Is it worth it: Fright Night?

In a small in isolated town out side of Las Vegas, former nerd Charley Brewster is starting to...

"Vampire"

...er there have been several unexplained...

"It's a vampire, traditional rules of stakes, sunlight, garlic and crosses apply. Let's hurry up."

Ummm well there is a detailed mystery of who this dark stranger...

"New neighbor, 'Jerry.' Stop stalling."

Fine... "Fright Night" is a fast paced, no apologies vampire movie. It doesn't waste any time setting up the plot or introducing the characters. It quickly establishes that the usual vampire rules are in effect. It doesn't attempt to justify or explain them. BAM you are in a vampire movie, adapt to that or die painfully.

Their method of doing this was actually quite simple, they picked up the movie a quarter of the way in. Before the movie started, local geek and the movies first Cassandra, Ed has already suspected, track and started hunting vampire Jerry. As he is played by Mclovin' Christopher Mintz-Plasse, he very well could have been the main character of the movie, if he wasn't made to be part of a Jerry's well balanced diet within the first 10 minutes of the movie.

No, the protagonist of the movie (although I'd argue against calling him the star) is actually Charley Brewster, played by Anton Yelchin. If their name isn't familiar to you then it was the guy who played the new Chekov in the Star Trek reboot and Kyle Reese in Terminator: Salvation, so fantasy/scifi should feel pretty comfortable to him. The premise of the character is that he is a former geek who is ashamed of his nerdy ways because now he is hanging out with the cool kids and has a super hot girlfriend. Anton does a great job in this roll, playing a character who is flawed but likable. He proves himself to be just the right amount of "resourceful survivor" and "kid way out of his league", that makes for an interesting hero in a horror flick.

Toni Collerre and Imogen Poots are the hero's mother and girlfriend respectively. I don't want to give away too much about what happens to them later on in the movie but early on it follows as you'd expect. The characters are not very fleshed out, but they are not completely two dimensional either. They have enough character to leave make the audience care about their well being, but don't take so much screen time that it bogs down the story. Enough of them however... time for the starts of the show.

David the Tenth Doctor Tennant. Not playing some brilliant time lord here. No, here he is playing a fowl mouthed famous stage magician with professed knowledge of the occult. He is the go to guy for vampire lore, a person who seems every bit as dangerous as the vampire the hero is facing, a collector of holy artifacts and weapons, and he wears leather pants. Tight... tight leather pants. Despite his... distracting wardrobe, he manages to play an interesting and mysterious character, arguably the one with the most dimension.

Colin Farrell plays a fantastic vampire. As McLovin' says, he is not some doey eyed love struck heart throb, he is a killing machine. He is Jaws. He kills people brutally, drinks their blood, then goes and watches some TV. He is old, powerful, and smart. He is everything a vampire villain should be.

So... the acting is great, how about the rest of it? As I mentioned the stories pacing was very fast paced, but it never felt rushed. It hits the ground running, and gives us just enough pauses so we can catch our breath before we start running for our lives again. I saw the movie in stunning wonderful 2D, because well, I'm not a huge fan of 3D and tend to avoid it when I can. There are some VERY obvious scenes that are meant to exploit the 3D. It actually looked good but I could see it being distracting for some. Also noticeable are the product placements. Man Century 21 must have spent some serious coin on this movie. Now that said, they actually did a great job making the placements not only make sense, but actually become important to the plot in a few cases.

The story is what makes or breaks a movie for me, like most people I would think...or at least hope. Fright Night delivers this well. It manages to be both traditional and fresh when it comes to a monster movie. The movie seems predictable for the most part, but it does manage to keep you on your toes or even surprise you. There is no "big twist," so the surprises are natural and flow well with the rest of the story. Again I don't want to spoil the ending, but let me assure you, it doesn't disappoint.

So is Fright Night worth it? As someone who has never seen the original, yes. I knew of the original movie but never have actually seen it. This movie now makes me want to. It is well done on multiple levels, has a great mix of horror and really funny moments. Fright Night, it starts off strong, and stays that way.