Today Matt & Todd discuss Tom Holland's Fright Night from 1985.

An outstanding example of a modern take of the gothic vampire; Fright Night stars:

William Ragsdale, Amanda Bearse, Roddy McDowall, and Chris Sarandon

In present-day (1985) mysterious Jerry Dandridge and his roomate Billy move in next door to curious Charlie Brewster.

Charlieknowshe is a vampire; but the police won't believe him, and his friends think he's losing his mind. With no one else to turn to, he finds local Horror Show host Peter Vincent -Vampire Hunter to help.

What follows is a fantastic movie that could have gone missed in the wave of the summer of 1987's Lost Boys shortly after.

Tom Holland's directorial debut is a darkly-humorous vampire tale also with fantastic FX by legend Richard Edlund (ILM).

If you missed this one, find it. A must have for vampire movie fans featuring Chris Sarandon as one of the finest to don fangs in any era.

Thank you all for listening!

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You're preparing your implements of war against the ever thirsting undead; and you forgot the matches. You forgot the matches because you were too busy testing the hardware store for werewolves, and you went off script like you always do.

Congrats, and there you go: 5 dozen candles and no matches with which to ignite them.

Fumbling for the lighter you vaguely remember behind the couch, you fail to notice the mysterious shadow fall over your exposed back. You're straining your arm to the limit, socket popping and stretching as tendons cling to their last.

You've done it!

That orange plastic and bright nickel steel, little pocket of flame. The moment you clasp your prize everything turns; and with unwanted inertia you find the room pulling away from you at incredible speed. The explosion of pain across your back punctuates the realization that you've been hurled across the room like laundry and decimated a wardrobe.

With little time to breathe it hulks towards you. The thing that took everything from you.

You grasp the vial of anointing oil and light it. That's it. It is time we- (Oh, I'm here too, in spirit though. Remember I already bought it a while back—I took down 6 of them blowing up the gas station. You were all "We won't leave you!" and it was sad but still youdid leave withouttoo much argument...)

(Anyway...)

It is timeweface this head-on.

Once and final.

Teeth vs. flame sounds like good odds.

Taking one further step weFind MovieMattSirois on Letterboxd⁠, & @MovieMattSirois BlueSky.)

Then read a snarkier version of Matt: and follow him as Marcus on ⁠Movie Asylum of the Weird, Bad and Wonderful⁠ reviewing off-brand or forgotten action and sci-fi.

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⁠Once Upon a Geek⁠

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