FRIGHT NIGHT (2011)

Fright Night stars Anton Yelchin, Colin Farrell, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, David Tennant, Imogen Poots and Toni Collette. Directed by Craig Gillespie. Rated R with a running time of 1 hour and 46 minutes.

Plot: Senior Charlie Brewster (Anton Yelchin) finally has it all going on: he's running with the popular crowd and dating the most coveted girl in his high school. In fact, he's so cool he's even dissing his best friend. But trouble arrives when Jerry (Colin Farrell) moves in next door. He seems like a great guy at first, but there's something not quite right, but everyone, including Charlie's mom (Toni Collette), doesn't notice. After observing some very strange activity, Charlie comes to an unmistakable conclusion: Jerry is a vampire preying on the neighborhood. Unable to convince anyone, Charlie has to find a way to get rid of the monster himself.

Fright Night is kind of like Disturbia but with more blood and the obvious vampire twist. As for the vampire himself, Colin Farrell is excellent as the lean mean blood-sucking machine. He's a good villain and it's fun to see a vampire actually being a vampire unlike those love-sick, vegetarian ones from Twilight. Farrell is taking some career risks by doing a mainstream comedy earlier this summer in Horrible Bosses and is now playing a vampire. I think it's working for him as he is strong in both movies. The rest of the cast including Yelchin, Poots, Mintz-Plasse, and Collette were fine but nothing that really stood out. Though David Tennant provides some funny moments as a vampire "expert" whom Charlie seeks help from.

Fright Night has a good cast and some great visuals but some of the story points irritated me. At the beginning of the film entire families are disappearing (due to being Jerry the vampire's dinner) and the whole town doesn't seem to notice or care. I know I'm just supposed to watch and not worry about that, but it stood out to me and pretty much distracted me. Also when Jerry decides to blow up the Brewster's house none of the neighbors seem to notice that the house just exploded....or they just don't care. I don't know maybe I'm just nit picking but those things stood out to me and bothered me.

Unfortunately I was forced to see Fright Night in 3D and while it was useful in a handful of scenes, it still could have gone without the 3D. Fright Night is entertaining most of the time and uses it's Las Vegas setting to it's full potential, but some glaring plot holes stood out to me and took away from the good of the movie. It is mindless entertainment and if you want to just relax and sit back for a couple of hours, then Fright Night will suffice that need.

B-