Josh Z

I like Chris Sarandon in The Princess Bride, but he didn't do it for me in this. The movie sets it up so that the cheeseball horror movie host has to face off against a real classic horror movie monster, and I think Sarandon should have embraced that. But he didn't, and I felt his lackadaisical performance didn't fit the material. He's not creepy enough to play it straight, and not hammy enough to play it for camp.

With that said, I appreciated and enjoyed his cameo in the remake.

The remake drops the classic horror movie angle. I thought that Farrell was great in it. The scene where he stands outside the kitchen door talking to Charlie about his hot mom and girlfriend is both really creepy and really funny.

Ragsdale and Bearse are both terrible in the original. And the kid playing Ed is so obviously coked out of his mind the whole movie (and I don't mean the character) that it's just embarrassing to watch.

I mean, I understand having nostaglia for a bad movie that you liked as a kid (believe me, I have plenty of those), but once you take off the rose-colored glasses, the original Fright Night just doesn't hold up at all.

Josh-da-man

And it's a fucking Sony release to boot.

Sony... the company that invented blu-ray.

Michael Allred

So $30 plus shipping? I'll pass and wait for a wider release. Jeez if I had known this I woulda kept my HD recording of the flick on my DVR.

NoirFan

I doubt there will be a wider release. This is it.

Pizza

At the time of release, the original Fright Night was a clever, modern twist on the vampire movie and I still love it. Chris Sarandon delivered a smart, unique take on the vampire as the charming next door neighbor. Yes, the romantic leads are interchangeable but not Sarandon's performance. He made the movie as did Roddy. That "kid," Stephen Geoffreys, was also pretty wild in his role.

Guru Askew

So Sony's electronics division develops a piece of consumer technology and all of a sudden movies created by a film studio they acquired (the one in question being a product if the Coca-cola era, I believe) are all automatically popular enough to warrant a Blu-ray release?

Michael Allred

Their license to put this out won't last forever, Sony will either eventually put it out themselves or be smart and license it out to a company that can actually get it easily into consumer's hands.

NoirFan

You're assuming physical media will be around that long? Even if Blu-ray is still a viable format in a few years, I don't think Sony would bother with Fright Night. If they're not even going to release it as a bare-bones disc to tie in with the remake, then they'll never release it.

Michael Allred

You know, at one point people were saying "The Monster Squad" and (perhaps more appropriately) "Night of the Creeps" would never see a release and yet we got both as special editions on DVD and BD.

Physical media will be around a long time but that's not the point as NO WAY will this license last long enough to outlive BD.

NoirFan

Obviously Night of the Creeps didn't sell as well as Sony had anticipated, otherwise they would have released a full blown SE of Fright Night (which I'm assuming has a much larger cult following than Creeps) just like they did for Creeps instead of licensing Fright Night and a large portion of their catalog out to Twilight Time.

Most catalog titles are not selling on BD. With catalog titles on DVD being basically dead, replaced by MOD, I'm guessing the scenario will be similar for Blu-ray in a few years, with only the tentpole titles being released by major studios. Either way, I'm pretty confident (though I wish I weren't, believe me) that Sony will never release Fright Night on Blu-ray. As for them licensing the title out a second time to a different company, if they had wanted to work out a deal with Shout! Factory, BU, etc. then they would have.

slimdude

Well of coarse, the remake is better (production wise) because its been updated by using modern filmmaking technology. Movies weren't made with CGI 26 years ago, when the original was in production. The original Fright Night wasn't near that bad at all (as you've claimed!) The movie's overall portrayal, was intentionally meant to be campy, as a comedy/horror film. Fright Night was never a endeavor to be an Academy Award caliber movie.

Gizmo

You're talking about releases that came out two years ago. Two years ago, studios were still hopefuly Blu-ray would 'save the day'. Now, that's not happening. Sony has licensed off lots of titles to several studios, as did Paramount, Fox, Disney etc. Blu-ray did not get people ready to buy (or re-buy) titles. There is a bigger risk. It's why we see so many bargain bin titles with crappy looking encodes and no new (if any) extra features. Aside from a few choice titles each year, studios are not going to go all out for catalog anymore. Sales are down.

Michael Allred

Well since neither you or I have access to those sales figures, it's all an assumption game.

All I CAN make an educated guess on is that, based on what has been said officially, we can safely say that this is a very limited license for this small time company. Once it runs out, I can hope Anchor Bay will offer up a higher figure to acquire it.
I was not privy to the workings of the deal made obviously, perhaps the other companies (Shout, etc) simply didn't know the title was "up for grabs" and Twilight just got lucky, who knows?

NoirFan

Out of all the hypothetical companies who might possibly release Fright Night on Blu-ray at a later date, Anchor Bay is the least likely. Since being absorbed by Starz, they've gotten out of the genre catalog business almost completely, with Evil Dead and the two Jodorowsky films being their only catalog releases in 2011. As you may or may not have heard, Image is now releasing (lousy) Blu-rays of much of AB's New World catalog.

Michael Allred

I'll still take an Image release over this any day.

NoirFan

Okay, I'm officially giving up.

Michael Allred

Ok.....didn't realize you were trying to accomplish something in the first place.

Trout

You might actually like some of his other films.

Matthew Chmiel

Well, in theory, like Image's other Sony Blu-ray releases, Sony provides the material. Image is just putting out the title. Image's New World releases, well, Lakeshore is providing them masters that look to be over a decade old.

NoirFan

I thought he gave a tremendously nuanced performance in Transsexual Prostitutes 2.

Eric D.

He gives some really gritty performances.

Josh Z

I'm not just talking about production values. I'm talking about the fundamentals of writing, directing and acting.

I don't know where this perception comes from that all movies divide into two unavoidable categories: Either they're Oscar winners or they're complete shit, with absolutlely nothing in between. That's just not true. In fact, the vast majority of movies ever made fall somewhere in between. This one leans more towards "complete shit" for me.

YMMV.

SethDLH

Fright Night rules. I'd glady spend the money to upgrade my dvd, but not $35-45

AmityBoatTours

If you think its so horrible why cotinue to comment on the film, why not just let those of us who actually enjoy the film be happy that even at a expensive price that we can finally have the chance to have it on bluray if we want to buy it.

instead of saying that people who like this only like it for nostagia's sake, when you have no idea why those of us who like it do.

NoirFan

So they were unable to find any pre-existing extras? Not even one of those short, 'making-of' EPK featurettes? And they're charging $35 plus shipping? Couldn't they at least include the soundtrack on CD, since soundtracks are what they're known for? This better be a reference-quality transfer.