FRIGHT NIGHT. A 2011 remake of the 1985 original. It had a lot to live up to, considering the original is a hilarious classic that made its mark during its time. Did Anton Yelchin & Colin Farrell succeed at modernizing this timeless film?

The film opens with a suburb in Las Vegas (nice houses practically in the middle of nowhere) with a pretty cool 3D title. Charlie Brewster (Anton Yelchin) has a hot girlfriend, a nice house, and a well-rounded nice life that he gave up his dorky life with Evil Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) for. Ed is jealous of Charlie's new life and tries to black mail him with his dorky past into hanging out with him to find out where some students in their school have gone missing. Ed has been doing extensive research on the disappearances, and has concluded there is a vampire in the neighborhood named "Jerry" (Colin Farrell). Charlie leaves the investigation with disbelief, and left Ed alone to find out what Jerry did to his victims. From then on, it seemed a bit clear that this 2011 remake was detracting from the original plot and trying to do something new with the characters. It was a bit bothersome to watch the beginning of the film detract heavily from the original film, but in order to have a good time in the theater, you need to have some sort of acceptance. So instead of watching the film as a note for note remake, I watched the film for the new ideas it was contributing. Granted, yes, it seemed pretty obvious they had to throw a Twilight joke into the dialogue, but it was a pretty miniscule thing to worry about. The comedy wasn't too hard hitting. Most of the written jokes came through pretty smoothly, and ensued genuine laughs. But some scenes seemed a bit improvised among dialogue with "fuck" inserted just a bit too much for comfort. Mostly from Christopher Mintz-Plasse's character Evil Ed. Luckily, he wasn't in the film that much to go too crazy with his multitude of "fuck"s, and the film seemed to take off on a very crowd-pleasing note.
The 3D was well-done, yet unnecessary. There was one death worth seeing in 3D though, and it received a rather large applause from the audience I was with. So, if you want to be surprised, go ahead and see the film in 3D. I had no complaints with it.
The entire plot of the film did not detract completely from the original, and it was very satisfying to see the third act take the third act from the original and make it into even more of a roller coaster of vampire-fighting fun.
The designs of the vampires closely resemble the original, with the jagged teeth and wide mouths, yet completely CGI.
Which seem cheesy at first, but you soon accept it, and enjoy the designs the way you enjoyed the cheesy practical effects on the vampires in the original.

Anton Yelchin & Colin Farrell had very charismatic performances that I thoroughly enjoyed.
As for the other characters, many were very one-dimensional, but served their purposes in the plot.

Yelchin & Farrell carried the film and made it into a simple crowd-pleaser that lots of teens and young adults would like to go out and see on its opening weekend.

Small complaints: The film could've gone a bit farther with its R-rating. Gore wasn't too crazy, and sorry fellas, no tatas. Basically we get an R-rating for McLovin going "fuck" crazy, yet some decent practical effects.

It isn't as great as the original, but this remake still remains enjoyable and worth seeing.

High Matinee for fans of the original
Low Full Price for people who just like to have a good time