Here at STARBURST, we’ve been fans of horror films ever since we were allowed to stay up late and watch them. Between us, we’ve clocked up more hours watching scary movies than would be considered normal. We often discuss and argue films whenever we can, but we all agree that among our favourite movie monsters are the vampires. I mean, come on – we’re food to them. They’re hungry predators, looking for their next meal and we’re on the menu. Unless we’re talking about Twilight, True Blood, or The Vampire Diaries. (Come on, you don’t fall for your food.)

Buffy, however, is a totally different matter and was the last word on proper, traditional vampires. It also was the first and last word on teenage vampire romances. Buffy and Angel – never was that dynamic equalled, let alone bettered.

But as a bunch of Buffy fans, it has to be admitted that ingenious as that series was, it owed something to the genius of Tom Holland, who wrote and directed Fright Night. Granted, Buffy owed something to The Lost Boys as well, but Fright Night came first.

Even the Scream films owe a debt to Fright Night when you think about it. The characters in Scream are aware of what’s happening around them because they watch slasher movies and thus, they know the rules and conventions of the slasher genre. In Fright Night, the same concept is true – nine years earlier.

Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale) is a kid in his late teens, and he is a huge horror movie fan. He’s a little bit nerdy, an outsider and mixes with another outsider ‘Evil’ Ed Thompson (Stephen Geoffreys). We asked the film’s director, Tom Holland, if any of the characters in the film were based on himself or any of his friends growing up: “Ed was based on every horror fan that I ever went to high school with. Charley Brewster was me. Evil Ed was all my weird friends. If you were into horror back in those days, oh boy… something was a little wrong with you.”

Charley has a girlfriend Amy (Amanda Bearse) and pretty much, all is well in his world. He’s watching his favourite TV show, Fright Night – a horror movie programme hosted by his hero Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall) – a fading horror movie actor. Tom explained the concept of the show-within-a-film, “I grew up watching the American International [AIP] horror movies with Vincent Price, and the Hammer horror films and that is my loving homage to those. Peter Vincent is named after Peter Cushing and Vincent Price.”

“It was my memory of growing up being a horror fan, because in the United States, back in the sixties, pretty much the only place you could find horror was on the independent local TV stations,” he continued, “On Friday night, they would run something called ‘The Friday Night Frights’ and they would start them at 11:00 at night. A lot of them had different local horror hosts. You’d have Zacherley coming out of a coffin, or Vampira in a fog-filled set.”  

“You’d have these men and women who were terribly hokey and comical. They had no money because it was the local stations. They’d throw up a black flat behind the host and they’d pontificate in Frankenstein type voices, and I felt a great deal of affection for them. They’d have these god-awful horror films, and in-between the terrible stuff would be the Hammer and the AIP stuff.”

As Charley looks out of the window, he sees a coffin being carried into the deserted house next door. He tries to tell Amy, who doesn’t believe him because a similar graveyard scene of a coffin being carried is being shown on the TV.

Charley is instantly distrustful of the new neighbour – and his suspicions seem founded when some prostitutes go missing, one of whom Charley recognises as a visitor to the house next door. Screams are heard at night, and Charley sees his neighbour seduce a young woman through his bedroom window… it all points to a vampire next door. Makes perfect sense as the only possible explanation to a horror movie fan – right? Sadly, Amy and Ed don’t quite see things the same way. Ed is happy to advise on the best means of dealing with the vampire, though – for some quick cash.

Thus, armed with knowledge gleaned from Universal and Hammer movies via Evil Ed and because he has watched all the old films, Charley believes he can handle a vampire. He seals his windows, knowing that a vampire can’t enter a property unless invited. As he’s driving the last nail into his window frame, Charley is called downstairs by his mother to meet her guest… the new neighbour, Jerry Dandridge (Chris Sarandon) – the vampire. As he has been invited over, he can now come and go as he pleases.

Charley’s miseries accelerate from zero to sub-light speed when he calls in the police claiming knowledge of how the prostitutes are going missing. Visiting the house with a detective, he announces his vampire theory and is ridiculed by both the cop and Dandridge’s henchman. But Dandridge now sees Charley as a clear threat and must be silenced, either by threat or other, more permanent means.

Dandridge attacks Charley in his home that night but is repelled when Charley drives a pencil through the back of the vampire’s hand. Now desperate for help, Charley approaches Peter Vincent, the famed vampire hunter of the movies he loves so much, but catches the actor on a bad day. Vincent has just been fired from his job as host of Fright Night because, as he puts it: “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.” Vincent doesn’t want to hear what he believes to be the demented rantings of a crazy fan; he has problems of his own, such as paying the rent now he’s out of work.

When asked about casting the late Roddy McDowall for the role, one of his last and most memorable appearances, Tom had some fond recollections of his time with the legendary actor:

“I can’t remember now, but I wrote Class of 1984, and he starred in that too. I remember him being very moving in that, but to be honest with you, I haven’t seen it in a long time. I could go on and on about Roddy. His passing was a terrible loss to the film community.” Holland continued reminiscing, “Roddy did so much to help me as the first-time director of Fright Night he just loved film. He had the biggest collection of 16mm prints of anybody in town. Whenever I wanted to see a film, and I couldn’t get a print of it, I went to Roddy, and he would run me a dub out of his personal collection. It was an absolutely astounding collection.”

“He also was friends with everybody.” Tom continued, “Every major actor. And he went back and maintained friendships, even go out to the Motion Picture Home and visit with the silent motion picture stars that even at that time, had been forgotten. He walked me around MGM, which is now Sony, telling me where this or that famous moment happened. He pointed out to me where Katherine Hepburn met Spencer Tracy. He was amazing; he’d been a child actor, he’d been through the creation of the studio system. He was just an amazing reservoir of knowledge. If you were a film fan hanging out with Roddy McDowall, it was the ultimate pleasure because he could talk about it so knowledgeably because he’d been there and knew it. He was a living, walking history of Hollywood and film.”

“If he liked you, and thank God, he liked me; he was very supportive.” Holland revealed, coming back to the film, “You’ve got to remember Fright Night was my first directorial effort, and the fact that he took me seriously, he took the other actors and made so much possible for me. He and Chris Sarandon. Chris should not be forgotten either. He’s an extraordinary actor.”

It’s when Vincent receives an eviction order from his landlord that Evil Ed and Amy call, desperate to elicit his help with Charley, who they believe to be delusional. Accepting the offer of $500, Vincent agrees to perform a staged ‘vampire test’ with Dandridge’s co-operation where a bottle of holy water (in reality, tap water) will be drunk thus proving once and for all that Dandridge is not a vampire.

Well, the best-laid plans of mice, men and phoney vampire hunters… Vincent realises – quite by accident – that Dandridge doesn’t cast a reflection in a mirror in a scene that pays homage to Universal’s Dracula (1931). He’s dealing with a real vampire. This is far more than he bargained for.

Matters escalate when Dandridge starts taking Charley’s friends one by one, turning Ed into a werewolf who attacks Vincent and is killed by him, albeit accidentally.

Amy, meanwhile, becomes Dandridge’s vampiric bride, and along with the transformation comes a growth of long blonde hair. The physical change is inexplicable as she was a brunette with short hair previously. But if we can accept that Dandridge’s bite can transform Ed into a werewolf, I guess we can go along with his ability to turn Amy into the apparent reincarnation of his lost love.

With the odds stacked against him, Charley faces the vampire in a deadly showdown, with the resolute vampire hunter heroically, if a little ineptly by his side. The duo survive an ordeal, which is visually reminiscent at times of Tobe Hooper’s Salem’s Lot (1979), but was the vampire menace finally thwarted? After all, we hear Evil Ed’s insane cackle just before the credits roll.

In 1988, Fright Night 2 was ready for release when fate took an unexpectedly sinister and tragic turn. As reported at the time, the chairman of Live Entertainment, Jose Menendez who was handling the film’s distribution and was actively planning for a third movie, was murdered by his two sons on the day he met with Roddy McDowall and director Tommy Lee Wallace. In the confusion that followed, this film was somehow lost in the shuffle, plans for a worldwide theatrical release were shelved, and consequently, many people don’t even know it exists. The film eventually found its audience on VHS and is, to this day, awaiting an official UK DVD release.

Three years have passed since the events of Fright Night. Three years of therapy for poor Charley Brewster, who is now at college. The therapy has been successful, Charley now believes the far more logical explanation that the late Jerry Dandridge wasn’t a vampire at all, but a serial killer masquerading as one.

One evening, he and his girlfriend Alex (Traci Lind) visit Peter Vincent, still a fading, hammy horror star, past his prime, and host of local horror TV show Fright Night and talk about the past. Before leaving, Charley notices four coffin-like crates being brought into Vincent’s apartment building – just as he’d seen Dandridge’s three years earlier. But this time, he draws the curtains and shakes off the supposition that the bloodsuckers are back because after all, vampires don’t exist.

Poor delusional Charley Brewster.

Jerry Dandridge’s sister Regina (Julie Carmen) is in town with her night-crawling posse, looking for revenge on those who killed her beloved brother. While Jerry was basically reasonable and just wanted to be left to kill people in peace until Charley became a nuisance, Regina is far crueller. She follows Charley and Alex as he takes her back to her dorm, and as they kiss – unknown to them, she’s on the roof of their car, manipulating what Charley sees as her seduction begins.

She aims to turn Charley into a vampire, purely for the purposes of extending his life so she can torture him for centuries. But what of Vincent? She replaces him as the host of Fright Night. But he has already realised during a party that he’s again dealing with real vampires and his bid to slay her with a stake live on TV during a transmission of Fright Night only lands him in an asylum. Meanwhile, Charley is succumbing to Regina’s will (and charms) and is in the early stages of becoming a creature of the night. It’s up to Alex to spring Vincent from the state hospital before the final transformation can take place for Charley in a reversal of the events of the first film.

Sadly, there would be no third film, but the ending left the door slightly open. Alex and Charley embrace, as they hear a bat flapping. But the wide shot reveals they’re living next to a field of roses, which are known to be among the aromatic plants that can repel vampires.

Stephen Geoffreys was asked to reprise his role as Evil Ed in this sequel, but couldn’t due to a scheduling conflict with another filming commitment. It’s a shame – it would’ve been nice to hear his immortal line one more time.

All together now: “Oh Brewster, you’re so cooooool.”

FRIGHT NIGHT screens on Horror Channel. Tune in via SKY 317, Virgin 149, Freeview 70, Freesat 138.