17 days to halloween

vampires leave me a bit cold. the whole other-wordly, sexiness, bloodsucking, charismatic thing is, oh i dunno, a bit boring. what i want in my fright creatures are some scary motherfuckers and vamps are just not it.

there are notable exceptions. esp. when the vamp is so damn vamperlicious. take chris sarandon who portrays a vampire in the hyper-goofy, fun, saturday matinee-like flick fright night [1985]. this pic has everything an excellent b-movie should have. it even boasts a cast that includes roddy mcdowall as a creature-feature tv movie host that is recruited by the teenage charley brewster whose house is right next door to sarandon's.

brewster tacks toward mcdowall because the latter's tv persona is a vampire hunter and brewster happens to be a fan of mcdowall's show. the director, tom holland, hits all the right notes that includes some genuine scares, a fair amount of sexiness primarily from sarandon, and a lot of laughs.

i don't know if there was a sequel made but the ending of this flick certainly hints at one. my dislike of the vampire mythos is not based on nothing but my own idiosyncratic tastes. i can't explain why i get bored with most vamps and why, conversely, i love zombies. who knows? but if more vamp movies are this good then perhaps i could be, um, turned.

happy halloween!