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clo_againSO. I SAW FRIGHT NIGHT TODAY.
In case you missed my earlier post, or you didn't have my Twitter flailing inflicted on you, or just in case you've not spoken to me at all in the last month - I was excited* about this movie. Because hello, David Tennant as a Las Vegas magician in a movie with vampires, and great looking trailers, and Tennant in eyeliner on the posters and reviews that sounded very promising if not gushing, and did I mention Tennant? Yeah.
*More like EXCITED. Or possibly VERY VERY EXCITED.
In case you're now intrigued but prefer to watch than read my flail, have the official trailer:
(There is more David Tennant in this movie than it would appear from that particular trailer. Trust me, he gets a fairish amount of screentime, enough that I wasn't disappointed. :D I like this trailer better. )
> First is an admission: so you know I've been pretty er, obsessed with this movie for a month or so now? I've watched the trailers, I've googled pictures, I've read spoilers, etc etc. Admittedly a great part of that focus has been on Tennant but it's still pretty shameful that it took me until halfway through the movie to realise that Anton Yelchin (who plays the main character, Charley) wasn't just familiar from background bit parts in other movies; he was in the remade Star Trek>. He was baby!Chekov. I LOVE BABY!CHEKOV HOW DID THIS ESCAPE MY NOTICE WHAT. FAAAAAIL. I liked his character before that but from that point on I was very definitely all 'YES BABY!CHEKOV! KILL THE VAMPIRE WITH YOUR ADORABLENESS!' \o/ It was an unexpected joy in a movie that was already making me pretty joyful. :D
> Tennant. Oh my god Tennaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnttttt. \o/ The reviewer who said he steals every scene he's in wasn't lying; he gets great lines (him and his girfriend Ginger pretty much own the best jokes in the movie), he plays the fuck-you-world attitude of the perpetually-inebriated with sarcasm and veiled anger instead of slapstick (which is yes, perfect; I read that his character was an alcholic and cringed at the thought of how stupid they could play that but the laughs come from the dialogue instead which is great), he looks fantastic (no, really; the slow stripping off of all the Peter Vincent!magician outfit is mmmmmmm) and he's got backstory. I like baby!Chekov but I will go and see this movie again for Tennant. (Note: I was terrified that they may kill him off/vampirise him and THEN kill him off before the end. I'm not going to spoil whether or not they do. But I will say that he gets enough screentime to be satisfying. :D)
(His character also has some amazing homoerotic chemistry with Charley - it's not stated but I got the impression that his character (Tennant's, not Charley) was subtly meant to be bi? I could be reading into it or it could've been that Tennant played up the flirting aspect [you go there Tennant, transporting the BBC's Gay Agenda across the ocean!] but there was definitely room to read it that way. And as much as I liked the Charley/Amy main romantic pairing, I am hoping like crazy for this film to get enough of a fandom for some good Peter/Charley fic. Please internet. Do this for me? I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER.
> The girls that were in this movie kicked ass. End of. I was very fond of Ginger, Vincent's sarcastic girlfriend (I wondered for a while about why she put up with his crap when she seemed so self-assured but there's a moment I won't spoil that made me think he's genuinely fond of her, and though the screentime that their relationship gets mostly involves trading sarcasm and swear words, I think she's smart enough to know he's worth sticking around for underneath the alcohol and the attitude. Plus I got the impression that she enjoys swearing at him). The main female character, Amy, took a while to warm to on my part but looking back, I realise that the moment the audience really 'get' her is the same moment that Charley does; she originally comes across as kind of the stereotypical high school bitch-queen role and the moment they subvert that is really great.
Plus she gets to use weapons. Including a mace. \o/ GIRLS CAN KILL VAMPIRES TOO, HELL YES (I rather suspect that Marti Noxon being the scriptwriter meant that the girls got to be more awesome than they otherwise would've done. There's a really lovely (er, by some definitions of lovely) moment with Charley's blonde go-go dancer neighbour that again I won't spoil but it made me love her otherwise pretty-generic character a lot. You'll probably guess what it is when you go to see the movie (because you're going right? RIGHT?)
> Taken as a whole movie, this isn't the "best movie ever made omg" or anything like that; there's a couple of moments that would've benefitted from some slightly sharper editing for example, and the scene where Vincent talks about his past really really could've done with an extra writing edit because the dialogue just doesn't flow but believe me when I say it is a good movie. It knows exactly what it is; a remake of a slightly-ridiculous eighties movie about the vampire next door but it manages to play that for serious without being OTT. The characters feel genuinely in peril, you really do care if they survive and you get some good giggles in between some genuine shock!jump moments that never try to be anything other than fun. There's no making the audience feel uncomfortable here, like there might be a vampire hiding under your seat-type terror or overdosing on the gore to wig out the squeamish; this is simple honest boy-meets-vampire, vampire-tries-to-kill-boy, boy-tries-to-kill-vampire story. Okay, there's a bit of blood/gore hello, vampire movie! - but it's really not done for the overkill.
(Or maybe I watched Conan the Barbarian last Tuesay and no movie blood or gore will seem like overkill ever again but I stand by Fright Night hitting just the right amount of blood-splatter.)
> The effects were brilliant. The vampire-dust effect put Buffy to shame (okay okay, I know Buffy's an old girl now and we have to make allowances but Fright Night really demonstrates how effects like that have moved along). The CGI vamp faces were great (there's an interesting correlation between how much damage the vampire takes and how inhuman they look that shows some actual thought put into the vampire mythology). And the finale was perfect (effects-wise; there was a little bit of convenient deus-ex-machina in there that I'm torn over. I love happy endings but I also dislike convenient happy endings without consequences. But I would've been heartbroken if this movie had taken the rocks-fall-everyone-dies path and I don't think it would've been a better movie for it, so perhaps I need to stop nit-picking).
> The characters aren't stupid; Charley goes through the logical steps that anyone would with a vampire living next door, albeit perhaps being quite a bit braver. For example, there's a point where he's in the vampire house which naturally has the windows blacked out and even as I mouthed "BREAK THE WINDOWS IDIOT!" at the screen, he does exactly that, because it's the sensible thing to do in that situation and he DOES it. I found myself loving the characters more because the peril came not from anything stupid they did themselves, but because the vampire was simply faster and stronger than they could handle.
> I loved this movie. Which considering that I hyped it up for myself and went in expecting to love it (I tried not to because it inevitably means I'm disappointed but I couldn't help it; TENNANT IN EYELINER) means a lot. I don't count coming out of a movie and immediately wanting to see it again as the only measure of how good it is (I loved Inception but no way could I have walked right back in and sat there for another three hours at the end of it) but I tend to celebrate loving something by watching it obsessively over and over. I want to see Fright Night again. I definitely will go to see it again next Tuesday (I have a cheap day Tuesday card that, combined with a Vue voucher, gets me into movies for £2.30) but I want to see it before that. I've already checked to see if amazon.co.uk has the DVD for pre-order (it doesn't but I've signed up to be notified when they do). Sure, it's sometimes predictable and it doesn't try to push any boundaries but it knows it's that kind of movie and aims to be great at it. And it makes it. It's really, honestly fun.
For everyone who didn't read under the cut, I shall sum up; I loved Fright Night. Its amazingly fun. Y'all should go see it (even if you aren't that fond of David Tennant! There's plenty of other awesome in it!). I know I will be again.
In case you missed my earlier post, or you didn't have my Twitter flailing inflicted on you, or just in case you've not spoken to me at all in the last month - I was excited* about this movie. Because hello, David Tennant as a Las Vegas magician in a movie with vampires, and great looking trailers, and Tennant in eyeliner on the posters and reviews that sounded very promising if not gushing, and did I mention Tennant? Yeah.
*More like EXCITED. Or possibly VERY VERY EXCITED.
In case you're now intrigued but prefer to watch than read my flail, have the official trailer:
(There is more David Tennant in this movie than it would appear from that particular trailer. Trust me, he gets a fairish amount of screentime, enough that I wasn't disappointed. :D I like this trailer better. )
> First is an admission: so you know I've been pretty er, obsessed with this movie for a month or so now? I've watched the trailers, I've googled pictures, I've read spoilers, etc etc. Admittedly a great part of that focus has been on Tennant but it's still pretty shameful that it took me until halfway through the movie to realise that Anton Yelchin (who plays the main character, Charley) wasn't just familiar from background bit parts in other movies; he was in the remade Star Trek>. He was baby!Chekov. I LOVE BABY!CHEKOV HOW DID THIS ESCAPE MY NOTICE WHAT. FAAAAAIL. I liked his character before that but from that point on I was very definitely all 'YES BABY!CHEKOV! KILL THE VAMPIRE WITH YOUR ADORABLENESS!' \o/ It was an unexpected joy in a movie that was already making me pretty joyful. :D
> Tennant. Oh my god Tennaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnttttt. \o/ The reviewer who said he steals every scene he's in wasn't lying; he gets great lines (him and his girfriend Ginger pretty much own the best jokes in the movie), he plays the fuck-you-world attitude of the perpetually-inebriated with sarcasm and veiled anger instead of slapstick (which is yes, perfect; I read that his character was an alcholic and cringed at the thought of how stupid they could play that but the laughs come from the dialogue instead which is great), he looks fantastic (no, really; the slow stripping off of all the Peter Vincent!magician outfit is mmmmmmm) and he's got backstory. I like baby!Chekov but I will go and see this movie again for Tennant. (Note: I was terrified that they may kill him off/vampirise him and THEN kill him off before the end. I'm not going to spoil whether or not they do. But I will say that he gets enough screentime to be satisfying. :D)
(His character also has some amazing homoerotic chemistry with Charley - it's not stated but I got the impression that his character (Tennant's, not Charley) was subtly meant to be bi? I could be reading into it or it could've been that Tennant played up the flirting aspect [you go there Tennant, transporting the BBC's Gay Agenda across the ocean!] but there was definitely room to read it that way. And as much as I liked the Charley/Amy main romantic pairing, I am hoping like crazy for this film to get enough of a fandom for some good Peter/Charley fic. Please internet. Do this for me? I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER.
> The girls that were in this movie kicked ass. End of. I was very fond of Ginger, Vincent's sarcastic girlfriend (I wondered for a while about why she put up with his crap when she seemed so self-assured but there's a moment I won't spoil that made me think he's genuinely fond of her, and though the screentime that their relationship gets mostly involves trading sarcasm and swear words, I think she's smart enough to know he's worth sticking around for underneath the alcohol and the attitude. Plus I got the impression that she enjoys swearing at him). The main female character, Amy, took a while to warm to on my part but looking back, I realise that the moment the audience really 'get' her is the same moment that Charley does; she originally comes across as kind of the stereotypical high school bitch-queen role and the moment they subvert that is really great.
Plus she gets to use weapons. Including a mace. \o/ GIRLS CAN KILL VAMPIRES TOO, HELL YES (I rather suspect that Marti Noxon being the scriptwriter meant that the girls got to be more awesome than they otherwise would've done. There's a really lovely (er, by some definitions of lovely) moment with Charley's blonde go-go dancer neighbour that again I won't spoil but it made me love her otherwise pretty-generic character a lot. You'll probably guess what it is when you go to see the movie (because you're going right? RIGHT?)
> Taken as a whole movie, this isn't the "best movie ever made omg" or anything like that; there's a couple of moments that would've benefitted from some slightly sharper editing for example, and the scene where Vincent talks about his past really really could've done with an extra writing edit because the dialogue just doesn't flow but believe me when I say it is a good movie. It knows exactly what it is; a remake of a slightly-ridiculous eighties movie about the vampire next door but it manages to play that for serious without being OTT. The characters feel genuinely in peril, you really do care if they survive and you get some good giggles in between some genuine shock!jump moments that never try to be anything other than fun. There's no making the audience feel uncomfortable here, like there might be a vampire hiding under your seat-type terror or overdosing on the gore to wig out the squeamish; this is simple honest boy-meets-vampire, vampire-tries-to-kill-boy, boy-tries-to-kill-vampire story. Okay, there's a bit of blood/gore hello, vampire movie! - but it's really not done for the overkill.
(Or maybe I watched Conan the Barbarian last Tuesay and no movie blood or gore will seem like overkill ever again but I stand by Fright Night hitting just the right amount of blood-splatter.)
> The effects were brilliant. The vampire-dust effect put Buffy to shame (okay okay, I know Buffy's an old girl now and we have to make allowances but Fright Night really demonstrates how effects like that have moved along). The CGI vamp faces were great (there's an interesting correlation between how much damage the vampire takes and how inhuman they look that shows some actual thought put into the vampire mythology). And the finale was perfect (effects-wise; there was a little bit of convenient deus-ex-machina in there that I'm torn over. I love happy endings but I also dislike convenient happy endings without consequences. But I would've been heartbroken if this movie had taken the rocks-fall-everyone-dies path and I don't think it would've been a better movie for it, so perhaps I need to stop nit-picking).
> The characters aren't stupid; Charley goes through the logical steps that anyone would with a vampire living next door, albeit perhaps being quite a bit braver. For example, there's a point where he's in the vampire house which naturally has the windows blacked out and even as I mouthed "BREAK THE WINDOWS IDIOT!" at the screen, he does exactly that, because it's the sensible thing to do in that situation and he DOES it. I found myself loving the characters more because the peril came not from anything stupid they did themselves, but because the vampire was simply faster and stronger than they could handle.
> I loved this movie. Which considering that I hyped it up for myself and went in expecting to love it (I tried not to because it inevitably means I'm disappointed but I couldn't help it; TENNANT IN EYELINER) means a lot. I don't count coming out of a movie and immediately wanting to see it again as the only measure of how good it is (I loved Inception but no way could I have walked right back in and sat there for another three hours at the end of it) but I tend to celebrate loving something by watching it obsessively over and over. I want to see Fright Night again. I definitely will go to see it again next Tuesday (I have a cheap day Tuesday card that, combined with a Vue voucher, gets me into movies for £2.30) but I want to see it before that. I've already checked to see if amazon.co.uk has the DVD for pre-order (it doesn't but I've signed up to be notified when they do). Sure, it's sometimes predictable and it doesn't try to push any boundaries but it knows it's that kind of movie and aims to be great at it. And it makes it. It's really, honestly fun.
For everyone who didn't read under the cut, I shall sum up; I loved Fright Night. Its amazingly fun. Y'all should go see it (even if you aren't that fond of David Tennant! There's plenty of other awesome in it!). I know I will be again.
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no subject
Date: 2011-09-06 08:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-06 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-06 09:29 pm (UTC)I'm glad you enjoyed it. I shall have to catch it as soon as I can.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-06 09:35 pm (UTC)You should definitely go see it if you can! Tennant's amazinghood is worth it.:D
no subject
Date: 2011-09-06 09:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-07 09:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-06 11:13 pm (UTC)I just hope it sticks around until the end of the week 'cause I don't know if I'll be able to go through the middle of the week... *whines*
on a random note, how is this the ONLY Tennant related icon I have? That may need to be remedied.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-07 09:48 am (UTC)*crosses fingers for you* Stuff usually sticks around for at least a week, so hopefully it'll be on at the weekend!
I only had one until I made another one specially for this post! Scandalous lack of Tennant love from us there. We should fix that!
no subject
Date: 2011-09-09 04:04 am (UTC)Yeah, I couldn't wait and it's a good thing I didn't. damn small town theatre. ugh. So worth it to go to it though.
I have made up for my scandalous lack of Tennant by making five icons from the movie. One I used in the post I just made and this one and then three others. YAY for Tennant!Love! I need to find some good pictures of him that aren't from the movie or 'Who
no subject
Date: 2011-09-07 12:40 am (UTC)Also glad to hear that the film itself is good and worth seeing - the person I drag to see it will probably need more of a reason than 'TENNANT OMG EYELINER TENNANT AHHHHHH!' :D
no subject
Date: 2011-09-07 10:01 am (UTC)It really was worth going to see as a film, not just for gratuitous Tennant. Everyone else in it is excellent too, the jokes are funny and (unlike Conan) it never made me facepalm with sheer stupid. You can drag people to it guilt-free! :D
no subject
Date: 2011-09-07 12:52 pm (UTC)And I forgot to mention! bb!Chekov vs a vampire! Somehow, it just makes the film that much more awesome :D
Also! I adore that icon :D