Tennant's Fright Night

I don't post a lot of movie news, but the fact this involves former-Doctor Who star David Tennant makes it an exception. Tennant has been added to the cast of the Fright Night remake, along with Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Superbad, Kick-Ass), both joining Colin Farrell, Toni Collette and Anton Yelchin.

The film will follow the plot of the 1985 horror hit, where an average boy called Charlie (Yelchin) realized his next-door neighbour is a vampire (Farrell). Tennant will play Peter Vincent, a Las Vegas magician and vampire expert whom Charlie recruits to help him. Collette will play Charlie's mother, with Mintz-Plasse as Charlie's best friend "Evil Ed", who joins a vampire coven.

Obviously, this is interesting for those following Tennant's post-Who career and wishing him well in his endeavour to "crack America" (in the wake of his NBC comedy-drama Rex Is Not Your Lawyer not being picked up), but I'm also particularly interested because Fright Night was the first ever horror/vampire movie I saw as a kid. And it terrified me. I've never actually sat down and watched it again all the way through, as a few sequences are burned into my psyche and I fear a relapse, but I sometimes catch a few moments on late-night TV. And those '80s-style exaggerated fangs still give me the creeps, so I never watch it all the way through.

Anyway, despite my irrational fears, I always thought Fright Night had a great premise behind it, and it's a remake I'm excited to see. Even with the bizarre decision to set it in Vegas, because a lot of the power with the original was the feeling this could happen to any unassuming neighbourhood, not a glittering playground of lights and showbiz.

Fright Night will be directed by Craig Gillespie (Lars & The Real Girl, Mr. Woodcock), which isn't especially promising but I'm ready to be surprised... and scared witless again.