Roddy McDowall as matinee idol-cum-vampire slayer Peter Vincent in Tom Holland’s FRIGHT NIGHT.
interview, chatting about his ori- gins as a concert promoter and how a fascination with the Gein case led to his first movie pro- duction, which Karr claims grossed $6 million (contradict- ing Ormsby’s statement that DERANGED was not widely booked in the US). Also covered are Karr’s dislike of the direc- tors’ darkly comic approach to the material and the onscreen narration by Les Carlson, how he and Bob Clark had planned to do a remake in the mid- 2000s, and how Cannon turned the picture down after deeming it overly gruesome, based on a viewing of just the first and last reels. The trailer created by eventual distributor American International rounds out the ex- tras, though this incarnation has only the music and effects track, dropping the narration.
FRIGHT NIGHT: 30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION
1985, Twilight Time, 106m 27s, OOP, BD-0 By Kim Newman
We last reviewed writer-di- rector Tom Holland’s vampire
movie on its DVD release in 2000 (VW 59:53). It has been issued twice on Blu-ray by Twi- light Time in limited editions, which have sold out swiftly. The more recent 30th Anniversary Edition makes up for the DVD’s lack of extra features with a wealth of contextualizing mate- rial, which perhaps overloads the package (anecdotes and observations are inevitably repeated) but are appreciated. FRIGHT NIGHT straddles mainstream studio and genre niche as it reinvented the vam- pire legend for the 1980s. Barnabas Collins is acknowl- edged as a predecessor of Chris Sarandon’s sleek, disco-cruising bloodsucker Jerry Dandridge, but no one mentions Frank Langella’s bouffant Dracula or even Robert Quarry’s wry Count Yorga—who both might have influenced the character. Hol- land playfully conflates subcul- tures (blending horror fandom and bisexuality), fondly evokes classic monsters in an era typi- fied by slasher films (casting Roddy McDowall as horror host/ horror star “Peter Vincent”) and drawing on influences as diverse as Hammer horror (a key plot
point is lifted from DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE), Cornell Woolrich’s boy-who-cried- wolf story “The Window” (source for the Holland-scripted CLOAK AND DAGGER and a frequent theme in his work from SCREAM FOR HELP to CHILD’S PLAY) and REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (Stewart Stern, screenwriter of REBEL, has a cameo and FRIGHT NIGHT’s trio of teenage friends echo James Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo). It’s a fun, ef- fects-heavy film with room for a little depth in the seductive, self- aware Dandridge. Holland ad- mits Sarandon suggested ideas which made his vampire less of a sinister stereotype villain, in- cluding his fang-cleansing apple-munching (because, in what might also be a mischie- vous joke about ambiguous sexuality, Jerry has the DNA of a fruit-bat).
The extras are two commen- taries with Holland hosted by filmmaker/fan Tim Sullivan (2001 MANIACS), a “bad guys” track with Sarandon and Jonathan Stark, and a “good guys” track with William Ragsdale and Stephen Geoffreys and effects man Randall Cook; an isolated
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