Fright Night

Vampire freaks, rejoice! I recently revisited Fright Night (1985), writer-director Tom Holland's valentine to the horror genre in which a teenager named Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale) becomes convinced that the suave bachelor who recently moved in next door (Chris Sarandon) is actually a vampire. Lacking any empirical evidence, Charley turns to a has-been TV horror host named Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall), as well as his girlfriend Amy (Amanda Bearse) and his friend "Evil" Ed (Stephen Geoffreys), who has some knowledge of how to successfully ward off vampires.

Fright Night works because it's the right balance of funny and scary. Holland's script and directing offer plenty of amusing moments for film buffs (such as Sarandon's imitation of the vampire in 1922's Nosferatu rising from his coffin). Meanwhile, Charley Brewster is a character absorbed in horror movie culture in a very surfacey way. He enjoys watching them on TV with the campy narration of Peter Vincent, but the real horrors render him unable to respond on his own.


Chris Sarandon is perfectly cast as the bloodsucker, Jerry Dandridge, and McDowall is a wonderfully spineless foil. The special effects become the star at the end, and although they were probably impressive 25 years ago, they're a bit dated now. Fortunately, the movie itself has endured with its sharp sense of humor and well-calculated scares. The vampire is indeed an enduring literary and cinematic figure, and of all the vamp flicks to come out of the 80s, Fright Night is the most successful overall. It has all the things a good vampire movie needs: strong characters who are often somewhat ambiguous rather than black-and-white in their morality, set pieces that truly stand out (like when Peter Vincent makes a terrifying discovery in Charley's mom's room), and dialogue you can quote: "To what do I owe this dubious pleasure?" "Welcome to Fright Night...For real." ★★★

The Exorcist

Thanks to Netflix, I was able to satisfy my desire to revisit The Exorcist (1973), the shocker that caused quite a furor upon its theatrical release, where apparently some viewers couldn't handle its subject matter. Adapted by William Peter Blatty from his bestselling novel (based on actual events of an alleged case of possession, although the sex of the child was changed from a boy to a girl for Blatty's version), and directed by William Friedkin, The Exorcist has garnered a lot of intense debate over the course of its now 37 years of existence: is it groundbreaking, the most terrifying movie ever made, or just simply sick and twisted? Well, maybe a little of everything.

I certainly recommend viewing of this movie only for those with strong stomachs and more importantly strong appetites for supernatural horror. If you actually believe in a spiritual realm, The Exorcist is all the more unsettling, because it bores through the security of 20th century modern America (or, in our case, 21st-century). Much as Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula took the pulse of an end-of-century London that felt superior in its civilized-ness and technological advancement, The Exorcist offers the chilling possibility that all that we see is not all there is, and that forces exist beyond our explanation or control.

Of course 20th-century Catholicism, at least through the lens of this movie, is just as cynical as the rest of the civilized world, and a troubled, spiritually doubting priest named Father Karras (Jason Miller) becomes the last resort of an actress named Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn), whose daughter Regan (Linda Blair) has undergone an inexplicably bizarre change in her personality.

Having exhausted all the scientific and psychological remedies, MacNeil goes against her better judgment in the effort to save her daughter, who's become possessed: she's violent, given to levitation, and rather foul-mouthed, too.

The Exorcist is so cleanly put together, so professionally done, that its technical impressiveness and dramatic "maturity" must have had the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in a tizzy. After all, they'd never had to nominate horror pictures for major Oscars like Best Picture, Director, Actress and Adapted Screenplay before. So despite the fact that The Exorcist may have become dated or altogether relegated to its time period of the 1970s (many people associate the decade with lots of good, important movies, myself included, so this isn't necessarily a negative point), it may deserve more points than we've given it for demonstrating the credibility of horror as a genre, and not just one made to entertain people in some primitive way.

 On the other hand, it's probably true that people flocked to see this movie more than anything because of its sensationalism. The horrible things 12-year-old Regan does to herself, the impressively grotesque make-up effects and the way she spins her head around, the myriad demonic voices (created in part with the talents of actress Mercedes McCambridge), and of course the green vomit, are nothing but sensationalistic. It's a mixture of "high," "sophisticated" 70's drama (at times Burstyn reaches delightful levels of histrionics) and Grand Guignol of the ickiest nature.

Max von Sydow, in a pivotal role at the end (and briefly at the beginning) as the starchy-white old exorcist, has a wonderful line in reference to the demon--or Devil--inside Blair: "He will mix the truth with lies to confuse us." I thought it was wonderful. The music is also noteworthy, particularly Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" but also the creepy strings used throughout.

Overall, The Exorcist might be worth seeing if you have an interest in demonic possession and want to see it Hollywoodized 1970's style, or if you're in the mood for spine-tingling thrills mixed with moments of unexpected laughter. Sometimes when the devil speaks you can't do anything but laugh. If you want something a little less graphic but still quite fascinating, try 2005's The Exorcism of Emily Rose with Laura Linney and Tom Wilkinson.

With Lee J. Cobb, Kitty Winn, and Jack MacGowran. ★★★½

The Hangover

There's been much ado about The Hangover, my review of which is admittedly way late. It's about a Las Vegas bachelor party gone awry: the groom's three buddies awake the morning after to find their friend Doug (Justin Bartha) missing and their memories of the previous night as fuzzy as their knowledge of his whereabouts. They slowly piece together the events that led to their current dilemma, through a series of often chaotic comic vignettes.

The Hangover gives us easy laughs. Too easy, in fact, and yet this is being lauded as kind of a monumental comedic achievement by some. The characters are typically one-dimensional, utterly unlikeable ex-frat-boy types, who don't really even seem to like each other.

Bradley Cooper is especially pompous as Phil, the bronzed, athletic bachelor-type who happens to be a married science teacher. Unbelievable as his character is, he is alternately an irresponsible jerk and the determined leader of the group. Then there's Stu (Ed Helms), the dentist, perhaps the most successful--economically speaking--of the group. He's trapped in a dead-end relationship with a woman who's too much of a tyrannical nag to be sympathetic in her fear that her boyfriend will venture into a strip club during his Vegas exploits. (However, he's lied to her that they're going wine-tasting in Napa Valley instead.) Given the revelation (early in the movie) that she's cheated on him before, it's hard to buy the emasculating choke-hold she has over him, and much easier to accept his drunken Britney Spears-style marriage to a stripper (Heather Graham) with a heart of gold. Last is Alan (Zach Galifianakis), Doug's loopy, unpredictably weird brother-in-law-to-be, whose wacky personality allows for much of the plot--if one can call it plot--to advance.

There are too many plot-holes in The Hangover to forgive, even if the movie gives us a passably entertaining hour and thirty minutes. It's a pastiche of Swingers, Bachelor Party, and the lesser-known comedies Mystery Date and The Night Before. From these four movies we get the main themes of The Hangover: Las Vegas weekend out-of-control, bachelor party out-of-control, Chinese mafia villains complicating the storyline, and missing friend/memory failures. You may want to watch The Hangover to save time, but I think any of those four movies is equally watchable (although all of them are fairly flawed).

Also starring Jeffrey Tambor and Ken Jeong. Written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. Directed by Todd Phillips. ★★