40 Years Ago, ‘Fright Night’ Changed The Template For Modern Horror

No, Tom Holland’s Fright Night isn’t the world’s first horror comedy. Not by a long shot.

The subgenre has been around since the 1930s and 1940s – remember Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein? There’s a fine line between horror and comedy, though. One person’s worst fear is another’s greatest source of humor. Even in the horror comedy genre, some movies choose more comedic elements than scares, while others value terror over tickles.

Fright Night falls into the latter category. Yeah, you can’t help but chuckle when Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall) finds the now-vampire Evil Ed (Stephen Geoffreys) in bed, wearing a red wig and pretending to be Judy Brewster (Dorothy Fielding), but watch it when you’re a kid, and it’s the most terrifying visual experience of your life. That’s the beauty of Fright Night, as its execution knows how to be what you want it to be when you need it. 

The premise for ‘Fright Night’ is horrifying

Imagine this scenario for a second: You’re a teenager who loves late-night horror television. One evening, you see a coffin being moved in next door. A few days later, you realize your neighbor is a vampire, as you watch him sink his teeth into a hapless victim. You tell everyone, but nobody believes you due to how ridiculous it sounds and accuses you of being a Peeping Tom. This vampire threatens you too, so you only have two options here: deal with this or die.

That’s the reality of Charley Brewster’s (William Ragsdale) life. He’s an ordinary teenager, but he must deal with the looming threat of the dangerous vampire next door, Jerry Dandrige (Chris Sarandon). Thanks to Jerry’s good looks and charms, he disarms everyone, but Charley knows that Jerry will take everything from him (and he almost does) unless he stops him. Yo, where’s Blade when you need him the most?

In all seriousness, this is a big deal for Charley. Not only does he need to worry about his own safety, but also that of his mother Judy, girlfriend Amy Peterson (Amanda Bearse), and friend Evil Ed Thompson. Charley’s so out of his depth that he reaches out to Peter Vincent – former horror actor in the mold of Vincent Price and host of the Fright Night late show – for assistance. It’s easy to see the problem here already, because Peter isn’t trained to deal with vampires – he’s just an actor. In the end, though, Charley needs to put his trust and faith in a stranger in order to help him defeat Jerry and Jerry’s stooge Billy Cole (Jonathan Stark), as well as to rid the neighborhood of the vampiric menace. Phew! Anyone else wishing they lived somewhere else instead of dealing with this problem right now?

Watching the movie as a younger audience member vs. as an adult

Like other ’80s horror flicks The Evil Dead, Creepshow, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Fright Night understands how to teeter the line between horror and comedy. Occasionally, it crosses over into the humorous camp, but it steps back over to the horror side before it turns into The Hangover. Again, this all boils down to the execution of the film, where a filmmaker understands the importance of levity and humor to the story but also how to create something potentially scary to a viewer.

As a younger audience member, some of Fright Night‘s humor goes over your head, as the creature design and premise overwhelm and scare you. The possibility that you could be living next door to a monster and nobody believes you is enough to keep anybody awake at night. You don’t want to be Charley Brewster here!

Rewatching the film as an adult, though, you pick up more of the humor, such as Peter Vincent throwing shade at slashers, or the absolute ridiculousness of Evil Ed as a vampire. You watch the same movie, but with a different set of eyes, so it feels like an all-new experience.

The Tom Holland film is a gateway 

For many ’80s kids, Fright Night served as an official gateway into horror – much like Goosebumps did for ’90s kids. It was the scariest thing you had ever seen to that point, encouraging you to dive deeper into the genre. Years later, you realize Fright Night‘s uncanny ability to make you laugh, because of how deliciously funny the script and dialogue are. 

Nowadays, you can spot its influence all over movies like Vampires vs. the Bronx, Abigail, or even Barbarian, proving that while Fright Night might not have been the first to combine horror and comedy, it’s part of a select group of films that transformed the genre for the better. Modern horror has a sense of humor, and that’s largely thanks to films like Fright Night. To quote Jerry Dandrige, “I’ve seen all of your films. And I found them… very amusing.”