Fright Night (2011)

I just saw Fright Night (2011) starring Colin Farrell. I was a fan of Fright Night (1985) when the lead villain/vampire was played by Chris Sarandon. If somebody took a pit bull, defanged it, neutered it, and crippled it, it would look something like Fright Night (2011). The original story was scary and compelling, the music and Sarandon as the vampire were eery, but there wasn't a scary, compelling, or eery moment in the remake. Yet this movie received a 75% on Rotten Tomatoes from the critics and 67% from the audience/movie fans. I can't understand what is possibly interesting about this film. If anybody were to watch the original and then watch this film, they would see that the remake is such a diluted, dumb version of the original.

I think I understand what some of the problem is, and it has to do with what audiences want. Fright Night (2011) is a movie a person could watch while doing the dishes or playing with his iPhone. The original, on the other hand, demands an attention span. A large proportion of people probably do not have the attention span, though, for most film and TV. Even a show like Dexter, which I like, can be watched without much of an attention span since so much of the show's scenes use a plot device called 'laying pipe,' an industry term for moments of scenes or even whole scenes that are just recaps for audience members regarding what is going on in the film or TV show. For instance, a scene where a character says, "But, John, you know since our mother had that brain tumor that she hasn't been the same," reminds audiences of previous episodes or seasons of a TV show about events that have taken place, or updates for new audience members so that they have a better contextual understanding.

If you have read all this post so far, I would be surprised: I don't think I'd have the attention span to read it. People having the ability to choose the media they consume is very liberating, but choosing media that are equivalent to brain sugar could be destructive, and might in fight change the way people process information if given long enough. In Kurt Vonnegut's novel Galapagos (1985), the last surviving humans evolve to have smaller brains because their big brains cause problems with their swimming abilities.* If people long enough prioritize a preference for simpler information processing, perhaps folks won't need their brain after all.

* I didn't actually read this book. I have just heard about it and then looked up the Wikipedia info about it to fact-check it.