Fright Night

Eureka Entertainment | Release Date: August 2, 1985

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

62	METASCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 13 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Edward Copeland

What makes Fright Night such a hoot to this day, on top of the great performances, is the deft blending of humor and suspense that Holland manages to build in his story. Read full review

David Sterritt

Directed by Tom Holland, who serves up the oldest horror-yarn clich'es with a straight face, keeping the action good-natured and even humorous until the gory climax. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)

A minor classic of the genre, this is a memorable addition to the vampire tradition in the horror film. Read full review

Roger Ebert

Fright Night is not a distinguished movie, but it has a lot of fun being undistinguished. Read full review

Sid Smith

Fright Night is pleasantly, if effortlessly, well-acted and gently scripted. And when the ghoulish special effects and wry comedy aren't on screen, there's the occasional in-joke for viewer distraction. [06 Aug 1985, p.4C]

Staff (Not Credited)

Director Tom Holland keeps the picture wonderfully simple and entirely believable (once the existence of vampires is accepted, of course). Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

A farrago of cartoonish exaggeration (mouthfuls of fangs, razor-sharp talons and eyes like burning coals), knowing humour and '80s camp, it shouldn't even begin to work, and yet, strangely, it does, sort of, thanks to the assured handling of writer/director Holland, and two performances in particular - Geoffreys as Charley's pal Evil, and McDowall as the timid vampire killer. Read full review

Bill Cosford

The movie is bloody and gruesome and quite harmless, just the way they made them "in the good old days." [02 Aug 1985, p.C7]

Dolores Barclay

Towards the end, Holland's movie gets a little confused: the scary elements give way to too many gory effects. Still, Fright Night is a pleasant diversion. [19 Aug 1985]

Janet Maslin

Though Mr. Holland's handling of his stars is successful enough to establish him as a newcomer with promise, his material here is uneven and often flat. Read full review

Richard Harrington

Fright Night is really "Fright Lite," a film promising more than it delivers, and even that delivery is so late in the game that you may want to arrive fashionably late and skip what passes for plot development and concentrate on Richard Edlund's special effects. [05 Aug 1985, p.B3]

Rita Kempley

A chiller that, except for the last half hour of ghoulish effects, is undeadly dull. [02 Aug 1985, p.23]

Matthew Fraser

Some of the special effects are chilling, but Fright Night lacks depth, wit and humor, and hence is neither absorbing, intelligent, nor funny. [08 Aug 1985]