How can you even get a REMAKE totally wrong...?

[seawasp]

They've done a remake of the 1980s classic teen horror flick "Fright Night". This one seems a no-brainer; vampires are popular once more, the ordinary guy versus something unspeakable is a hot sales item, etc.

So here's the blurb for the remake:

Senior Charlie Brewster (Anton Yelchin) finally has it all--he's running with the popular crowd and dating the hottest girl in high school. In fact, he's so cool he's even dissing his best friend Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). But trouble arrives when an intriguing stranger Jerry (Colin Farrell) moves in next door.

How much is wrong with this? Well, aside from the key plot points -- that Charlie gets a new and dangerous neighbor -- pretty much all of it. Brewster wasn't one of the cool kids, he was a geek. That was, in fact, the point of the movie. He was a horror geek whose favorite thing to do was watch the late-night horror channel, hosted by Peter Vincent (a name obviously composed from Peter Lorre and Vincent Price, and played by Roddy McDowell). This saturation in vampire movies made him hypersensitive to the possibility, and when he sees something no one else does, he draws the unbelievable -- but correct -- conclusion that his neighbor is a vampire.

This blurb, and the poster, leads me to suspect they've made what was a horror-funny teen movie into an action fest. Which is stupid, because the self-referential humor and such were the things that made Fright Night stand out from the crowd.

Comments

[burger-eater.livejournal.com]

It's the twenty-teens! Vampires are everywhere. It wouldn't make sense for a kid like Charlie Brewster to be the only one who knows the lore.

[fengi.livejournal.com]

I can see this working if Brewster is a horror movie nerd who joined the popular crowd by abandoning his previous identity - which might be implied by "he's so cool he's even dissing his best friend Ed". Thus in the classic monster as metaphor, the vampire as a crisis of social status as well as a physical threat.

This is also interesting given those who see a gay subtext in the original. Both in the story of neighbor kid being suspicious and scared of an elegant bachelor with a live in "carpenter", and the meta-narrative as the female lead, Amanda Bearse, is now a gay activist and the original Evil Ed worked in gay porn and Roddy McDowell was considered in the closet.

If this version was done by smart people, it could be a battle between two "closet cases", in this case Charlie who is a nerd passing as cool and Jerry who is a vampire passing as human (and perhaps using gay identity as a cover). They could even have Charlie hampered by the idea he's just being homophobic towards his neighbor.

That could make for a funny and interesting movie, but I'll bet it's just going to be a dumb action fest.

[fengi.livejournal.com]

I just looked at the preview. It's just dumb. No layers or nuance (weird given Marti Noxon wrote it) and Peter Vincent appears to have been cut out entirely despite being played by David Tennant. Way to blow an entire potential audience morons.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

Peter Vincent (a name obviously composed from Peter Lorre and Vincent Price, and played by Roddy McDowell)

Peter Cushing, surely?

[muirecan.livejournal.com]

Having seen the trailer for this the action movie is what they appear to be aiming for. Pity.

[kira-snugz.livejournal.com]

they are redoing teen wolf too. into a tv show. and instead of being a loveable goofy jock, the new teen wolf seems to be a pretty useless pretty boy. i'm not looking forward to it and won't be watching it.

[muirecan.livejournal.com]

Oh that sounds just aweful. ::sigh::

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

Never seen the original, unlikely to see the remake -- but these days, I think "being a horror movie geek" and "being one of the cool kids" are not necessarily incompatible.

[kjn]

That's a great typo. Would probably make a great description of eg the latest Transformer movies.

[pedanther]

"How can you even get a REMAKE totally wrong...?"

I'm surprised by your surprise. Getting a remake totally wrong is not exactly an unprecedented occurrence in Hollywood.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

I'm also unlikely to see the remake, but I recall seeing the original in the theater. I liked it then; I have no idea how well it would stand the test of time.

[kengr]

You're surprised? After the Underdog movie, it'd take a *lot* to surprise me.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

Q: How can you even get a REMAKE totally wrong...?
A: Let Hollywood get involved.