I am simply soooo tired of reviewing boring, nonsensical films (Tobe Hooper, are you reading?! Pay attention!), so I decided to go back to the basics and review a classic. I remember one night when I was twelve or so, and the local TV channel was having its Halloween horror night. I had never really seen a horror movie, but my parents were not too keen on me starting at that point. Nonetheless, both were away for a dinner party or something, and I decided to take a chance and watch this movie called FRIGHT NIGHT. From that moment on, I was hooked on horror movies and therefore I owe a big debt to this movie.

The plot (and really quite a witty one): young man is intrigued with his new neighbors, two guys who moved into the big, foreboding house next door. He becomes even more curious when beautiful young women keep walking in to that house. And he becomes extraordinarily curious when he hears that women are being found mangled and decapitated. Connection? Well, you know the answer to that, I know the answer to that, but the character in the film doesn't yet. That is, until one evening in which he spys and sees one of his neighbors, Chris Sarandon, making love to a woman. When Sarandon opens his mouth and reveals fangs, suddenly this movie kicks into high gear.

In a typical movie, the young man, William Ragsdale (who was the title character in the short-lived FOX sitcom "Herman's Head") would go around telling everyone that a vampire lives next door and no one would believe him. This does indeed happen in this film, but there is an interesting twist of fate which makes the standard elements of the plot more intriguing: Sarandon sees Ragsdale spying on him. At a stage early on in the film, he appears in Ragsdale's room and almost kills him. The fact that the vampire KNOWS that Ragsdale KNOWS makes this film particularly interesting.

After a series of embarassing attempts to convince others of the true nature of his neighbor, Ragsdale decides to recruit the help of Roddy McDowell. A local celebrity, McDowell plays host to a television series named "Fright Night" in which he plays a vampire killer. Of course, when Ragsdale comes to him, McDowell thinks him mad. After a bribe from Ragsdale's girlfriend (played by Amanda Bearse, the neighbor from "Married With Children") and his best friend, whose nickname is "Evil," however, McDowell agrees to perform a fake "vampire test" on Sarandon, who also goes along with it. Yet McDowell discovers that Sarandon is a vampire not through the test, but by glimpsing into a mirror and noticing Sarandon's absence. From this moment on, the movie gets into super high gear and the real action comes, climaxing in an assault on the vampire mansion by Ragsdale and McDowell.

Why is this movie such a great B-flick? Well, I could talk about its special effects, its exciting climax, its well-constructed plot. But the real reason it's excellent is the exact same one which made films such as NIGHT OF THE CREEPS and DAWN OF THE DEAD so good: a sense of humor. FRIGHT NIGHT is fully aware of its own cheese and what genre of film it fits into. Roddy McDowell's character is a nod to the cliches of the genre since he is a star of cheesy vampire flicks! When McDowell walks up to the vampire house for the first time and notices that it looks just like every spooky horror-movie house, he says, "Yes, it does have a certain air about it, doesn't it?"