled with an hour and a half of vampire 80's wetness and every inch is a whirlwind of adventure. The jokes, the effects and the McDowell all hold up even today. In fact, other than maybe From Dusk Til Dawn, I don't think I've seen a vampire movie that can even compare to Fright Night. So if you want to laugh your ass off, get grossed out by how GAY Stephen Geoffries is, or see the voice of Jack Skellington totally look like Quentin Tarantino when he vamps out, then Fright Night is the movie for you!

Click Here to Read Part 2 of our Fright Night Retrospective.