Fright Night

Rating: *

So did you really believe vampires were slight,romantic creatures with wavy hair,who communicated in smouldering looks and soft undetones? Move over ‘nice guy’ Robert Pattinson,enter ‘bad boy’ Colin Farrell.

This remake of a 1985 film by the same name is less Twilight,more Twilight Zone. And Farrell and Gillespie do a thorough job of rewriting the softening of vampires in popular imagination. He kills without a beginning,middle or end,he kills without any formality,he kills remorselessly,he kills with as much bloodshed inside his house as out on street,and when he is done,licks the blood around his lips till much afterwords.

Much like the vampire at the centre of it,Fright Night’s killings have no beginning,middle or end,while the film dispenses with any explanation,enjoys its blood,and leaves behind a string of corpses and missing teenagers who attract little attention despite the setting being a Las Vegas suburb.

Yelchin plays the innocent teenager next door who discovers Jerry the vampire’s secret,breaks in and gets a victim out under his nose — literally. The unfortunately named Imogen Poots is his girlfriend — Jerry describes her as “ripe”,and really she is too luscious to remain untargeted in this blood fest.

The cherry on this cake though is a Vegas vampire slayer/magician named Peter Vincent,as undressed as the assistant he has around him. He is the guy meant to spout us the vampire mythology — mercifully,despite the ambitious figurine with wings and a golden crown that Jerry has built a shrine to,there is little of it.

shalini.langer@expressindia.com