Tuesday, November 6, 2018

2) Fright Night and the Evils of Masculinity

I don't know what it is but I have a personal affinity for 80's vampire movies. It was almost like what Twilight was in our era,  but slightly more sexually ambiguous. I think what 80's vampire movies do so well, that today's vampire flicks maybe don't, is use vampirism as a means to explore sexuality. Today's vampire movies tend to be more "hot guy with slick hair and deep dark eyes" which, I admit is just a general vampire trait in itself, but they can be MORE than that! Once Bitten is about losing your virginity. The Lost Boys is about being gay. And my favorite of the early 80's horrors, and equally the 2011 remake, Fright Night is about embracing your masculinity, or lack thereof, because being a hot douche isn't that cool.

Image result for Fright night poster 2011For those who are unaware (turn away now if you want no spoilers I'm about to rip all the spoiler holes), Fright Night is a film about a teen named Charlie who finds out that his new neighbor, Jerry, is a vampire. That's the general basis. I'm going to reference more the remake than the original film. While both cover the same overall plot points, the remake does it more subtlety and leans into it a little harder as an overall theme.  In the film, Charlie is having difficulties consummating his relationship with his girlfriend, Amy. You see throughout the film little hits of what Charlie felt like he had to do to win over Amy's affection. He wears fancy shoes that he feels like he has to point out is puce color (I don't even know wtf puce is) and he has become distant to his longtime friend "Evil" Ed because he represents a nerdier side to his life. 

Image result for Fright night colin farrellAnd then there is Jerry. In the original film he is played by Chris Sarandon, and in the remake by Colin Ferrell.  Jerry represents beyond coolness. He's literally too cool for school as in he is beyond the fake cool that Charlie's new cool friends, and Charlie himself, try to emulate. In both films, Charlie catches Jerry going on a date with an especially attractive woman. Jerry just seemed to hypnotize them effortlessly. If he was pulling a facade, it was surely over Charlie's eyes. In the remake Charlie's mother takes notice of Charlie constantly stressing over maintaining an image to Amy. She says to him," You know, sometimes getting what you want isn't always what it's cracked up to be."  Charlie thinks his girlfriend is too hot for him. Too cool for him. And he really likes her, so if he somehow let's it slip that he is actually a major nerd, he's scared he'll lose her. More on this later

Image result for Fright night peter vincent Back to Ed! So Ed tells Charlie that his super hot sexy dude neighbor is actually a vampire. This where we have to skirt around a bit but essentially Charlie never believes Ed and that proves none to great for him later on. When Charlie notice's Ed's absence, he does get suspicious so he decides to see if his old friend was right. Surely enough, he was. Charlie, being none too knowledgeable about killing vampires, goes after magician and occult enthusiast, Peter Vincent played by David Tennant. (In the original he's a late night horror host played brilliantly by Roddy McDowall ) Peter Vincent, in the remake, is also very symbolic of false masculinity, but in a different way. Like Charlie, he puts on an act to appear one way on stage but, back stage, turns out just to be a drunken rockstar wannabe. Peter Vincent originally turns Charlie away, calls him crazy, but eventually has a sprawl with good ol' Jerry and believes Charlie, but still declines to help due to the realization that the same vampire Charlie is dealing with is the one that killed his parents.

Image result for Fright night peter vincentNow I don't exactly know if this is symbolic in some way of like Peter chasing the dreams of being a douche and isolating himself from his parents or if a vampire just real deal murdered and ate them, but I'll leave the thought there to chew on. 

At a certain point, Ed is turned into a vampire and tries to kill Charlie. Charlie has no choice but to stake him with Ed explaining, in his last couple moments, that there were no hard feelings. It is here where Charlie talks to Amy and grieves his old friend's death. He mentions having turned away from him when he started trying to court Amy. She asks if he thinks it's somehow her fault he died, Charlie jokingly nods and then immediately shakes his head. Amy explains to him that she's known all along that he was a nerdy nerd. She explains to him that it was his nerdyness that drew her to him in the first place because douches aren't cool.

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  • That being said, Amy is soon hypnotized by douche Jerry and is promptly kidnapped. Charlie goes back to Peter Vincent asking, not for his help, but for some of his badass vampire killing weapons. Charlie now embraces that he is going to have to go full Blade if he is going to save his girlfriend. (He can save Amy, who is now a vampire, if he manages to kill the alpha, Jerry (alpha male?), before she feeds (I'm not touching the symbolism there.)) So! After showing how big his balls are to Peter Vincent, Vincent agrees to help him on his rescue mission.


During the climactic battle, Charlie and Peter are caught surrounded by vampires with Jerry hypnotizing Amy to kiss and lick all up on his super stud vampire body so much so that we know it had to have hurt our hero in the emotion pits. Charlie asks Peter to light him on fire (it's a whole thing) and Charlie hugs Jerry and kills him with his own hot body. 

Image result for Fright night vampireAnother thing to point out is any time Jerry is hit with some weakness, be it a too close for comfort stab by a For Sale sign or a hug from a hot nerd, Jerry spazzes out worse than a meth head at a convenience store at 2am. I know. I've worked at convenience stores at 2am  The point is, I wonder if that is symbolism for hurting the douchey male ego. If you attack their weaknesses, maybe they spazz out like a meth-- you get the idea. 

So yeah. I think I'm gonna end it there. Spoiler alert if you haven't seen the film. But also watch it if you haven't! I left out some key parts and stuff and it really is a wild ride. So yeah. The end. Thanks for reading. Poo Poo Kachoo. 

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