Given the way folks carelessly toss about the term "classic" -- using the word to describe everything from ugly muscle cars to '80s slasher flicks -- I really shouldn't be surprised that some nostalgic movie buffs are eager to apply that appellation to the original 1985 Fright Night, if only to differentiate that film from its recently released, reportedly underwhelming remake.
But at the risk of sounding like the critical equivalent of the cranky old coot who wants those damn kids to get off his lawn -- I can't say I share the love for the '85 flick. This is, reprinted verbatim, my original review of the original Fright Night, as it appeared Aug. 2, 1985, in the now-defunct Houston Post:
Fright Night takes a great idea and makes the very least of it.
For his debut as a director, scriptwriter Tom Holland has come up
with a doozy of a premise: A teen-ager discovers his next-door neighbor is a
vampire, and must call on a TV horror movie host for help when no one else
believes his fantastic story. Unfortunately, Holland fritters away his
inspiration as he scuttles back and forth between grisly shocks and campy
put-on. One moment, we have a heavy-handed sight gag: the vampire's home is
the only house on the block surrounded by swirling fog and low-hanging clouds.
The next moment, we have Richard Edlund's yuck-o special effects: green slime
oozes from a bad guy's corpse, before the skeletal remains crumple into dust.
Holland had similar trouble balancing gore and giggles in his script for
Psycho II. Here, however, the schizophrenia is even more obvious, since
Holland lacks the directorial skill to merge the disparate elements. His movie
doesn't jell until the final 20 minutes, when, despite some glaring gaps in
the narrative logic, it generates some genuine suspense. By that time, alas,
it's too late in the evening for Fright Night.
Roddy McDowall [pictured above] gives a stylized, sympathetic performance as Peter Vincent,
the horror movie host who displays grace and surprising bravery under
pressure. Chris Sarandon plays the vampire, Jerry Dandrige, with adequate
suavity and menace.
But William Ragsdale, the teen-age hero, is a bland cipher. Amanda Bearse
is supposed to be his leading lady, but she could pass for his mother. (Of
course, her obvious maturity comes in handy when Sarandon starts vamping her
in a silly disco sequence. If she looked younger, he'd look like a child
molester.) Stephen Geoffreys, who plays the hero's eccentric classmate and
reluctant ally, looks and sounds like a Jack Nicholson clone that was somehow
damaged in the laboratory. Dorothy Brewster, cast as Ragsdale's mother,
overacts with the tiresome stridency of a supporting player determined to make
herself memorable.
Fright Night could have been something special. Its mediocrity is not
merely disappointing, it is almost infuriating.
(1965), arguably the campiest of all those high-camp ‘60s gothic thrillers that provided gainful employment for aging screen queens (a subgenre spawned by the classic Bette Davis-Joan Crawford matchup in 1962’s 
).
(1968), his legendarily ill-conceived Western starring Terence Stamp – yes, that Terence Stamp – as a moody young gringo who was raised by Mexican bandits and befriended by Texas settlers, but inexplicably spoke with a thick British accent that made him sound like… like… well, like Terence Stamp.
, his hugely entertaining account of his Paramount misadventures, I noted, only half-jokingly: “I’m probably the only interviewer you’ll meet while promoting this book who actually paid first-run admission to see Blue.” Bart, not even a quarter-jokingly, replied: “I guess I should apologize to you for that.”
.
, a Joe Orton comedy starring Lee Remick, Milo O'Shea and Richard Attenborough, and 
, a William Inge drama starring Sir Laurence Olivier, Joanne Woodard and Carrie Fisher – but never quite managing to make lightning strike a second time.
. Or 
. Or 
. (OK, maybe that's not really a classic, but still....) Or 
. Or 
. Or 
. Or Richard Lester's 
(which many folks actually consider to be a classic -- and many others don't). Or Christian Nyby's 
(with Burt Reynolds fighting the Viet Cong -- in 1965). Or Robert Mulligan's 
. I politely attempted to explain why the movie was such an artistic breakthrough, how it continues to influence other movies and moviemakers, what technical and storytelling elements are so thrillingly impressive... and she didn't buy any of it. It all boiled down to this: She thought that it was a pretentious bore, and that anyone who thought otherwise was a pompous twit. Finally, I had to tell her -- again, politely -- that she had every right to her opinion, and we'd have to agree to disagree.
) and Martin Scorsese.
-- the best advice he's ever received as an actor. “When I read the script for Alice,” he says, “I really didn’t know if I was up to the guy. I felt I didn’t have the acting experience – just the mechanics of it -- that probably was necessary. But when I got the job, Marty said something to me that was one of the most helpful things that a director ever told me. He said, ‘Don’t worry about what it says in the script when it says, “He says sternly,” or something like that. Just go through and cross out all of the directorial comments and just leave the dialogue. And figure how you would say that – how you would react to that.’ And that changed everything for me.”
. Kurosawa’s stunning 1954 epic is one of those absolutely indispensable films that practically everyone has heard about, regardless of whether they’ve actually seen it. Indeed, even if you haven’t, you may think you’ve seen it, given its strong influence on so many other films and filmmakers. For five decades, directors ranging from John Sturges (who remade it as 
) to John Sayles (who borrowed the basic plot while writing a 1980 sci-fi cheapie called 
) have drawn from Kurosawa’s tale of honor among warriors in 16th-century Japan.
) heads the ensemble cast as Kambei, an unemployed samurai who agrees to help peasants defend their village against periodic pillaging by marauding bandits. Even though the pay is meager — a few handfuls of rice — Kambei is able to recruit other hired swords who have little else to do after being cast adrift by the lords they once served. By appealing to their pride, sense of justice and respect for tradition, he attracts such tough customers as Kyuzo (Seji Miyaguchi), a taciturn professional who never wastes a word or gesture, and Kikuchiyo (Toshiro Mifune), a bearish hot-head who takes great pains to hide his less-than-noble ancestry.
.) A lifelong student of Shakespeare, he audaciously re-imagined Macbeth as 
(1957), an epic drama of medieval warfare; recycled elements of Hamlet in 
(1960), a modern-day tale of deadly serious corporate intrigue; and and reconstituted King Lear as 
(1985), his last incontestable masterpiece.