Editorials
‘Fright Night’ Unleashed Bat Attacks and Evil Ed [It Came From the 80s]
It Came From the ‘80s is a series that pays homage to the monstrous, deadly, and often slimy creatures that made the ‘80s such a fantastic decade in horror.
Poor Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale). Being a teen is awkward enough, but then there are the added struggles of appeasing a girlfriend while trying not to make your best friend feel like a third wheel. It’s even worse when a suave vampire moves in next door, practically flaunting the corpses of his victims because no one believes in vampires anymore. Charley does what any sensible horror fan might do in his situation; he turns to his local horror host Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall) for vampire-slaying aid. That’s what ultimately makes us feel for Charley the most; the plucky teen hero often finds himself upstaged by a reluctant horror host, a charming vamp for the modern world, and a memorably quirky best friend nicknamed Evil Ed (Stephen Geoffreys).
Fright Night marked the directorial debut of Tom Holland (Child’s Play), for which he also wrote the screenplay. Prior, Holland had already established himself as a talented screenwriter, penning the scripts for Cloak & Dagger, Psycho II, Class of 1984, and The Beast Within. It was while working on Cloak & Dagger that the idea behind Fright Night came to him. Holland’s film helped bring vampires into the modern world, leaving behind their Gothic setting. While the film does have self-awareness and a sense of humor, Jerry Dandridge (Chris Sarandon) and his henchmen are deadly serious. Part of the horror stems from Charley and his enlisted hero being in way over their heads, but who are we kidding, much of it comes from Jerry being an imposing foe who transforms into bats and exposes his monstrous side. Having an undead servant helps, too.
In charge of the creature and effects was Richard Edlund’s (Ghostbusters, Poltergeist) effects company Boss Films. Edlund worked as visual effects producer on the film, while Randall William Cook (I, Madman, The Lord of the Rings trilogy) and Steve Johnson (Night of the Demons, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master) co-headed the creature department. The pair split up the characters and effects they’d each supervise; Cook took on Jerry Dandridge’s bat attack and transformation while Johnson tackled Evil Ed’s werewolf sequence.
Randall William Cook with his bat
Peter Vincent faces off against Evil Ed in wolf form in the second half of the film, and after a staking through the heart with a table leg, Ed reverse transforms from a wolf back to a human as he dies. It’s a heartbreaking but cool scene. Johnson previously worked on the special makeup effects crew for An American Werewolf in London and Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf, and Fright Night allowed him to create a transformation sequence of his own.
For Cook’s part, he sculpted a bat the size of a fairly big dog, with a massive wingspan and a cable-controlled face. Crew members used poles to manipulate the wings while Cook handled the main body during the bat’s attack on Peter Vincent – Vincent bears the brunt of the monster attacks in this movie. Jerry’s transformation to bat marks a hasty exit from the rising sun and sets up the final showdown of the film.
Fright Night has it all; fun creature effects, a memorable monstrous villain, a lovable reluctant hero in the form of a horror host, and the perfect blend of heart, humor, and horror. It mixed up the vampire film in a refreshing way, helping usher in a wave of modern vampire films that would follow in the latter half of the decade. As Jerry put it, “Welcome to Fright Night! For real.”
There’s been a lot of talk about how Christopher Nolan snuck in some horror elements into his epic adaptation of The Odyssey. However, even before the Cyclops began to eat Ithican soldiers and Circe subjected them to magical body-horror, cinemagoers were already witnessing supernatural terror through a certain trailer that was attached to most IMAX screenings of Nolan’s film.
It turns out that this trailer was for Rob Savage’s Other Mommy, an adaptation of Bird Box author Josh Malerman’s horror novel, Incidents Around the House. With the teaser now available online and revealing that the award-winning Jessica Chastain is playing the titular antagonist (as well as her ill-fated human counterpart), not to mention the fact that the picture is being helmed by the director of hits like Host and The Boogeyman, genre fans are understandably hyped for this upcoming thriller.
That’s why I’ve decided to take a closer look at the trailer and share four things we learned from this sneak peek at Other Mommy!
4. Rob Savage is Going Back to His Supernatural Horror Roots
I know I’m in the minority when I admit that Dashcam is my favorite Rob Savage movie, but even I understand why the filmmakers’ fans have been waiting a while for the director to get back to telling more grounded paranormal stories as he did with 2020’s Host.
Other Mommy obviously isn’t a found footage movie, but moments like the poltergeist activity on the kitchen table combined with the nature of the source material, which actually features a full-on exorcism, indicate that this adaptation is more than a simple creature feature. That’s why I think Savage is once again going to borrow from the same ghostly narratives that made his debut film such a viral hit.
3. Other Mommy is a More Convincing Doppelganger in the Adaptation
Part of the horror from Malerman’s original novel came from the fact that the entity taking on the form of Bela’s (Arabella Olivia Clark) mother wasn’t very good at passing itself off as human. This resulted in several uncanny moments where other characters began to notice that there was something visibly wrong with the family and decided to keep their distance.
Savage’s film appears to be taking a different route, with the trailer showing a version of the entity that can, at least physically, imitate Chastain’s character perfectly. This change is likely the result of the filmmakers wanting to incorporate more paranoid scenes where Bela and her father, played by Jay Duplass, are confused about which Mommy is safe to interact with.
2. The Family is Also Better Off This Time Around
Incidents Around the House featured some interesting subtext about how poverty can negatively affect American family dynamics. After all, the main characters were already feeling scared and isolated before the entity emerged from Bela’s closet and began scratching at their emotional wounds. The trailer for the movie, however, depicts the family as being relatively well off before these incidents begin to occur.
I can only imagine that this part of the story was changed so that the family’s fall from grace can be even more dramatic as the mom and dad’s pasts are revealed and Bela falls further into the clutches of the demonic antagonist.
1. Jessica Chastain is Embodying Evil Dead Rise’s Alyssa Sutherland
Mothers turning against their children is one of the most disturbing horror tropes out there (just check out classics like Hereditary and Carrie if you need proof), but it takes a remarkably skilled actress to pull off such a monstrous transformation. This is especially true when both a regular, loving mother and the Other share the screen in the same film.
That’s why I appreciate how Chastain appears to be channeling another evil redhead mother that recently traumatized audiences with her performance. It’s too early to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that Chastain’s character has at least some amount of Ellie in her cinematic DNA – Ellie being the iconic deadite brought to life by Australian actress Alyssa Sutherland in 2023’s Evil Dead Rise.
Let us know in the comments if you think we missed any important details from the trailer, and don’t forget to check out Other Mommy when it hits theaters on October 9!
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