Prepare for a fright

Fright_night_posterHorror-comedy Fright Night is about to be remade, with Dreamworks having snared a writer for the new project. Marti Noxon, who previously worked Buffy the Vampire Slayer and most recently on Mad Men, will pen the new movie.

The movie tells the story of an ordinary teenager who learns that his neighbours are vampires and recruits the star of his favourite TV show to help get rid of them. Now if only that star could be Sarah Michelle Gellar and we could somehow get Joss Whedon involved.

The original movie had pretty much an unknown cast, aside from Roddy McDowell and was the feature film début of Tom Holland, who went on to direct Child’s Play but not a lot else. The movie was a surprise hit, garnering almost $25 million at the US box-office and winning 3 Saturn awards. It even went on to inspire a novel, comicbook and videogame. It’s easy see why Dreamworks would be attracted to the property seeing the low cost of entry and the potentially high return on investment.

Dreamworks wants to bring the effects up-to-date, while simultaneously keeping the scary-funny tone in place. Noxon is a good choice for this as some of her Buffy work, including “Once More with Feeling” have that vibe. Personally I’d like to see Bruce Campbell as the TV star come vampire slayer, but that would probably be too similar to his recent feature My Name is Bruce. Back to SMG so.