ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - August 2nd
"FRIGHT NIGHT" released in 1985
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When the mysterious Jerry Dandrige (Chris Sarandon) moves next door, his neighbor Charley Brewster (Ragsdale) begins to witness strange things; Dandrige and his roommate carrying a coffin down into the basement, a sudden scream from the house in the middle of the night, and news reports of a number of missing girls in the area (one of whom Charley saw entering Dandrige's house the night before). Spying on the house one night, Charley actually sees Dandrige standing by the window and change into a vampire in front of him. Knowing he is in danger from Dandrige now that he knows his secret, Charley first turns to the police for help, but they don't believe him. Niether does his girlfriend Amy (Amanda Bearse) or his best friend "Evil" Ed Thompson (Stephen Geoffreys). After narrowly surviving an attack from Dandrige, Charley, in desperation, turns to TV's "Fright Night" host, Peter Vincent (McDowall) - famed for his starring roles in countless vampire movies of the 60's and 70's, and is known as the great "Vampire Killer" - for help. Vincent dismisses Charley's claims like everyone else, but is later persuaded to investigate when Amy and Evil offer him money. Never actually intending to find anything, Vincent is terrified when he discovers that Dandrige is in fact a vampire when he has no reflection in his mirror! Later that night, Dandrige attacks Evil in an alleyway (turning him into a vampire) and abducts Amy from a nightclub. Charley returns to the now-believing Vincent and convinces him to become a real "vampire killer" to help him rescue Amy from Dandrige before she too is turned into a blood sucking monster!
Evil Ed Thompson: [laughing hysterically] Oh, you're so COOL, Brewster!
Top: Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale) believes his next door neighbor
is a vampire; Above: Jerry Dandrige (Chris Sarandon) confronts Charley in his bedroom
While writing the script for Cloak & Dagger (1984), Tom Holland amused himself when he conceived the idea of a horror-movie fan becoming convinced that his next door neighbor was a vampire. The story percolated in his mind for a year and finally one day while discussing it with John Byers, then the head of the story department at Columbia Pictures, he finally figured out what the boy would do. In that era, many local TV affiliates in the United States had horror hosts (perhaps the most famous was the nationally syndicated Elvira), so Holland decided it would be natural for the boy to seek aid from his local host. Holland stated in 2011 that "The minute I had Peter Vincent, I had the story. Charley Brewster was the engine, but Peter Vincent was the heart". Holland wrote the film for himself to direct, in part because he was so disheartened by the film that was ultimately made from his previous screenplay, Scream for Help (1984).
Peter Vincent: I have just been fired because nobody wants to see vampire killers anymore, or vampires either. Apparently all they want to see are demented madmen running around in ski-masks, hacking up young virgins.
Top: Renowned actor Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall) investigates
Charley's claims; Above: Charley's girlfriend Amy (Amanda Bearse) and
best friend "Evil"Ed don't believe his story.
The Peter Vincent character was named after horror icons Peter Cushing and Vincent Price, and Holland specifically wrote the part for Price, but the veteran actor refused the role as he had already been typecast in the horror genre and wanted to distance himself from horror movies. Guy McElwaine, then the head of Columbia Pictures, suggested Roddy McDowall for the part. Holland and McDowall would eventually build a lasting friendship, and McDowall once invited Holland to a dinner party where he introduced him to Vincent Price, who was flattered that the part was an homage to him and commented that the film "was wonderful and he thought Roddy did a wonderful job." Casting director Jackie Burch remembered William Ragsdale from his audition for the role of Rocky Dennis in Mask, and thought he'd be right to portray Charley Brewster. Ragsdale auditioned several times and ultimately received the news that he'd landed the part on Halloween night 1984 (beating other actors for the role, including Charlie Sheen). Burch would also suggest Stephen Geoffreys for the role of Evil Ed after his audition for Anthony Michael Hall's role in Weird Science. The most difficult role to cast was Amy Peterson. "There wasn't the perfect girl-next-door until [Amanda Bearse] walked in," Holland commented to Dread Central in 2011.
[Jerry confronts Charley and Peter Vincent]
Jerry Dandridge: Welcome... to... Fright Night! [smiling] For real!
Top: Dandrige introduces himself;
Above: Jerry Dandridge: [crushing Peter's crucifix] You have to have faith for this to work
on me, Mr. Vincent.
Initially Chris Sarandon was not interested in starring in another horror movie, and, like Price, was worried about being typecast as a villain (his hesitation may also be contributed to the horrible experience he'd had making The Sentinel (1977)), but the script resonated with him because the story was deeper than just an average monster movie. Although he liked the screenplay, Sarandon was still leery of working with a first-time director, so he flew to L.A. to meet Tom Holland and producer Herb Jaffe, where he and Holland had an immediate rapport and accepted the role of vampire Jerry Dandrige. He and Holland would also go on to make several more films together afterwards. Once his cast was in place, Holland got input from each of the actors and made numerous revisions to the script. Some were slight and others were major - such as the ending which originally featured Peter Vincent transforming into a vampire as he returned to host Fright Night. As originally written, Jerry Dandrige was more villainous, so Sarandon tried to find various ways to humanize the vampire, including suggesting the implication that the Amy character was the reincarnation of his long-lost love. Sarandon would also come up with the idea that Dandrige would always be eating fruit after discovering that the bulk of the world's bat population are Frugivores, so he concluded, "Jerry had a lot of fruit bat in his DNA."
[Jerry removes his arm from his eyes and looks down at Billy's body at the bottom of the steps]
Jerry Dandrige: Do you?
[Jerry smiles and retreats; Charley and Peter are confused]
Charley Brewster: What did he mean by that?
Peter Vincent: Nothing! He was just bluffing.
[Behind them, Billy rises... from the dead!]
Top: Peter Vincent joins Charley in rescuing Amy;
Above: Bat attack!
At the time of production, Fright Night was Columbia's lowest-budgeted film and they did not have high expectations for it, so they were focusing all of their attention on the John Travolta/Jamie Lee Curtis film Perfect, which they were certain was going to be a blockbuster (it was not), and left Holland pretty much alone to make the film without any studio interference. Much of the film's $9.5 million dollar budget was spent on special effects and it would be the first vampire film to spend one million dollars on special effects. While fending off a bat with a bone for the climax of the film, Roddy McDowall accidentally cracked the puppet's skull. The crew scrambled to fix the bat so they could continue shooting, but such extensive damage occurred that it took two days to properly reassemble, so they had to temporarily delay filming further close-ups of the creature. The crew also used a rejected ghost model from Ghostbusters (the original puppet that was created for the ghost librarian's monstrous visageto), commenting that it resembled the vampire bat that they'd created, so they re-purposed and utilized it for the vampire's fiery destruction. While blocking a scare scene, Holland asked visual effects man Randall William Cook if he could devise a "shark mouth" for one of the vampires. There was neither time nor money left in the budget to create an elaborate prosthetic, but Cook agreed to concoct a rig over a weekend with the proviso that it would only be seen on-screen for a few seconds. In an attempt to produce an authentic reaction of fright when Charley sees Amy as a vampire for the first time, Ragsdale did not see the stunt actress in makeup prior to shooting the scene. Ultimately the crudely made mouthpiece was not only featured extensively in the film, it was also utilized in the movie's famous poster art!
Peter Vincent: I am Peter Vincent... Vampire Killer!
Top: Amy succumbs to the vampire bite and attacks Charley!;
Above: Dandrige runs out of time as the sun dawns behind him!
Due to Columbia's lack of faith in Fright Night, it's widest release was 1,545 theaters and but the film grossed $6,118,543 on it's opening weekend. It would eventually gross nearly $25 million at the box office and became the second highest-grossing horror film of 1985, surpassed only by A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge. Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, "Fright Night is not a distinguished movie, but it has a lot of fun being undistinguished". Variety praised Sarandon's performance, citing that he "is terrific as the vampire, quite affable and debonair until his fingernails start to grow and his eyes get that glow".
TRIVIA: According to Chris Sarandon, he wanted Jerry to whistle "Whistle While You Work" rather than "Strangers in the Night" when first confronting Charley, but Disney would not give their permission to use the song.
Top and Above: Debut writer/director Tom Holland (center) on set.
After the critical and financial success of Fright Night, producer Herb Jaffe, who had retained the screen rights to the characters, pushed for a sequel to be made. Although he was unhappy that the budget was drastically slashed, Holland was interested in returning but he and Sarandon were both tied up making Child's Play and could not commit to the film. Stephen Geoffreys was approached to reprise the role of Evil Ed but opted to take the lead role in Robert Englund's directorial debut 976-EVIL instead, and Amanda Bearse was busy shooting the TV show Married...with Children. In the end, only Ragsdale and McDowall would reprise their roles for Fright Night Part 2, which attained an extremely limited theatrical distribution before being dumped on home video by Carolco's subsidiary, Live Entertainment. Despite rumors of a Fright Night 3, nothing eventuated until 2009 when DreamWorks Pictures announced they were remaking the original Fright Night with Anton Yelchin, Imogen Potts, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse filling in for the roles of Charley Brewster, Amy and Evil Ed respectively, with Colin Farrell playing a very different vampire Jerry Dandrige - no longer the lovelorn vampire, he's described by Evil Ed in the movie as "the fucking shark from Jaws". Chris Sarandon would cameo in the remake as a passing motorist who is killed by Dandrige in the middle of the road. Released in 2011, the new Fright Night was actually well received as a movie in it's own right without diminishing the appeal of the original.
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE: 91%
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