Rating: 3.5/5
Oh My Horror 2025 | 15/52 | 80s Horror
A full moon and a wolf’s howl — Jonathan and Nina’s voices carry out into the night. Jonathan comments on Nina’s pale, luminescent beauty. Nina comments on Jonathan’s beautiful neck. But before she can bite, Peter Vincent, a vampire killer, comes after her.
All this comes from the television playing in Charley Brewster’s bedroom. Charley isn’t watching the TV, though—he’s kissing his girlfriend, Amy. But when Fright Night theatre host Peter Vincent comes onscreen, Amy stops him so they can watch. After repeated no’s, Charlie doesn’t care and tries to get fresh with Amy. After a disagreement, Amy pulls Charlie to bed. But Charlie isn’t interested in sex now because outside, he sees two people carrying a coffin into the house next door. Amy, hurt and confused, storms out of the house. On the local news downstairs, the TV reports a missing person.
The following night, Charley sees a beautiful woman enter the house next door. While studying, he hears a scream. He looks across the way to the house next door. The lights cut off. On the news, he sees a report about a second murder. The woman on the screen is the woman he saw entering the house next door. That night, he watches the house through binoculars. He sees the new neighbor with another woman. And then he sees fangs form in the neighbor’s mouth. Charlie tries to get the police to intervene, but when he makes his vampire theory known, he finds himself alone, the neighbor aware of him.
Is Charley dealing with vampires? Will his ridiculous friend, Evil Ed, or his angry but secretly hopeful girlfriend, Amy, help him?
The film takes the teenager raised on Vincent Price and Hammer Horror and puts him in an awfully familiar situation. However, the film is sharp in its subjective lens, not giving us a definitive yes but no reason to doubt Charley’s suspicions.
The neighbor, Jerry Dandrige, lives with his familiar, Billy Cole. The film all but says the subtext: Jerry and Billy are a gay couple, striking fear into the devout neighbors and narrowly avoiding the dangers of being outed.
Chris Sarandon brought the humor out of his villain, choosing to have Dandridge all but say he’s a vampire to throw off the trail and eat fruit in several scenes because he has “fruit bat in his DNA.” He’s also super hot, so he pulls off seductive vampire effortlessly.
I’d probably like it more if this movie had less ’80s filler. Still, I enjoyed watching it, and I totally understand the love for it.