By: debbie lynn elias
One of the classic “vamp” cult films of all time is easily Tom Holland’s 1985 “Fright Night”. With a very young William Ragsdale starring as vampire fighter Charley Brewster, teaming up with venerable Roddy McDowall as Peter Vincent, the two waged war against the forces of darkness – a vampire named Jerry. But, as with all good things, remakes, reboots, reinvigoration is seemingly inevitable and FRIGHT NIGHT is no different…with a few exceptions, starting with screenwriter Marti Noxon. Probably best known for her work on Joss Whedon’s long running “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, and then its spin-off “Angel”, Noxon is no novice when it comes to vampires and slayage. So it seems only natural that Noxon would be the one to tap to revamp FRIGHT NIGHT for the 21st century. And revamp she does because FRIGHT NIGHT 2011 is killer! Calling on Colin Farrell to bare his charm and his fangs, David Tennant as magician cum vampire debunker Peter Vincent, and Anton Yelchin as your average boy next door vampire slayer, Noxon gives new meaning to vampyrically delicious.
Always one of my favorite interview subjects, I had a chance to talk with Marti today about FRIGHT NIGHT…and of all things, Las Vegas.
First of all, I have to congratulate you on what you have done with FRIGHT NIGHT. I went into this with a lot of trepidation as I was very familiar with the original and actually on set. So, to see what somebody would do with that was, well…..But I thought it was in good hands with you.
Thank you!
Very good hands.
[Laughing]
How did you go about retooling a beloved classic that’s become such a cult classic?
Sometimes remakes are somewhat cynical in that someone gets a title and they think, well this is not a money maker. But this is not the case for FRIGHT NIGHT. The reason we remade the movie, why Dreamworks wanted to, and why I wanted to and why Craig wanted to, was because we had such great affection for the original. It was really a labor of love as opposed to “Let’s cash in on a great old title that no one’s reinvigorated.” As such, I had a lot of stuff that already existed and that I also wanted to explore in the relationships that already existed, so that made it a challenge but also one that I was really excited to take on.
Personally, I think nobody knows the vampire world better than you. And they certainly don’t know the teenaged vampire world better than you.
[Laughing] That’s true. There is one good thing about being a perpetual… my arrested development – mentally I’m still about 14…
I did and do appreciate all the great Sunnydale references that you have, Scooby Gang and everything else you have going on. I was at the very first press screening, and everybody burst out loud laughing. Everybody got it.
Oh that’s great! A little shout out!
One thing that you did do, that nobody else is doing in the vampire world right now, is that you really brought back the sense of the demonic vampire, the evilness, the rip them to bits; none of this glow in the dark, shiny, sparkly skin stuff.
Right.
You harken back, and even incorporate a lot of the actual mythology of Count Vlad with the sirens slowly sucking the blood and whatnot.
It’s true. I am a fan of the romantic vampire tradition. I am a “sucker” for doomed romance. Angel and Buffy certainly fell into that category. But I also loved Spike at his most evil – when his soul is gone and there was no “there” there except the charm and the way he could attract his victims. And I did feel like it was time for just a great old fashioned muscular American-style predator. They said to me early on, “We envision this guy like the shark in “Jaws”.” I was already on the same page. I had already hoped that they were thinking that way. So that’s one thing that is obviously different from the original because in the original, Jerry does have kind of a romantic attachment to Amy and in this one it’s a much darker character.
And it works so much better.
I think so. And I think Colin just has such fun with it and really embraced that part of it; the predatory nature of the character, the carnality and the enjoyment of playing with his food basically. He likes to have fun but he has no attachment to the humans in the movie. Period.
One thing that you do so well and you do it brilliantly again here, and you have actors that can follow through on your words, is the fine line where the comedy is treated as being serious and they continue to walk the line and hit the comedy notes while maintaining the darker edge but never turning into a parody.
Thank you. I have to give so much credit to Craig [Gillespie] because I often feel that when I write something that it can go either way. It so depends on execution. And somebody who tries to treat the comedy as a comedy in something like this and land jokes, it doesn’t work. It has to be treated like “these just happen to be people with a sense of humor in a terrible situation.” And it has to have a kind of grounded feeling where you might think, “I might say that or do that in the situation.” But you’re not building something just to be funny on its own. It has to come from character and it also has to be delivered sort of on the fly. You shouldn’t try to stop to land a joke and Craig understands that so well. I owe him so much because if you get that wrong, it can make the difference between the very same scene on the page working or feeling really silly and campy.
That’s one thing I have to give Craig kudos for. He didn’t over rehearse the actors because that easily could have come through and it would have destroyed the really delicate wording that you have poised on the page.
It really was such a joy because, no disrespect to other things I’ve worked on, but I sometimes feel like it’s just so frustrating because you know how you meant something and then it doesn’t pan out that way. Every step of the way with this one, I would arrive on set and see the set decorations and it would be exactly as I hoped or better. And then they have actors that are so above and beyond my wildest dreams. David Tennant and Colin Farrell and Anton [Yelchin] and Toni [Collette] and Imogen [Poots] and Chris [Plasse], they’re all such interesting nuanced performers. They really classed the joint up on this one.
One thing that really classed it up is your total rewrite of the Peter Vincent character.
[Laughing] Oh, thank you very much.
You take the dowdy Roddy McDowall as a priest and you turn him into larger than life David Tennant as Peter Vincent.
And boy did he have fun with it! It’s funny because there’s a little bit of a rumor out on the interweb universe that he’s not very much in the movie or that something went wrong. It’s so opposite of that. Many people feel like it’s a real fight with the characters who walks away with the movie. And David Tennant is so delicious, from the moment he appears you can’t wait for him to come back.
I have to say, he is my favorite character in this film.
I don’t disbelieve that! I really do understand.
What went into creating this new Peter Vincent?
It was a little reverse engineered in that I came in with the idea of setting the movie this time in Vegas. That came out of the time I spent there during the presidential campaign. I was doing some canvassing for Obama. I was in Clark County in the suburban area surrounding the strip. It’s such a haunted place because there was so much development that then went into foreclosure, so many families that moved there, that then couldn’t afford to stay and left. So it felt like what great stomping grounds for a monster, a vampire in particular, because it’s a city that lives at night and sleeps during the day. So I was already thinking Vegas and then, I kind of love Vegas. I’m not a gambler or a drinker, but I love the over the top quality of the place and I had seen that there was a stage show called “Bite” which was all sexy vampire girls. I’ve always anted to go, but I’ve never made it. I hope it’s still playing cause I already was in love with that world and somebody reminded me that Penn of Penn & Teller has a huge museum of occult objects. He’s a debunker, he collects all this stuff. So imagining a magician on the strip, immersed in this goth number who is also a collector and aficionado of the world, it all kind of fell into place. There was some debate about whether that was the right way to go, but I’m so glad we did it.
And I know they’re going to kick me off here in a minute because you’re on such a tight schedule, but one last question, what did you personally take away from this experience?
I have to say, from beginning to end, this has been the most positive experience I’ve had since working on “Buffy” just in that everybody was on the same page; everybody was pulling for the same movie; everybody saw the same movie. So, I guess, hope is alive. It really made me glad to be a writer in this business again. It’s so much fun when it works and God willing, it did.
Trust me. It did! It worked tenfold, Marti. You did a great job with this. Are we going to see a sequel.
From your mouth to God’s ears! I would love to write Peter Vincent and Charlie Brewster again. I really would.
