Big Picture Podcast: Fright Nights

All right, here we go. I want to welcome back to the big picture podcast. You know, as we take a look at the latest movie news, the films of today and yesterday, at least we try to put it in some sort of context. I don't know how it works for you, but needed to press the microphone from me, as always, is Film Buff Online Editor-in-Chief.

Rich Strange. And seated across the microphone from me is Film Buff Online contributing editor, Natasha Wagutsky. How did that work? Did that feel like a little loosey or loosey?

Yeah. We've been doing this for almost three years. I mean, it's time to get away from that. So we started this before the pandemic.

We do take long breaks, though, which we need to still not do. After all this time, it feels only right that we don't use the same scripted intro anymore. I know. I know.

I know. I think for the last year, I've been meaning to sit down and write a new one, but let me just, let me just freestyle it for a bit. Let's see what feels right. Okay.

How do you guys feel about this? We'll see. We'll see. Okay.

Well, we do have a second retro double feature review of Fright Night Coming Up Later in the episode. This is Halloween Day. Yes. And I'm hoping to get this done and opposed it before Halloween ends.

But even if you're listening to it on All Saints Day, All Souls Day, November 3rd, 4th, 5th, whatever, enjoy the extended spooky season, I guess. Speaking of spooky season with a release of next year's Nosferatu, I thought come spooky season, we can open with Nosferatu versus Nosferatu, 22 versus Herzog 79. What about the original German one? That's 22.

Oh, 22. Okay, I was never right. Brain fart on something. Yeah.

Sure. Herzog is a slight blind spot for me. I've only seen like two or three of his films. Hey, this is really the only one I've seen.

So, yeah, so I need to kind of dig into that a little bit more. I actually saw Herzog. I was raised on the 79 Herzog version. And then later on, we've had discussions about your mother.

Huh? No, that has nothing to do with it. Oh, was it your mom who showed you that? Because I showed you every other agent appropriate thing.

Hey, it's Nosferatu. I know. But yeah, no, I was raised on the 79 version. And it wasn't until later on, because it was hard to track down on VHS at the time.

It took me forever to actually get around to see the original silent. Yeah, because it was just hard to get my hands on it. And then I did. And I was like, oh, oh, they're both good.

They're hard with each other. So yeah, that'll be something to talk about, particularly with the opening of Robert Eggers this year. I will make a note of it and try not to lose that note in the next 48 weeks or so. I'll put it in my calendar for October 1st of next year.

I like that idea. Let me do it now before. Thank you for getting that sounds responsible and reasonable. Oh, wait.

I'm being responsible. Are you OK? I don't know. I don't think so.

Why am I OK? True. Anyways, there's not been a whole lot of news this past week. SAG's strike is still going on over this past weekend.

There was some talk that maybe they were close to a deal. But as of this afternoon on Halloween Day, no news. So not surprised. Yeah, which does not bode well.

But I think the only really big news story that's kind of out there was the very shocking and sudden news that Matthew Perry, sorrow friends, had passed away. Yeah, so I was actually in the middle of my vampire slumber party with my girlfriends the other night. We're sitting at the dinner table, and then all of a sudden phone started pinging around the table really quick. Like, news was hitting.

And everyone thought it was like, some sort of Amber Alert or something, and they picked it up. And it was a notification that Matthew Perry had passed. And one person burst in the tears. The other one had to call their mom.

It was not easy. I was out of town visiting one of my older brothers. His youngest daughter was in her high school play her senior year. They were doing a gaslight, and it was a fantastic production.

And I came out of the theater as we're walking to the car. And I pulled my phone out to turn the buzzer back on. The ringer back on. And I saw my phone had blown up with a bunch of messages.

Very grateful that, of course, our partner in crime and film off online, Bill Gattavaskis had stepped in and took care of putting up the notification on our Facebook page, where we do do those memorials. But it kind of hit me weird. When I was on the drive down to my brothers, I was listening to some podcasts. I was listening to The Fly on the Wall podcast with Dana Carvey and David Spade.

And they did a live podcast at the Ground Links Theater about Phil Hartman. They had some other Phil Hartman's cast members from Saturday Night Live, one of the writers from that era on stage. And they were just reminiscing about Phil and what a great guy he was and some of their favorite bits of his, things like that. And towards the end, they started to talk about what they missed about Phil.

And I can't remember whom it was, but they said, the thing they missed most about Phil is getting to see where his career was going to go. He very much had that potential to kind of go into a dramatic vein if he wanted to continue comedy roles, probably even jumping back and forth. And so that was kind of, I guess, in the back of my head when I see this news about Matthew Perry just a few hours later. And thinking, well, first of all, I was like, oh, I didn't realize he was the exact same age as me, 54.

And I was like, oh, obviously, I'm 54. I'm going to say that's too young to go. And I don't think anybody. I would agree that at 54, you're too young to go.

But I understand what you mean about the unlimited potential that a human being could have across, not just the influence that they have on others, but across their career. And being gone too soon really hits hard to, in particular, that hit me over my lifespan. Obviously Heath Ledger. I was in bed when I got, when my father called my mom, it was one, like one or two AM asking if I knew an actor named Heath Ledger, she woke me up and told me and I burst into tears.

And the other one, which is, it hits hard every single time I watch Fright Night. Okay, yeah, I figured as much. Yeah, Anton Yelchin, because I had been a fan of his ever since he was a child actor back in like, along Camus Bider, Hearts in Atlantis. Like when he was like 10 or 11, I watched him grow up on screen.

So having his demise come so soon really hit us. Oh god, they're both tragedies. This is weird. I remember where I was when I found out about Heath Ledger.

I don't think I've told this story on the podcast. I've told you this though. I was at a movie theater in line for a screening of teeth of all movies and we're inside the theater in like the main hallway and we're all lined up against the wall going back and I'm standing, literally standing next to a Dark Knight poster when the news starts bubbling back from somebody who saw it on their phone or got a message or something, you know, from closer to the front of the line. So that was- It made watching Dark Knight very hard.

I actually, so I went to see the movie and then my mom and I walked over to a church bazaar afterwards for a bite to eat and I was shaking after I walked out of Dark Knight and I was just a mess. She had to sit me down on a curb because it was like, it was like I went into like a diabetic shock. Like that's just how much I was shaking and how pale I was because knowing that there was the possibility that the role could have affected him or you know, whatever it was- Yes, yeah, I know what you're saying but not I wanted to get into the- I don't want to get into speculation on it. But it was just, I was very young and all of that just hit me all at once.

And I know that for many generations friends was a huge part of growing up. It still is. Well, my niece who just turned 18, we didn't tell her until like the next morning. Or no, I'm sorry, later on in the evening once we were back at the house.

And I just realized at that moment that she's part of a whole generation that just new friends through cycles and cycles and cycles of free runs. It was kind of an omnipresent thing. It was always so popular. And- And it's gotten even more popular with age, particularly over the last like five, six years, you had the anniversaries, you had the pandemic, during the pandemic, people were catching up on so many things their parents had the chance to actually sit down with their kids and introduce them to something that was important to them growing up or something that had left a lasting impression.

And I'm seeing that more and more on social media through TikTok, through this, through that, friends will embrace sex in the city. It's having an effect on our newest generations. I have a friend of mine who just turned 25. And the other day, she made a post and she said, I'm just entering my third season of friends.

For the first time? No, no, like if she was all friends- Oh, okay. I see. That's an interesting way to track time, I guess.

And I mean, when I, when I turned 25, the first thing out of my, in my brain was some like at heart of, you know, a quarter of a century really makes a girl think, but I liked how she kind of updated what 25 meant to her. Well, I mean, okay. And this did not go over well with her. It really hit hard.

Oh, I imagine so. Like, because it was like three days after. Yeah, there were, you know, everybody, I think, you know, was somehow moved, or at least anybody who was empathetic and who knew about his struggles. And, you know, as of now, there's no definitive corners, cause of death, toxicology reports are still weeks away.

So we're not going to even speculate as to what might have happened. But there were some people out there who were like, who were very disrespectful, I think. And quite honestly, anybody who was like, well, you know, who's kind of into any of those anti-vax conspiracy theories who were like, well, he took the vax shot. It must have been a spiked protein that got to his heart and remember, you can all just fuck off into the sun forever.

Because it was not appropriate and quite honestly, disgusting and gross. Let's just say that any speculations over the death of someone, I wouldn't want it done to me. No. Why do it to someone else?

We're all human. We all bleed red at the end of the day. True. And there's also so much other great work that he did.

And I'm just talking about his acting work. So let's kind of focus on that. He was very proud of Fool's Russian as a rom-com. He thought that was some of his best work.

He did a couple of other TV series, perhaps the most notable one, to me at least, is Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. I loved him when he showed up for like one episode of West Wing Now. Well, he's being tough sticking out. And him working with Aaron Sorkin got him cast and basically the part of Matt Albie was written for him by Aaron Sorkin.

And of course, Sorkin was smart enough to team him up with Bradley Whitford. And Sunday, late afternoon, when I got home, I was just like, I'm just going to pull my Studio 60 DVD set off the shelf, watch one, maybe two episodes. And just to kick back and enjoy watching their chemistry together and stuff like that, it is now Tuesday. And I am mid-way through episode 20.

Do you have the discs for this or? Yes, I do. Yes. I was going to say, if you know where that streaming tell us.

I'm not sure where they're going to be. Many people who are interested. OK, just take a look here. It looks like it is available on Amazon Prime Video.

They are charging two bucks an episode to watch, though, unfortunately, same on YouTube and Google Play. But give it a couple of episodes. One evening, you may find yourself liking it and you find out 24 bucks for the whole season might be a worthwhile investment for watching over several nights. But beyond that, though, I mean, like I mentioned before, he had his issues that he struggled with.

But it was never about his own struggles. He always made sure he was helping when he could other people with their struggles as well. He was very clear about that and making that a part of his life's work, especially in the last 10, 15 years. He created what was called the Perry House in Malibu, California, which was a sober living facility for men.

He wrote a play called The End of Longing, which is also about his struggles with alcohol, things like that. And he wrote something here, and I found it online. I think this is from his book that came out last year. But I do want to read it.

And as a way to hopefully remember him by. When I die, I know people will talk about friends, friends, friends, and I'm glad of that. Happy I've done some solid work as an actor, as well as giving people multiple chances to make fun of my struggles on the World Wide Web. But when I die, as far as my so-called accomplishments go, it would be nice if friends were listed far behind the things I did to try to help other people.

I know it won't happen, but it would be nice. And I think. As Billie Joel said, only the good day young. And if I may end this on an entirely schmaltzy note, he was there for them.

So I know, I'm sort of part of me that hates sincere emotions, it's kind of mad at me right now. But I do feel that way sincerely. He was there for people despite or maybe because of the things he was dealing with. So I think that marks a life well lived.

How do you segue out of that? I know, that's the only problem here. He would be the first person to probably laugh at us about trying to segue out of something like this. I saw it.

OK. Who said you were catching up with? Studio 6, Studio 6, which honestly, great performances. I know this show kind of got roasted when it came out.

But there's some really great work in here. I just love the show. And by the time you get to the Christmas episode, with the displaced musicians from New Orleans, because of Katrina, and they were there. And they did something nice to help these musicians get some money to send back to their families at Christmas time.

It's just like, I am totally on board with this thing. I don't care if the emotions are big sometime or what have you. And I kind of don't care that the sketch show that all these people work on, the stuff you see isn't always really funny, as funny as we're supposed to believe it is. I think that's kind of beside the point, because it's about the people and not their work so much.

So I would say, if you can't, give it a watch. All right. I know that I haven't really had a chance to kind of catch up a whole lot of things recently. It's been really busy.

But I did manage to catch up with Mr. Knack on the list the other day. Oh. Yeah.

It was a cute little Regency film that kind of slipped under the radar with Frida Pinto, Zoey Austin, and a few others. Came out like two years ago. I liked it. It was nice.

It definitely caught the Bridgerton wave, but again, went under the radar in the theatrical release department. Nice way to spend an afternoon. Currently, right now, I'm doing my spooky season rewatch of you want to answer that question or finish that sentence, Rich? Any dreadful?

Yeah. OK. And I'm just more or less focusing on catching up with some of the stuff of this podcast that I had never seen last week's Suspiria Argento. And this week's double feature on Fright Night.

And you have been a little grumbly to me and messages about this. And so before we dive into that, I just want to bring up one thing. Yes. This was your idea.

I've always heard the original Fright Night is amazing. I had not seen either of them. So this was a nice way to plug a hole for me. And honestly, maybe it's because of the 80s aesthetic and with something new from the 80s that I hadn't seen.

I enjoyed that one a little bit more. I think I had, OK, let's get right into it then. Oh, boy, here we go. OK, buckle up, buckle heads.

I think the 80s one had a little bit more sense of fun about it. Oh, yes, it was definitely more fun or campy. It goes hardcore into the schlock version of horror comedies and horror hosts. And you can tell Peter Vincent is raped from Peter Cushing's idea.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's no doubt about that. Well, I just know, no. You didn't like you would seem, obviously, called back 10 minutes ago here.

You saw the Anton Yelshin version. I do have a special place in my heart for the 2011 version because it's the only move. It's the only actual event that my brother and I went and saw together. It's the only time we've ever actually spent time as a brother and sister.

He took me to see that when it first came out. It's written by Marty Nixon, who is famous for fucking writing Buffy. So of course, her writing skills are a little stronger in the vampire department. Yes, she is definitely somebody you want to go to.

I think she's moving. She tried to move away from Buffy, the vibe of Buffy a little bit, but she's still strong with vampire lore. And so there are things that happen in the remake script, though, that I don't think work as well as how things work in the original. The original is very much a boy who cried wolf story.

Would you would you not agree? It's he discovers something nobody believes in. And he keeps trying to get people to believe him until finally they do. But you do realize the whole point of Boy Who Cried Wolf is that the last time no one comes to his aid because no one fucking believes him.

Well, it gets to a certain point where you can't do that because otherwise it's just a bummer of a movie. But I think the beginning premise is there. And then you kind of go into a mode where you're playing with some of the really fucking piss me off the entire movie. I don't like a single one of them from the original.

Particularly Charlie. I wanted to take his head off myself. He was annoying. The thing that the new film does so well that the original fails to do is he only turns investigator when it personally starts to affect his life.

When there is a sense of guilt over possibly not believing a friend and then something happening to them. The original one, he's a nosy little busy body who has it fucking coming. The rear window isque of it all states that. And I'm sorry, you got your girlfriend in bed with you after you bitch and bitch then bitch that she's not going to fuck you for a year.

And then, wait, hang on. She doesn't want to fuck you for a year. She's been blue balling you. You bitch about it.

Then all of a sudden she's willing to give herself to you despite the fact she's terrified of what it's going to feel like of being nervous of not being ready. And then you turn your back on her in the same fucking scene because of someone's carrying a coffin. I'm sorry, she had every right to be as pissed as she was. Wow.

That's in the first four minutes of the movie. Yeah, I know. I know. I'm like to say for the people who are watching who didn't.

That is some sort of, first of all, though. How about that one or coming down out of the sky and up the street to the window? How about the one or the remake that's in the car? That's really good too.

That was actually really good. I did like that. And I actually noticed that the way that they did it with spinning the camera on everything is reminiscent of what we saw a few years later in atomic blonde. I haven't seen that so long until you're re-watching it.

And did you realize who the person in the other car was that kind of hits them and then gets attacked by the man? Yeah, it's Chris Rannett. OK, from the original. Oh, god, I noticed that almost immediately.

Even though I hadn't seen the original, I was very aware that Rick Pumperdink turned, you know, neck-biter. Now, I think in terms of like 80s teen horror slash sci-fi, you know, light-hearted, not straight-out comedies, but, you know, movies like that, genre films, these kids weren't quite as anxious as some of the other ones have been, some other characters, some other films. I do think Evo slash Ed in the original is a bit too much. A bit too much for a while.

I thought he was simple. He's not as bad as some other movie, some more, you know, straight-out comedy movies in their portrayal of nerds, like one of the guys or just one of the boys and a couple of other films where they have like these little nerd characters off on the side who just talk in weird accents because they like Star Trek or, but they can't say Star Trek and stuff like that. And so he's not as bad as some of those, but the 80s were a bad time for movies and Hollywood depicting nerdy characters. I did have some good things about the original before we start getting into the remake section because I don't want to forget about that.

I did like Chris Sarandon as Jerry. I thought he was charismatic. I did some research. I like that the fruit theme carried over into the remake, by the way, because the idea behind that was is that Jerry is descended from a fruit bat.

Yes. And so it's used to cleanse his palate after feeding. So I thought that was a nice little thing. I loved Roddy McDowell.

He is just fantastic. He is really good in this. I've always thought that Roddy, I'm going to really piss some people off. I always thought Roddy was a better actor than Malcolm, because Malcolm has a tendency to go very big.

Roddy has a tendency of being more subtle, being more realistic, and grounding his characters a little bit more. And I caught that actually when I first saw the Elizabeth Taylor, 63, Cleopatra, when he played Octavian. Oh, yes. Everything about him kind of portrayed this idea of silent but deadly when he did that.

And I love that about him. He's definitely riffing on Peter Cushing from some of the Hammer films and stuff like that. This whole thing kind of screams. We wish we were a Hammer film, but we caught the ride a little too late.

So now what we only do is parody. There's definitely a Hammer influence in the original. I even like the meta-ish of, yeah, the only thing people want to see is mass men going around killing young virgins. So I thought that was a nice little snark to the slasher genre.

Roddy, I think, is fantastic. Oh, boy, I think to say about that club scene. Oh. I do like, yeah, there's a level of creepiness to it now.

It's just horrible. Horrible, horrible. Creepiness. I do like though.

He's a pillow. I know. Well, if you really want to look at things, so is Edward Cullen's in Twilight. But the difference is he is also living the life of a teenager.

I'm not defending Twilight. Yes, it's absolutely true. He's also a pillow. Pretty much anyone who is a vampire has a little bit of that in them, no matter what age of the human you're going after, because you're always going to be older than they are.

Well, yes, by a ridiculous amount. But I think the difference between, really quickly, between getting between a 400-year-old vampire and a 17-year-old girl. Well, I know, that's not even what I'm getting at. Between the original club scene and the new club scene is that in the original, he's specifically targeting Amy as almost like a reincarnated love interest.

And turning her from girl to woman. Did you see how her hair changed during the second club scene? Yeah, fuck off. But in the new one, he's not targeting her because he has really any interest over her.

He's targeting her because he is an animal. He's claiming he is stealing. He's taking her because he doesn't really care, but he knows Charlie cares. And I think that's a bit more simplistic.

I think the original, at least, yes, it's, oh, my long-lost love, it's something that we saw in dark shadows. Bromsoker's track, but she does it better because she obviously will take it later in Bromsoker's regular. Yeah, but I mean, like in the 92 or 92, but in that one, I feel like it's OK because they do sort of imply through moments where she has, where she's having flashbacks over dinner, where she goes, you know, and what about the princess? There's always a princess.

And as we see her, she starts to cry. Her face is a river, the river that she died in. It's implied that she sort of remembers or gets ideas that of a past life. Yes, I mean, there is no implication of that at all.

Does there need to be? Or maybe the implication is that, no, it's just a coincidence that she looks like his long-lost love, and that's what drives him to do what he does. It doesn't have to pay off like that. But he doesn't, but then after capturing her.

It's under-explored. Yeah, but then after capturing her, he has no desire to truly protect her. There's a fucking snake sitting right in front of her when he locks Charlie in with her. That's him taunting Charlie.

But he had the, he felt, well, I've turned her, forgetting perhaps that, you know, if he's killed before a son-up, she'll revert. So that's A, that's a great way to raise stakes, no pun intended. No, it's a great way to raise stakes, but from a story point, the story point does not work because if this man really loved her so much because of her possible connection to a long-lost love, there is no way in hell he would jeopardize her by putting her in danger like that. Hence, was his love for her greater or less than his need to torment Charlie?

Again, it's, you know, we can argue this back and forth and come up with excuses either way. So well is because when he throws Charlie in her in the room and locks him in with her, he doesn't really care. True, yeah. He doesn't care, but I think there's a little bit of a lessening of his character because he doesn't have a little bit of tragedy to his backstory.

I don't want tragedy. Well, that's, it's been done so many times that we have forgotten that vampires, going back to the original Dracula, are predators. They are animals. They turn, they feed.

Sex, even for them, isn't even really a thing. It's all the bloodlust that is the orgasm for them. Yeah, but I would say, though, that makes, by making him more animalistic, I think it makes the character in the new version, less smart, less cunning, and far more sloppy. And you're wondering, how did this guy survive 400 years when it feels like he leaves a lot of bodies in his wake?

He leaves a lot of people disappearing in this movie that we then discover at the end are down in that basement. And I repeatedly was thinking to myself, how has this guy not been caught over the years already? And I agree with you on that. But for me, I'm so tired of seeing the lovesick vampire.

I want to get back to something a little more primal that we've been missing for a while. And I think that the remake, Fright Night, was kind of that tonic that we needed to go from man to monster. But then again, this is 1985, and then we had 40 years more of lovesick vampires. So, you know, it might have been a little bit fresher in its time.

I would actually say, interview with a vampire isn't completely lovesick, but it does have sentimentality to it. It was, was it interview with a vampire where one of the vampires goes to a midnight screening of Superman the movie and sees the sun for the first time in the heartwarming, you know, thing at the end. That was Brad Pitt who is sitting in the 80s, right near the third act of the film, probably in like the last 10, 15 minutes of the movie, where he mentions that was one of the first time he had, we saw Gone With the Wind, we saw this, we saw that. And through that, he was able to live the life of a mortal and remember what it felt like, which I really like that idea.

Now to get to the remake. Okay, well, first of all, I really liked a lot of the final confrontation in terms of the effect work. The Green Flame, which is all hand animation, I thought really looked good. I think the best part for me in the, sorry, the third act confrontation stuff, Ed's transformation back to human was so fucking good in terms of like the practical effect.

There's a lot of practical effects, there's stunt work, there was probably stuff going on with wires and they were just, you can't digitally paint them out at the time, you just had to shoot it and make sure you didn't catch the wires in your shot. And I think it looks fantastic. I think, you know, there's a visceralness to it. I mean, the new one, the ending's fine, but I think, you know, a lot of the fights, even though it was kind of similar, in terms of like, you know, trashing up the room and then breaking open the floor and stuff like that to get shafts of sunlight coming in.

I didn't, it didn't feel weighty, you know, in terms of like, it was actually there. It was, granted, we're looking at 12 year old, you know, digital work, which might not look as 2011. Oh yeah, so the, yeah, no, I would say that the last few shots of Jerry as the sun is hitting him is not as strong as it should have been. Even in composition, even if, I mean, conceptually, it looked, you know, it was nicely composed or something like that, it'd be cool, but it just felt kind of centered.

I was like, let's just have him in the center of the screen and then he disintegrates. But to take a step back for a second, you said he really liked Ed's death in the original? I liked his transformation. Or his transformation.

It went on a little too fucking long. But I kind of liked what they were doing with the hand, almost like acid change to the wolf, to half wolf to human. No, in the new version. Okay, first of all, okay, it's make a love in.

But, you know, Christopher Mintz will always have to have that, and I'm sorry. But as sunlight was hitting him and he said, it's okay. He, it was no sunlight, he got stabbed. I'm sorry, stabs, excuse me, and stakes.

And as he's disintegrating, and he looks up and he said, it's okay, that got me. I was like, oh, that's nice. Because. There is a level of guilt that I think Charlie carries through the whole film, which doesn't work in the original because it's not there, because he's a fucking cause of it all.

There's this long line of guilt that Anton has through this film of not believing his friend, of not believing his own true nature, of, you know, I am a nerd at heart. I am a queen. Why can't I just accept that about myself? Why did I have to try to do something else?

Which I think is a different take on it. But when we get to the staking of Ed in the remake, that moment of it's okay, it's okay, Charlie. Kind of relieves him a little of that. Yeah, and I like that.

But the idea of having Ed be the discoverer of the vampire and Ed getting turned even before Charlie believes him fully and also losing the vampire familiar. I'm so glad we lost the vampire familiar. Oh, God, yeah. I think that character helped serve a function as like an extra impediment to the heroes to getting to.

And also, come on, also, when they finally kill him and he's just like, all the green stuff comes out through the clothes and everything. And he just kind of collapses. I thought that looked really good. That's a great practical.

It's a great practical effect. But what story point does it serve? Because honestly, this was the first thing that went through my head when it happened. He's not human, but yeah, he can survive in sunlight.

What is he? See my point? He's a familiar, might've been kept alive through magics from the vampire that's somehow still, I don't know, but it was, it was. There's no such thing.

Even my field was human. It doesn't matter. I don't think it matters, classifying what he was. Then what does it matter if we have him if he serves no purpose?

He served a purpose to the other character. In the original, yes. To help protect him, to help do his things that he needs done during the day like. And I do like the idea of transplanting the story from Iowa to Las Vegas suburbs.

And I think by also transporting this to the Las Vegas suburbs, we can lose that person who says, oh, I'm the roommate, I live here. Because we need to have someone kind of roaming around the house during the day to protect him. But in Las Vegas, you blackout the windows, you say, well, he works on the strip at night, he sleeps during the day, boom, you don't need him. You don't need that protector because no one's going to think otherwise of that.

I don't know about that, but we'll agree to disagree on that point. One thing, though, about the Peter Vincent character, that kind of bugged me, it was like the one change I didn't like. I like the idea of, okay, maybe he's a Vegas magician who does stuff. Kind of Chris Angel vibes.

Yeah, oh my God, they're very much making fun of Chris Angel. I love that. But I wanted him to actually be a non-believer. And then for him to show up later on goes, my parents were actually killed by this guy 20 years ago.

It kind of undercut, I think, the story a little bit. And it made him seem like a bigger asshole for pushing the kid away whenever he was like, hey, no, there's a real vampire. He's like, eh, vampires don't exist. Okay, go away.

I think it made him look like a bigger douchebag about it. I'm okay with that. I don't think, I think it hurt the character. I think it helped the character.

You want to know why? Why? PTSD. I don't think there's much evidence in the film to say that's why he did that.

Come on, McM, Lovin walks into your room even after you admitted that vampires exist and then you immediately run for your fucking panic room and lock yourself in. That right there is enough. I just took him as a coward. No, I took him as he has PTSD from that and will avoid putting himself in danger at all costs because he knows that that vampire is still out there and probably will come for him at any minute.

He's not exactly hiding even though he says I got really good at surviving and hiding. He's not really hiding. He's out there in the fucking open. So yes, of course he would build a fucking panic room.

He comes into my house, where am I going to go? Where am I going to save myself? I don't know if that was a panic room directly for vampires though because he didn't have like crosses on the outside of it or anything. That's just your standard rich asshole panic room.

But how thick are the doors and could McMlevin get in? Maybe, maybe not. But those would be also be thick doors to shield against potential kidnappers, armed with guns, things like that too. So I think the panic room was not vampire-related.

I think it was just standard rich person paranoia to have a panic room. I mean, yes, but at the exact same time I think there is a point to that. It's not just, yes, rich person can have a panic room. But for when I saw it, he wasn't scared until McMlevin said you're gonna have to get close to use that.

And then all of a sudden it became very real. And that's why he went to where he felt he could be the safest. Because he knows he has no, he will not be able to get that close. That's why he tells Charlie later on that torch him a vampire on fire is not thinking clearly.

He goes, well, if he's on fire, how the fuck do I get close enough? Yes. Even he knows he can't get that close. One thing that was in both films that I liked, and I'm sure it's been in other vampire films that are not springing to mind right away, but the idea that it's not just a cross that keeps them at bay, it's the faith behind the cross.

I always love that little nod. Which also makes me think, okay, would somebody who's very faithful as a Jew be able to hold up a star of David Pendant and force a vampire back or is it only a Christian thing? That's actually, I always love that argument. And I think for when I think of that, my brain goes, and I've been seeing where they're like, one of the best things I've ever seen in a horror film is when, and it's shitty of a character as this guy is, Benny from the Mummy holds up every freaking thing that starts talking in it to try to deflect email tab in the 99 Mummy.

He goes from Christian to Jewish to Muslim to this one, to that one. He's trying every single pendant to save his ass. And I love that. And I would love to see that in something else where it might be of more use.

Yeah, I think there's interesting stories probably to be found in the idea of somebody of true faith encountering a vampire and not just going, oh, it's a spawn of Satan because it just sounds like the easy cop out where you can have this character reflecting on their faith, questioning their faith, exploring, wait, why is my faith powerful against them? What's is the reasoning there, things like that? When I think of vampires and the idea of faith, my brain always goes back to the beginning of the Gromstoker's Dracula, where they kind of muddy up a little bit of the history of Latin and paler as part of it in the opening prologue about how he fought against the Turks, kind of almost like a holy crusade if I may be so bold. And so if you look at it from the original faith, Latin and paler and the Turks and all that, of course he is a man of a Christian faith.

Does it have to be backed by the faith of the person holding the relic? Or does it have to be backed by enough faith that the idol reflects the original faith of the vampire? So if it's a Jewish vampire, would a cross work on him? I don't know.

Or is the origin of amperism not from Vlad the Impaler, but I don't take it back to the crucifixion of Christ and say that the original vampire was actually the person who put the spear into Jesus's side after he died or something like that. Now you're getting into lore that I even... And then he had the spear of Longinus involved and all of this other stuff. You're getting into the lore that I've seen in things like Anne Rice's writing.

Okay, which I've not read two words of. I've not read any Anne Rice at all. Ever. And I'm keeping talking because you're just looking at me, slacks you on right now, like, what do you mean?

I've never read it. You need to at least read the main three. Interview with the vampire, Queen of the Damned and the vampire list that. You have to read those three.

You wanna talk about J.R.R. or Tolkien having a lore in terms of horror writing? Sorry, Anne Rice is up there. Okay.

She, oh, wow, that is... Oh, that's a stake in my fucking heart. I'm sorry, just the... All right, we're gonna have to pass that really quick.

Okay, say goodbye. And two version, I have two copies of that trilogy. I make fucking loan you one, but I'm afraid I won't see it for six years. So we're gonna skip past that really quick.

Let's talk a little bit about the females remake to original. Okay. Really let me just state to start it off. One of the few things I love about the remake comparatively is it's definitely more character based.

You feel a stronger connection to all our characters. You feel like there is a very strong connection between Charlie and his mom, between Charlie and his girlfriend, even between Charlie and Ed. Oh yeah, I'll give you that. The mom in the remake is not a twit.

Yeah. Yeah, and Tony Collette's fantastic. I'm sorry, even Amy in the original for a while was a fucking twit. Come on, you are just mesmerized by that hair.

And so you cannot see past the 80s vibe. No, no, not at all. No. And that's Amanda Beers who went on to be the neighbor on Married with Children on Fox, one of their very early big hits through the 90s alongside the Simpsons.

It's not even so much her. It's just the writing of that character is not good. Amy in the new one. She's a little too boss girl for me in the new one, I think.

She's real. I mean, she's real, but she's also a little bit too aggressive in terms of the balance that you need between her and Charlie, I think. And which states that Charlie is a dweeb, who is in a world he doesn't quite understand and doesn't know how to navigate. And I think his true power comes in when he accepts that he walks in both worlds.

When we see him transform and he suits up to go into that basement, all of a sudden he put all the 80s kids who thought they were vampire hunters. I'm looking at YouTube boys from the lost boys to shame. He becomes the most competent high school teenager to vampire hunter I've ever seen. And it's not just because of his love for Amy.

It's because he learns that in order to truly have the confidence he needs, he needs to stop acting like macho. And he needs to understand that his intelligence is also his strength. And I think that helps when Amy and him are sitting at the hospital and she goes, I knew you were in Dweeb. You think I wanted some dude?

Like Mark or blah, blah, blah, blah. She was willing to accept him for both. And so that helped him. And I like that.

Yeah, at first she was boss girl. She was the more dominant of the relationship because he was trying to pretend to be something he wasn't. And then once she finally admitted, I love you for who you were as well as who you are now. He was able to finally feel comfortable in his own skin again instead of pretending to be something he was not.

To take both and mold them together and use them to save her at the end. OK. I think the they're dynamic in the original concerning whether they're going to have sex or not. I think felt a little bit more realistic to me simply because she loves him but doesn't feel they're ready.

And then sort of like starts to open herself up just a little bit to say, OK, yeah, this is something he really wants even if I'm still unsure about it. And then he immediately is looking out the window and saying, hey, is that a coffin? And then she feels hurt by that. All they did was switch places.

You do realize. And I think that works better in terms of their social standing. I think it's I think it just struck me as a little bit more interesting from the 80s version. But again, this is I think we're arguing not so much generational vibe.

I think this is just elements of taste. We're arguing taste here at this point. I think that's why we're arguing. I think they both work well for the most part.

But it's just where we're coming from. I think we're arguing also our experience. That could be it too. That could be you know, and not just me.

I know when I was in high school, the women definitely had a little more control in that area because the girls who were popular who did decide to go for nerds. The nerdy boys didn't exactly have an idea of how to be hands-on in that area. Let me tell you, yes, the 80s they weren't going for us nerds. So we had to be the one who was like, it's OK.

This is what you do. We had to be the one to kind of initiate that. So coming from 2011 when I was 16, I could definitely say that was accurate. OK, then.

OK. That's fine. That's fine too. And that's what I like about these discussions too, because we go as great friends as we are, best friends.

We still have different experiences that influence who we are today. So it's always nice to not just talk movies, but get to know you a little bit too. Thank you. I really do love the arc, though, that helps create through this story.

Because the original version of Charlie, for me, he never felt like he quite nanned up to where he needed to be in order to save anyone. Here, it felt like in order for Charlie to save the people that he cared about, he had to truly first save himself. But I got to talk first. David Tennant, always fun.

Oh, yes. But it's Colin Farrell that steals this movie. Yeah, I mean, OK, in terms of having just a character that's there on the screen and you can't take your eyes off him, I can see why they decided not to go with a familiar character for Colin Farrell, because he's magnetic in an animalistic way to call back on that. So you don't need him to have a side kick, because he's just there.

Yeah, no. That's taking out of the story logic point and just going on screen magnetism. It drives me insane that Colin Farrell is as good as he is. You see him in something like Banshees from Inashiran, where he is bumbly, he's awkward, he almost doesn't know what to say three quarters of the time and is afraid of what's going to come out of his mouth, the other quarter.

And then you put him in something like this, where, oh my god, my favorite scene in the entirety of this movie is when he comes over asking Charlie for a six-year of beer. And Charlie keeps him at bay. There's so much tension there. Oh, it's fantastic.

There is, his eyes are constantly darting. He's looking at everything, he's watching everything. And then when he starts to talk to Charlie about how his girl is ripe and his mom's putting it out. Yeah, that's a great misogynistic factor there, which is accurate because he's 400 years old.

But there's also that subtle underlying threat, which I like, because the original one's a little too hardcore, just forthright with, I'm going to give you a choice. Forget me, or I'm going to kill you. Here, it's a little more subtle and a little more underneath the skin. And that gives me dull, I just said it, chill down my spine.

He is so much better than this movie really demands him to be, for neat him to be. And he walks through that crowd in the club and you are terrified. You're not, yeah, he's hot. But not in the way that Chris Sarandon is.

When Chris Sarandon walked through the club, you're like, you know, I just want to go fuck this guy, whereas Colin Verra walks towards you and it's, I don't care what the vibe is, I don't care what the music is, you can pump things through the air, I'm getting a fuck yay. Yeah. But maybe perhaps on this note is a good note to wrap things up. All right.

OK, you can find the 1985 version of Fright Night on Roku, Sling, Prime, Voodoo, and Apple TV. And the 2011 version of Fright Night is available on Amazon, Google Play, and Voodoo. Remember, you can find us online at BigPitchapod.com And we're available on iTunes and Google Play. So either use the link in the show post or hit directly there, search and hit subscribe.

We'll be back next time with another retro review, looking at its 20th anniversary coming up in a couple of weeks. The big old Christmas movie, Love Actually. That happens to be somebody's, one of their favorite films. And that is all right here on the Big Picture podcast.

And we're out. So subscribe and do a little bit more. And don't forget to subscribe. And don't forget to subscribe.

And don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to see more of this video, click the link in the description. And we'll see you next week. See you next time.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.