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Vampires, werewolves, grizzly ghouls from every tomb closing in to seal your doom, fearless vampire killers — it’s the most fun a horror fan could have, and it’s all here for you in this week’s episode of The Rotten Horror Picture Show, as we dive into the 1985 horror/comedy classic, Fright Night! There’s nothing scarier in a small town that the creepiness of a new neighbor, and Fright Night gives you that and more in its loving homage and riotous send up of all your favorite classic horror tropes and monsters!
Teenage Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale) is a horror-film junkie, so it’s no surprise that, when a reclusive new neighbor named Jerry Dandridge (Chris Sarandon) moves next-door, Brewster becomes convinced he is a vampire. It’s also no surprise when nobody believes him. However, after strange events begin to occur, Charlie has no choice but to turn to the only person who could possibly help: washed-up television vampire killer Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall).
Join Clay and Amanda as they get into the finer points of call girls who take cabs to the suburbs at 4 pm, The Gap’s 1985 Fall vampire line, teeth, apples, 80’s high school movie friendship politics, questionable policing, and of course, and the immortal questionable parenting!
Created by writer/director Tom Holland (not the Spider-Man Tom Holland, but that would be fun if it were true) as a direct response to the increasingly gory slasher movie trend of the 1980’s, Fright Night pulls from the classic era of horror, lovingly sending up the likes of Peter Cushing, Vincent Price, and the Universal Monsters. Dripping with nostalgia for the days of the local tv horror hosts who would play the schlocky late-night movies that would burn themselves into the brains of kids all over the country, it pokes fun, but is never dismissive, and manages to create a loving tribute to a bygone era, which is also quintessentially a movie of its time, 1985. So sharpen your stakes, call the cops on your neighbor, ignore the lusty advances of your significant other, and join the armies of the night…if you DARE!