Popcorn Kernels: Q2 Review Purge, Vol. 2

OK, I'm trying my best here, but it's been super busy so here's a bunch more mini reviews to get us caught up on current releases.

Alex Strangelove

Year: 2018
Director: Craig Johnson
Cast: Michael Abela, Daniel Doheny, Brendan Archer
Run Time: 1 hour 39 minutes
MPAA Rating: TV-MA

A young teen must struggle to figure out his sexuality when his girlfriend starts to want to have their First Time but he begins to develop feelings for an older guy he met at a party.

Netflix hasn't made a great name for themselves in the original movie realm lately, which is why they should make way more midbudget movies like Alex Strangelove. There's no stakes or expectations like the overindulgent Bright or The Cloverfield Paradox, and it's a pretty dang special movie to boot!

Alex Strangelove is the smaller, weirder little brother to this year's Love, Simon, and it's the movie the world needs even more. Where Simon was buffed and polished by Hollywood to within an inch of his life, Alex grabs the reigns with an American Pie sensibility and is off like a shot. The film doesn't shrink away from the realities of life as a teen, from the awkward sexual fumblings to the filthy language to the first, failed drug experiences (I usually hate the obligatory "drug trip" sequence in this kind of comedy, but that even works here!). For a gentle teen romance, it actually has a bit of an edge, which is exactly what was missing from the charming but saccharine Simon.

The one thing I will say about Alex Strangelove insofar as it's a gay film is that its male love interest takes a backseat for way too much of the run time. We don't get to explore his character much, or why he would be particularly interested in Alex, and Alex's internal struggle is amusing, but it largely takes place when he's separated from his object of affection.

But for the most part, this flick is a right gem, sprucing up that on-the-ground teen realism with some quietly delightful creative visual effects. Alex's struggle is presented in a way that's actually - dare I say it - stylish, actually engaging with the power of cinema to give us images and ideas that no other medium is capable of. Maybe I'm rhapsodizing too hard about cereal boxes labeled "heter-O's" or the animal biology metaphor ripped straight from Mean Girls, but it's been so long since we've gotten a teen comedy that's in any way actually interesting to look at in any respect other than the beefy 25-year-olds playing the teens. Alex Strangelove is incredibly pleasant, and I highly recommend it for that and so many other reasons.

Rating: 7/10


Set It Up

Year: 2018
Director: Claire Scanlon
Cast: Zoey Deutch, Glen Powell, Lucy Liu
Run Time: 1 hour 45 minutes
MPAA Rating: TV-14

Two assistants set up their bosses so they'll be treated better, but maybe they just happen to fall in love along the way too.

OK, maybe my Sunday nights are just going to be owned by Netflix from now on, because Set It Up is the exact sort of forgettable romantic comedy I've been craving from the market for some time. Everyone in it is impossibly gorgeous and oozes charisma, nothing of much import happens to any of them, and we get a few standout comic cameos, most notably from Kimmy Schmidt's Titus Burgess.

Now, I know that poster looks ten kinds of awful, but I promise the movie is completely bearable and even, dare I say it, funny? My knees aren't exactly going to be sore from slapping, but there are definitely some solid jokes that crop up from time to time. It's just thoroughly charming, generously bestowing you with good cheer for its entire run time and not challenging you for anything more. The only even minor quibble I have with it is the fact that we've hired Pete Davidson to play the gay roommate in the now-stock role of "gay dude who is just a straight bro who likes ass." It's a massive overcorrection from the swishy queens that used to populate screens in the 90's, and it's become just as irritating. And now that he's engaged to Ariana Grande, Pete Davidson's smug face is beaming at me from all the ads for this movie on Netflix, and please, give me a break with that.

I really don't have much else to say about this film, because it's not designed for one to think about or analyze. It's designed to be a completely inoffensive soap bubble that blows in the wind, brings you joy, and then pops into thin air, never to be thought about again. As I'll probably mention with one of my later picks, it isn't a sin for a movie to be designed this way. It's just not especially rewarding to really dig into the meat of it with a full review.

Rating: 6/10

Ocean's 8

Year: 2018

Director: Gary Ross

Cast: Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway 

Run Time: 1 hour 50 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

A group of eight ladies seek to fix the wage gap by running a jewel heist at the Met Gala, as if Rihanna needed help getting in.

The cast to Ocean's 8 is great. The concept to Ocean's 8 is great. The music and costuming of Ocean's 8 is great. The director of Ocean's 8 is unremarkable. Now, the blame for the movie falling short of greatness certainly shouldn't fall squarely on the shoulders of Gary Ross (let's give some credit to the screenwriters for also fumbling the ball), but the exercise in pure style and fun that this film should easily have been just isn't quite gelling.

Mind you, the movie is fun, but in a truly insubstantial popcorn movie way. Much like the all-female reboot of Ghostbusters, which was likewise... fine, the movie plays it way too safe, leaning back on a story about fast and easy female friendship that doesn't allow a lot of wiggle room for these people to actually become well-rounded characters. We get to watch a lot of shallow people be very good at stealing things, and that's not a bad time at the theater, but it's not a movie I'll be thinking about the second I type the last sentence of this review.

Really, the only thing to really dive into on this movie is the all-star cast, so let's go with that. Sandra Bullock is in top form here, prickly and unlikeable yet nevertheless charismatic in a way she hasn't been since The Proposal. The two runners-up for best in show would have to be Anne Hathaway and Helena Bonham Carter, who both are essentially playing cartoon characters toned down just enough to be palatable. But boy are they palatable, and it's an ebullient good time whenever they're onscreen together. 

Sarah Paulson and Cate Blanchett, on the other hand, are actresses I know to be terrific who are given absolute bupkis to do. They're good enough to avoid becoming wallpaper, but they are too handcuffed by the script to do anything remotely interesting. And then there's Awkwafina and Rihanna, two musicians turned actors who have pleasing personalities but aren't going to be winning any awards anytime soon.

It is nice to watch these people hang out, but that's pretty much all that happens in Ocean's 8. By the time you get to James Corden's noxious cameo as an insurance investigator, all the energy has long since been sucked out of the movie, and Gary Ross has forgotten every one of the stylish fillips with which he introduced the story and its characters. Oh well. It wasn't a waste of air conditioning, at least.

Rating: 7/10

Hereditary

Year: 2018

Director: Ari Aster

Cast: Toni Collette, Milly Shapiro, Gabriel Byrne

Run Time: 2 hours 7 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

After the death of their grandmother, a family must cope with the emotional fallout of loss, guilt, betrayal, and demonic possession.

I really don't mean to be the guy who comes in to trash the A24 horror films, but at the very least I'm aware that they are horror. Movies aren't disqualified from the genre if they're slow-paced, nor if they reflect deeper themes. So at least I have that going for me before I say that I really didn't care for Hereditary.

Honestly, this movie has all the ingredients to be a movie I truly love (read: Toni Collette), and it succeeds heavily in the first act. Right at the end of the first act, there is a terrifying standout sequence (anybody who has seen the movie will know exactly what I'm talking about) that is perfectly, excruciatingly executed. This has a lot to do with the performance of Alex Wolff, who has graduated from being in the peanut gallery of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle to blowing the roof off in a single close-up of his face that takes you on a riveting roller coaster ride of emotion. It's a transcendent performance that goes toe to toe with the always superb Toni Collette, who is operating at 11 throughout this entire film (it's a bit exhausting, but it's what the movie asks her to do and she does it great).

Unfortunately, these stellar performances are given a script that, without spoilers, feels closer to Paranormal Activity 4 than The Witch. Hereditary really falls down a rabbit hole of overworn horror tropes that undermine any sort of specificity and power the story had created in the first act. And the title clearly indicates that we're meant to be really invested in whether or not Toni Collette has inherited a mental illness and everything that's happening is all in her head, but like most movies of this ilk, completely forgets what it's supposed to be doing in favor of shoving creepy imagery down your throat at every opportunity. I don't blame a horror film for wanting to be a horror film, but don't introduce that kind of doubt if you're not really going to do much with it.

It's a frustrating watch for someone who has received a steady drip of these kinds of movies for years, so the fresh and exciting bits are fully drowned out by the clunky, generic material that gums up the works. Maybe if I wasn't so familiar with these types of movies, it wouldn't feel so uninteresting, but this one just didn't do it for me at all.

Rating: 5/10

Ideal Home

Year: 2018
Director: Andrew Fleming
Cast: Paul Rudd, Steve Coogan, Jack Gore
Run Time: 1 hour 31 minutes

A bickering gay couple find out that one of them has a long-lost grandson, who they must care for while his father is in jail.

Ideal Home is one of those indie comedies where you can predict every beat of the plot from the opening credits, but it's also one of those indie comedies that earns its right to be generic. It's comfort food cinema at its best, delivering well-worn tropes with a low key but effervescent sense of humor that is perfect for a lazy Sunday afternoon.

And hey! The fact that we can make material this rote with a gay couple as the leads is a remarkable thing about the year 2018. Of course, Ideal Home ain't winning any Spirit Awards anytime soon, having cast two straight men in the roles and considering that literally nobody knows this film even came out, but their sexuality factors into the plot of the movie not one bit, and that actually turns its genericness into a political strength. It's just like every slightly edgy family comedy you've ever seen, and the fact that there's two men in charge doesn't impede the progress of the bland plot one bit.

Then there's the fact that Paul Rudd instantly makes any comedy at least one point better just through sheer charisma. He's rocking an incredibly sexy indie movie beard, but he's still our good ole Rudd, delivering his trademark brand of goofy yet naturalistic humor, this time through a sheen of everpresent supercilious disdain. Ah, and there's the real way this movie differentiates itself at all. The tone of Ideal Home is unusually bitter, refusing to cut its snide, posh characters any slack, as much as it loves them and wants them to love each other.

The film won't blow you away or anything, but at the end of the day, it's a nice way to spend 90 minutes. Also give money to gay movies that don't end in AIDS, tearful coming outs, and/or tragic death. Please, I'm begging you. I don't want to have to sit through The Normal Heart every time I want to feel represented in the culture. Look, if you even have a toe on the Kinsey scale, you're going to find Paul Rudd especially attractive in this movie, so that's a reason right there.

Rating: 7/10
Word Count: 2164
Reviews In This Series
Ocean's 8 (Ross, 2018)

Reviewing Jane: I Do Suspect That She Is Not Really Necessary To My Happiness

In which we review (almost) every film adapted from or inspired by the works of Jane Austen, as I read through her extended bibliography for the first time.

Year: 1996

Director: Douglas McGrath

Cast: Gwyneth Paltrow, Toni Collette, Alan Cumming

Run Time: 2 hours 1 minute

MPAA Rating: PG

The last novel published during Jane Austen's lifetime was Emma, and it is respected by many critics as her best work. The book presents a flawed heroine making constant mistakes in judgment until she finally improves herself enough to stumble ass-backwards into a relationship she miraculously hasn't managed to ruin. It's a fun, flirty story and it makes perfect sense why high school movie dynamo Amy Heckerling decided to update it into a little movie called Clueless (more on that later) in 1995.

What makes less sense is why the powers that be decided that the world deserved another adaptation of Emma just a year later, but considering that it's the most prominent straight adaptation of the source material, why not start with this one?

Pictured: Toni Collette looking at the call sheet and realizing that she's not gonna get to meet Alicia Silverstone.

So, the plot of Emma. Gosh, this section really does feel futile when we're talking about centuries-old, world renowned literature, dunnit? We'll go fast, don't worry. Emma Woodhouse (Gwyneth Paltrow) is a rich young woman with no designs to marry but plenty of designs to matchmake her friend Harriet Smith (Toni Collette) into relationships with men who are entirely too good for her, including the local revered Mr. Elton (Alan Cumming) and the son-in-law of her former governess Frank Churchill (Ewan McGregor).

All the while, she is endlessly harangued by her moralizing brother-in-law Mr. Knightley (Jeremy Northam), and of course they fall in love because that's just how gender politics worked in the Regency era.

Pictured: Romance!

When you're adapting Jane Austen, there is pretty much one of three ways you can go about it. The first is the Clueless route, translating the novel into a modern story. The second is to highlight the period-based character comedy that Austen always wove into her stories, much like the 1940 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. The third is to completely ignore that essential aspect of Austen's work, assuming that because it's old it must be "important," and presenting it with po-faced seriousness.

To be fair, Emma does indulge in a little bit of the second, but if we're going to stick this in a category, it's the latter all the way. Here we're treated to two hours of stuffy, bone-dry material posturing as British and genteel even though its director and lead are American. The acting, at least from the non-leads, is very Masterpiece Theater, but not even at the level of Northanger Abbey, which actually was a Masterpiece production, because that movie at least hired actually talented, actually British people.

Although, I must say, Gwyneth Paltrow at least isn't bad here. I'm not here to defend any American's fake British accent, but I drew great delight her two-faced approach to the townspeople she deems beneath her - which is compounded by an internal monologue that didn't appear quite enough for me to remember that this was a thing the movie was doing and thus was tremendously confusing, but still funny.

And as much as nobody here seems aware that Jane Austen is a comedy writer, there are genuinely funny moments that sneak through from time to time. A montage of Emma trying not to think about Mr. Knightley is actually funny and cinematically engaging, the only time both of those elements combine in the film, which generally has very little use for either of them.

It's mostly just lifestyle porn destined for a future Pinterest board.

Unfortunately, for the most part, Emma can't help but be that dreaded word: boring. The film is also inept in a few major ways that prevent it from accomplishing anything more. First, the staging is completely bananas, shoehorning random activities into every dialogue scene, staging moments while people do things like set up for a barn dance, shoot arrows, or pick strawberries. It should feel nice to get some fresh air away from the drawing-room bound drama that Austen usually works with, but the sheer abundance of random hustle and bustle is intensely distracting.

But even more distracting is the fact that this movie just isn't shot very well. The lighting designer seems to have a blind spot, that blind spot being the entire foreground. The second any character steps toward the camera, a shadow falls over them like an alien craft is passing overhead. And the lighting in Emma's mansion is even more whack, sending rectangles of light shooting off in random directions to highlight exactly the objects in the room that aren't key to understanding the scene.

It's bad, people. I don't know who let this happen on such a major Hollywood scale, but they shouldn't be allowed near human eyes. But that's the only thing in the movie that's legitimately, actively terrible. Everything else is just bland and unremarkable. The best that I can say about Emma is that it's true to the source material, but beyond that it has absolutely nothing to offer. It's like listening to an audiobook starring Gwyneth Paltrow, and if you're into that that's totally fine. It's just not really adding anything to the world of Jane Austen, so it's a good one to skip if you're not as inclined to be thorough as I am.

TL;DR: Emma is a perfectly fine literary adaptation, but one just wishes it didn't take itself quite so seriously.

Rating: 5/10

Word Count: 944
Other Films Based on Emma
Clueless (Heckerling, 1995)
Emma (McGrath, 1996)
Emma (Lawrence, 1996)
Aisha (Ojha, 2010)
Emma. (de Wilde, 2020)

The Weather Outside Is Frightful

Year: 2015

Director: Mike Dougherty

Cast: Adam Scott, Toni Collette, David Koechner

Run Time: 1 hour 38 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Krampus is probably the movie I’ve most looked forward to all year. I love Christmas horror, I love Toni Collette, and after seeing Trick R Treat for the first time this Halloween, I had faith in director Mike Dougherty. But, as often happens in this tempestuous business of film, reality imposed a different outcome. Krampus is a huge, gold-wrapped present under the Christmas tree that, upon opening, turns out to be a clothes hamper It’s not a bad or pointless gift by any means, but it utterly fails to match up to the visions of sugarplums dancing in your head.

‘Twas the month before Christmas, and all through the blog, these terrible puns your eyeballs did clog.

Krampus tells the holly jolly tale of a family that has lost the Christmas spirit. Father Tom (Adam Scott) is too busy with work to pay attention, mother Sarah (Toni Collette) is stressed and dismissive, and daughter Beth (Stefania LaVie Owen) just wants to smoke pot out of a ludicrously festive peppermint bong with her loser boyfriend. Only their son Max (Emjay Anthony) and their German speaking grandmother (Krista Stadler) seem to even notice there’s a holiday going on. When their annoying relatives, who even Roald Dahl would denounce as hyperbolically vile, come to visit – led by gun-totin’ trailer trash Howard (David Koechner) – Max is mercilessly taunted and ends up destroying his letter to Santa, scattering it to the winds.

This act of treason upon the Spirit of Christmas summons Krampus, the dark shadow of Santa Claus, to dole out punishment and re-instill the holiday value of giving. But instead of Barbies and golf clubs that you’ll need to fake enthusiasm for, they’ll be giving something much more valuable… Their lives.

Well, Toni Collette’s character’s life I valuable at least. You can take or leave the rest of ‘em.

Krampus has a killer opening. Perhaps the best opening of any film this year. An opening that is so ironic, winking, and silly that the rest of the film has all but no choice but to fail to live up to it. But Krampus makes another critical error that it had a veritable ocean of opportunities to avoid: it’s working from a script that, at the very least, needed a couple passes before it was anywhere near complete. From a technical standpoint, the film is a gas, but at the script level it’s a Vegas casino: full of glitz and glamour with very little payoff.

The sheer amount of story elements that are introduced in the first act and never come up again (Eagle Scout survival training, creepy snowmen, a big honking meat cleaver) would have Chekhov swallowing the barrel of his gun. In short, it feels like it was made by a careless teenager, an enthusiastic kid who was too lustily excited by the thought of what he could create to stop and focus on why. There are brief swipes at emotional resonance, but they’re immature and ill thought-out, carried by archetypical characters as broad as the tree in Rockefeller Plaza.

Krampus is a blizzard. A flurry of totally unique, crystalline ideas (including my personal, consumerism-lampooning favorite: the plan to take refuge in a local mall) gets caught up in the furious gale, forming an indistinct rushing mass. It’s pretty to look at, but you don’t particularly want to get caught in it. However, for all that its individual snowflakes don’t stand out the way they should, it’s still a memorable experience.

How’s this metaphor going? I live in Southern California, so this is all hearsay.

For all that Krampus sublimely disappoints one’s expectations, there’s plenty of good that won’t come out. Design-wise, Krampus is an out-and-out masterpiece. Krampus’ hulking, cloaked figure cuts an imposing silhouette through the falling snow, and his helpers are frivolous exercises in nightmare fuel. Especially the fleshy, snakelike jack-in-the-box monster. That guy will be knocking on the door of my fragile psyche for weeks. But, you guessed it, despite their beautiful, feral forms, these creatures get very little to do. There’s just too damn many of them and the film has almost no idea what actual purpose they serve in the narrative.

Krampus bumbles wide-eyed through its own ideas like it’s Alice touring Wonderland. Even the film seems surprised when it stumbles across a patch of pure, fairy tale fright, like the glistening storybook town surrounding the snowbound house. In these moments, which are admittedly pretty frequent, we get a boost of adrenaline to drive us to the next sequence, whether it be an ass-kicking sister in law or an attack by mutant gingerbread men.

I apologize if my ample complaints have been misleading, because Krampus is very fun very much of the time. It’s a turn-your-brain-off good time, a Gremlins for the Twitter set. It’s just that the deficits of the film hit even harder considering the talent that was poured into it. Its unearned emotional beats and stunted character arcs don’t prevent it from being entertaining, but they do cut it off at the knees every time it makes the effort to be something more profound than its cheesy Christmas horror brethren like Silent, Night, Deadly Night.

Luckily, if you desperately want to see a Dougherty holiday flick that will knock your socks off, you’ve got Trick R Treat. And I do hope Krampus makes boatloads of money, but more for the sake of studio horror in general than any genuine devotion to the property, which I fully expected to be a gem. But a good time at the movies is a good time at the movies, even if it isn’t quite as grandly consequential as you’d planned.

TL;DR: Krampus is a fun Christmas horror flick that squanders its potential to be truly great.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 983

Women In Horror Month: Scream Queens

Man, February is just rocketing by, isn't it? Here's one more post for Women in Horror Month before we say hello to March!

THE TOP TEN HORROR ACTRESSES

#10 Ingrid Bolsø Berdal (Cold Prey, Cold Prey 2, Chernobyl Diaries)

OK, I don't think there's anybody alive and conscious who thought Chernobyl Diaries was a good movie. But this Norwegian actress deserves as much exposure as she can get. Her character Jannicke didn't earn the #7 spot on my Top Final Girls list for no reason. Berdal manages to infuse her character with a dignity and passion that is far superior to what most American actresses in similar roles have been trying to achieve for over three decades now.

#9 Sigourney Weaver (Alien, Aliens, Ghostbusters)

'Nuff said. Sigourney Weaver didn't spend a lot of time in horror outside of the Alien franchise, but when she was here she absolutely killed it, providing one of the most memorable protagonists in horror history in a film that most people my age don't even have the attention spans to sit through. That's some staying power right there.

#8 Elsa Lanchester (Bride of Frankenstein)

Fun Fact: The Bride of Frankenstein only appears in one movie. And she's only in that one for about 45 seconds. The fact that this character has been so permanently etched into the minds of the public is due entirely to Lanchester's no-holds-barred horror performance as an inhuman creature who reacts with pure visceral horror at the visage of her similarly created husband. She has later stated that she based her performance on the movements of geese so you know she's a great and insightful actress because geese are the freaking devil.

#7 Sissy Spacek (Carrie, The Ring Two)

I'm sorry Chloë Grace Moretz, but y'all ain't got nothing on Sissy. The perfect outsider, her Carrie is angular and weird in a subtly intense way that could only happen in high school.

#6 Zelda Rubinstein (Poltergeist, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon)

Honestly, I can't even tell if she's a great actress because I'm too distracted with being terrified by her voice. But that high tremulous voice is the most perfect fit for horror I've ever heard and the casting director who hired her for Poltergeist can expect a lavish Edible Arrangement at his or her doorstep from yours truly any day now.

#5 Tippi Hedren (The Birds)

I've frequently discussed my love for The Birds on this blog, so I won't belabor my point here. Just remember that this smoky blonde provides a chewy caramel center for all the avian ridiculousness and grounds the horror in a real, imperfect, but perfectly relatable character.

#4 Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense, Fright Night)

Poor Toni has been playing bedraggled mothers for decades at this point. All I can say though is that she does a great job at it. Her scene in the end of The Sixth Sense where her son relays a message from her deceased mother is one of the only film scenes that never fails to make me cry. She is the single best element of a great film that elevates it above what could have been a simple ghost story into a supremely satisfying family drama as well.

#3 Jessica Lange (American Horror Story)

Jessica Lange, man. Her late career shift to horror came out of nowhere, but this diva has a wicked streak as broad as Ryan Murphy's paycheck. She flawlessly habits characters as far ranging as a drunken neighbor to a drunken nun to a drunken witch. All kidding aside, Lange's acting prowess is as compelling as an electromagnet.

#2 Jamie Lee Curtis (Halloween, Halloween II, The Fog, Prom Night, Terror Train)

Another gimme. Jamie Lee Curtis is responsible for basically the entire decade of the 80's and is the single best actress to ever carry the Final Girl mantle. Beautiful but not overwhelmingly so. Compelling but not pretentiously so. Jamie Lee occupies that space exactly in between Oscar pandering and method acting. She's nothing but entirely real.

#1 Frances Conroy (American Horror Story)

Frances Conroy is a trouper. Given the most nonsensical character in the third season, she managed to make it her own and spawn a veritable army of internet memes in her wake. She throws herself with hurricane force into her meaty roles (my favorite obviously being Moira, the maid with a dark secret) and finds the reality in some fantastically surreal characters. She certainly doesn't get as much love as she should, so please. Write her a letter. Send her a lollipop. Something.

Thank you so much for supporting Women in Horror month alongside me! It's been fun while it lasted, but remember what Cassidy always says: "It never stops being women in horror month." And it's true. There's always time to appreciate the importance of the female gender in the development and success of the horror genre. And if you stick with me, I'll be sure not to disappoint.
Word Count: 830

Modern Vampire of the City

Year: 2011

Director: Craig Gillespie

Cast: Anton Yelchin, Colin Farrell, David Tennant

Run Time: 1 hour 46 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Full disclosure: I have not seen the 1985 Tom Holland vampire flick on which 2011's Fright Night is based. So I can neither extoll its virtues as a glorious remake nor detract it as a pale shadow of its ancestor's glory.

I have no idea of the quality of the original, but I'll say my opinion on the 2011 iteration couldn't be downgraded easily - the film's much too dazzling for that. Fright Night 2011 is one in a long line of modern age remakes of classic 80's horror films and one of the few to accomplish what the remakes of that period (Carpenter's The Thing, Cronenberg's The Fly, The Blob) tended to do regularly - capture the tone and magic of the original film while updating it for the modern world.

Fright Night is endlessly fun and immediately earns a spot in my top five remakes of the century. Although, to be fair, my Top Five Remakes Awards Shelf currently contains Fright Night, Evil Dead, Wizard of Gore, some dead flies, lint, and a Post-It Note that reads "NOT Prom Night."

And a collage of "Colin Farrell shirtless" Google Image results.

High school student Charley Brewster (Anton Yelchin) has risen in popularity due to another generous gift from the Puberty Fairy, leaving his geeky old friends Adam (Will Denton) and Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse and is there a film in the front half of this decade that doesn't have this guy in it?) behind in the dust. Why would he hang out with them when he can make out with his way-out-of-his-league girlfriend Amy (the hilariously named Imogen Poots) or her douchey friend Mark (Dave Franco)?

Sidebar: Amy is the worst. She doesn't want to go to prom cuz that's lame (I'm thinking she'll regret the decision to be too cool for prom fifteen years from now) and she forces him to buy her smoothies. 0/10. Would not recommend.

He lives in a cookie cutter Las Vegas suburb with his realtor single mom (Toni Collette, who has been playing this part since about the time Hollywood was invented). Business has been tough though, because of all those families in the neighborhood that keep moving out mysteriously without warning. And what's going on with that weird neighbor who only comes out when the sun goes down?

It takes about 30 seconds for Ed to warn Charley that Jerry (Colin Farrell) is a vampire and oh hey, maybe don't let your mom invite him inside.

The real horror is not being allowed to let this carefully unbuttoned man into your home.

Already the plot is moving at a fast clip (take into consideration that it took Bella Swan about an hour to figure out that Edward was a vampire - in a movie completely predicated on this plot point) and Fright Night sprints full pelt through a variety of delectable vampire setpieces as Jerry slinks around stalking his prey, as sly and calm as a jungle cat.

David Tennant plays Russell Brand Peter Vincent, a Las Vegas magician and master of vampire lore who is contacted by Charley to help maybe vanquish the guy who's been killing all his neighbors. But all is not as it seems and Vincent is as cowardly as they come, refusing to go anywhere near him. This is wise, especially considering that he's landed himself in the one remake that's actually pretty consistently scary.

Left to his own devices, Charley must find a way to destroy Jerry and somehow avoid looking like a complete psycho in the process. This leads to a variety of awkward teen situations ("What are you working on?" "...Porn") and the sudden realization that not only is this movie pretty scary. It's funny.

I'm talking actual laughing out loud intentionally funny jokes. Jokes that land! In fact, at least three moments are among the funniest scenes I've ever witnessed in any horror-comedy film (see: Ed falling in the pool and Charley's escape attempt with Doris). And one look at the credits would reveal who else but Marti Noxon behind the pen, one of the key women behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

With a goddess of the craft in her element, a barrage of bloody vampire mayhem, and irrationally solid comic performances across the board, Fright Night is an undeniable success.

It really bites. ...You know. In a good way.

That came out wrong. I meant to say it sucks.

Screw it! It's good.

Imbuing the explosive excess of the 80's (Literally - things explode left and right here. People, houses, you name it.) with modern sarcasm, references to Twilight and The Vampire Diaries, and an unusually well-integrated use of modern iTechnology, Fright Night is a wonderful marriage of two decades of awesomeness.

With an utmost dedication to gleeful pandemonium and a balls-to-the-wall outrageous Third Act chase scene, the film overcomes even the nacho cheesiness of the 3D effects. Did I mention it's in 3D? How could it not be? Although I didn't watch it in three dimensions, which greatly hampers the overall effect of some of the more CGI-based moments.

Alongside the action and gore, the sound design works triple time in a uniquely exaggerated register that is absolutely inspiring. Not many films would be able to stand under the weight of the almost grotesquely comical sound effects (Dave Franco swinging his fist sounds like a freight train) but the film is funny enough all around to sustain and benefit greatly from it.

And although, like most 3D films, the cinematographer is mostly held at bay by the necessities of adding a whole dimension (Altering the basic properties of quantum mechanics is hard, OK?) but one shot - an elevator going down with the sun - is imbued with all the beauty the film could muster.

Kind of like Colin Farrell.

All around it's a great film that doesn't take itself seriously and allows the scary moments to bubble up naturally from within the silly scenes instead of laying them atop them like oil on water. Not for no reason is this film one of the highest rated remakes on Rotten Tomatoes (although we shouldn't necessarily trust them considering that they don't ask for my opinion)

Even if you're not a fan of horror (or perhaps especially if you're not a fan of horror), I urge you to check out this cotton candy gem. It has crazy vampire teeth, a quippy hero, Doctor Who, explosions, and even a twist ending that gets revealed in the final scene! The twist ending being that Anton Yelchin is secretly the hottest member of the cast.

Who could have guessed?

TL;DR: Fright Night is a remake that I'm absolutely not ashamed to admit is pretty fantastic.

Rating: 8/10

Word Count: 1147
Reviews In This Series
Fright Night (Holland, 1985)
Fright Night (Gillespie, 2011)