Sometimes a little bit extra is too much.

   Full disclosure: Fright Night is not only probably my favorite vampire film, but it is also one of my favorite horror films of all time. Now, before you grab the torches and pitchforks and come after me for saying that, let me be clear by stating that no, as a movie, Fright Night pales in comparison to Sinners, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Nosferatu, and so many others. And as a horror film, it doesn’t hold a candle to the original Nightmare on Elm Street, Night of the Living Dead, Halloween, and hundreds of others. I know all that, and yet, Fright Night, starring Roddy McDowell, Chris Sarandon, and William Ragsdale, remains a staple in my house come Halloween (and Summerween) time. The idea of a “favorite” movie often has less to do with quality and more to do with nostalgia, the place you were at in life when you first watched it and how it made you feel (this being why so many diehard fans hate so much of the modern Star Wars stuff – they’re chasing that childhood feeling they had when they first watched the original trilogy). The original Fright Night (I have never bothered watching the reboot), while flawed, had decent special effects, good actors, and at the time, a relatively original plot, even a “meta” one, as we’d call it today. It, in essence, was a retelling of Dracula with teenagers in suburbia, complete with many of the familiar tropes: the object of the vampire’s affection (Charley’s girlfriend Amy); the servant (Billy Cole), and the wise Van Helsing character (Peter Vincent), in this case, a bumbling, befuddled actor who merely played a vampire-slayer in the movies.

            The reason for the lengthy preamble is to illustrate the fact that I may not be the most objective reviewer for Fright Night: Origins, written by Fright Night writer and director Tom Holland, along with Jack Ulrich, which is an expanded novelization of the film released in 2022. Being that the creator was involved, I was excited to finally discover it, and while the novel mostly is a word-for-word retelling of the 1985 classic film, the writing isn’t great, the new elements they add are questionable, and the added scenes are mostly just ... meh.

            In short, if you have never seen the film, Fright Night: Origins is about a young teenager named Charley Brewster, who attempts to recruit a washed-up horror actor to help him destroy his new neighbor, who happens to be a vampire. Judging from my gushing opening paragraph, you might be expecting a bit more from the plot, but when you get down to the brass tacks, that is really a decent enough summary of it. What the movie had, however, was a good cast. Chris Sarandon oozes charm, sexuality, and menace as vampire Jerry Dandridge, in so many ways a perfect modern (at least in 1985) bloodsucker. Roddy McDowell is great as Peter Vincent (named after Peter Cushing and Vincent Price), an actor who had his 15 minutes of fame long ago who now clings to his image as the Great Vampire Killer as the late-night host of B-movies, mostly his own. Rounding out the cast are genre favorite Stephen Geoffreys as Evil Ed, William Ragsdale as Charley Brewster, and Amanda Bearse as Charley’s girlfriend Amy.

            On paper – both in the script and now certainly in the novel, the lines can be wooden, even a little silly, and lacking the presence of actors and the nuance they give a character with tone of voice, body language, and facial expressions; the dialogue (and the prose, frankly) comes across as contrived and stale.

            There are a few scenes in the book that add a little depth to the characters, particularly to Evil Ed and Billy Cole, who, as supporting characters, don’t have many revealing moments in the original film. The book also goes into Dandridge’s past some, the results of which are mixed at best. The tendency of prequels, requels, and reboots to fill in every gap of chronology is problematic, particularly with stories that have been around in the public’s imagination for decades. Learning Jerry Dandridge’s real name, how he became a vampire, and his connections to the actual Count Dracula, all feel questionable at best. Part of the charm of Sarandon’s performance was the fact that we knew so little about him and learning about who he was prior to being the suave, sexy vampire we see on the film takes away from his image.

            The book, at the end of the day, is an easy read with a few good moments in it. Fans of the film who haven’t seen the movie in a while should enjoy it for what it’s worth … but not much more.