FRIGHT NIGHT Got Me Laid: My Personal Journey With Horror (Swimming Upstream The Final Chapter) [New]
Welcome to Fright Night … for real!
*Editor’s Note: B Harrison Smith is well known to horror fans as the writer/director of The Fields, Death House, and Camp Dread. He also directed The Special, released in 2020.
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Summer 1985…everything had changed.
The start of the series presented me as a timid, offbeat little boy who loved monsters and horror, transitioned to “the weird kid” in elementary school, started filmmaking in middle school, and embraced it all to have one hell of a ride in high school.
I grew in high school, living a Risky Business meets Fast Times life as a class president who had some unorthodox ways to raise money for our class prom. Horror stayed with me—showing Creepshow in study hall, enlightening my creative writing class with clips from Psycho II, and continuing to write as many horror short stories for my beleaguered writing teacher, Mr. Michael Steen.
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I also knew that a really special time in my life was coming to an end. We mark these endings and beginnings with ceremonies—often long, long ceremonies and graduation was one of the mothers of all long, boring ceremonies.
A week before graduation, our school held the exalted “Moving Up Day,” an even LONGER ceremony, beloved by our principal that not just bestowed all of the awards and scholarships for the outgoing class, it was a community event where the parents sat in the gym bleachers watching their kid reap what the sowed.
I got half-drunk before the ceremony, had to give a speech in front of basically the entire town, and then wept uncontrollably as the high school chorus sang some maudlin song about moving on, leaving…hell…death…and I was a mess by the time we were led from the gymnasium by the new senior officers.
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So what the ever-loving fuck does this have to do with horror?
I mentioned death, right? Think about it, all of these “rites of passage” are really nothing more than one more marker on the inexorable pathway to death. Weddings remind us of how someone grew up and how we grew old and how much time (whether well-spent or wasted) has passed. That’s why people cry. Weddings are just happy funerals.
My high school years saw lots of girlfriends and “almost there” moments of losing my virginity. I was the cautious 80s sex comedy kid. Pregnancy…that was the real monster for me. Not disease. Not fear of sex. It was having a kid…because in horror movies we see how those kids turn out. Just ask The Thorns.
Graduation was the next death ceremony, one week after Moving Up Day. Another speech and this time, a diploma…your death certificate pronouncing you dead from high school was handed over and the Class of 1985 was shown the door.
Summer 1985 was dominated by “fun films.” Weird Science, Back to the Future, Mad Max 3, Porky’s III…and the list goes on. Horror was in the backseat this summer, and while I enjoyed Return of the Living Dead, it was Fright Night that got me. Good.
It got me laid.
Since a boy, I was always aware that time was moving. The clock was ticking. Think of your favorite time metaphor and I likely knew it. By age 17 I was already thinking of my short life in “eras.”
I was a high school graduate, accepted to Penn State for filmmaking. I was now an assistant manager at Music Makers Theaters…the same one I started as an usher. I had the keys to the place and I left a much easier job at a local video store to be lured back to the mall.
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I took a week off after graduation to go to the Jersey shore with some buddies. We had a beach house rented and of course, according to 80s comedy movies, I would lose my virginity to some hot pink bikini babe I meet by accident in an arcade or along the boardwalk.
Then the house phone rang: it was my mother telling me my grandfather died and I had to come home that day for the funeral. I wasn’t at the shore 24 hours and I was catching a Greyhound back to The Poconos.
Death fucks everything up.
I came home, but instead of staying at my house, I stayed at a friend’s and she had an old high school friend staying there as well; we unexpectedly kicked into overdrive on a summer romance.
I attended the funeral, and instead of going back to the shore, I lied, stayed at my friend’s house, and indulged myself with this new fling with our mutual friend. I also went back to work because…what else was I gonna do? It was a taste of some freedom before college. I worked and then went home to a place not home with two attractive girls, and one of them was waiting for me to spend the night.
Then I met Kelly. She was the new girl hired at the theater and my boss introduced us. And she was the “hot new girl” that every guy there tripped over their brooms and straightened their clip-on bow ties for.
Plus, she said she knew of me even though she went to another school in The Poconos. We worked together as I oversaw her behind the concession stand. I know it doesn’t exist, but it was love at first sight for me. The girl back my friend’s house became: “Who?”
This was my last summer to be a kid. I would be 18 in September. I would be away at Penn State, living the adult, college life. It was all about to change and I knew it. I lost my second grandparent, leaving Nanny and Pap from my father’s side.
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Fright Night was opening in August, at the end of summer. We had the poster on the other side of the mall at our smaller theaters. It was considered a film for the end of summer “dog days,” when stuff that couldn’t compete with the big blockbusters was dumped to sop up whatever it could like bread in some leftover gravy.
The trailer looked cheesy. Silly. A kid finds out a vampire moves next door and it all looked tongue in cheek. By the time Fright Night arrived at our theater, I was in a full-force love affair with Kelly.
I doubted everything, not wanting to leave for college. And I wanted to stay with her. I didn’t want to lose her. She was the girl in the 80s film that everyone wanted but I got her. Not the jock. Not the bad boy. THIS guy got her.
Fright Night was the first film I “stayed late” to see. After hours. I had the keys to the entire theater and I invited Kelly to watch it with me. I had little hopes, and she too thought the trailer looked downright silly. Didn’t matter…we were in love and we enjoyed horror films.
This is where it gets weird. I thought for sure our late night screening (complete with a giant 50 gallon bag of popped corn and free soda) would turn into an extended, two hour make out session. We had the entire theater and building to ourselves.
Instead, something else happened and I realized about thirty minutes in, that Fright Night would graduate to our largest house at the other end of the mall and do some serious business.
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Aside from the cool casting of Chris Sarandon as vampire Jerry Dandridge and Roddy McDowell as broken down B-movie actor Peter Vincent, I quickly locked in on the eulogy Tom Holland had created.
Fright Night was a goodbye letter to the great old days of horror…a more innocent time when there were three channels, little on after midnight because most affiliates signed off with the National Anthem and no cable or VCRs to glut the movie menu.
Why sit up late to watch the old chillers when you could rent them (now for 99 cents) at any grocery store or gas station?
Cable and home video had slowly eroded the fun late nights and horror movie afternoon matinees on TV and affiliate stations. I grew up watching Doctor Shock out of Philly or Uncle Ted from Scranton. All of the things I wrote of in my previous articles were vanishing from the nightmare landscape.
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Doctor Shock was dead (in his late 40s no less) and Uncle Ted’s show was on less and less. Creature Feature matinees were being replaced by political pundit shows.
My middle school days were behind me. High school was officially pronounced dead.
I was within weeks of leaving my hometown where I was the favorite son and king of all I could see. The Internet was still almost 20 years away but I saw Fright Night as Tom Holland’s sad, sentimental swan song to a pop culture time dying in the sunrise of a new technological age.
I was a little Charley Brewster, trying to get laid with my girl but I was more Peter Vincent…an old soul, lamenting better days—waxing nostalgic before it was time. Roddy McDowell’s performance as Peter Vincent is nothing less than fantastic. From the deliberately bad grey stage hair coloring to his over-the-top “I am Peter Vincent, Vampire Killer!” (in a nod to Roman Polanski’s vampire misfire, “The Fearless Vampire Killers”). McDowell’s unique British accent, his meek yet dignified manner give credence to his broken horror movie star. Vincent now has to slum on late-night local cable, hosting his own films, having his face rubbed nightly into the fact that his best days are now behind him. He nails the cheesy acting in his own films and as a horror host and yet transforms into a genuine hero when forced to confront Jerry Dandridge, the real vampire.
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The hit list soundtrack was poppy and very 80s, but Brad Fiedel’s instrumental score was so operatic and sad…Fright Night didn’t scare me; instead, it made me mournful. I was grieving for a time that was dying before me. I was grieving for my childhood.
All of the old Hammer and horror tropes were there. The repressed, virginal girl, the cuckolded boyfriend/human suitor forced to watch the vampire take his girl, the vampire hunter, the special effects, the boundary-defying sets…all the proper ingredients were in place. Fright Night was a labor of love.
By the summer of 1985, those days were already in the rear-view mirror as the VCR and cable had pretty much wiped out the old-time shows as people now chose their programming. The film’s success resurrected the vampire film. Literally, without Fright Night there would have been no Buffy the Vampire Slayer or (and this would not have been a bad thing) no Twilight as well.
By that fall it was the number one horror film shown on college campuses around the United States. I know because I saw it at Penn State and Bloomsburg and talked with others who were catching it as a college night fright flick. Why?
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Because Fright Night was fun. It invoked a period of film long gone and was not so much a tribute to it as it was mourning its passing. This could be summed up in Peter Vincent’s rant to Charley Brewster outside the studio that just fired him.
“Apparently your generation doesn’t want to see vampire killers or vampires either! All they want are demented madmen running around in ski masks hacking up young virgins!”
Here are some actual questions I got from people I recommended Fright Night to. All of these people are 25 years old and under.
Q: So like, why is this kid watching all these old movies and why does he like them so much?
A: In the days before texting, IM, Xbox, and Warcraft there were things called three channels, basic cable, and imagination. People also watched old movies because Hollywood had not really caught on to the cynical idea of recycling the same stories with slicked-up newer versions to fool you.
Q: The vampire seemed gay to me. Why was he dressed like some 80’s model?
A: And sparkling, feminine, shirtless underwear model vampires who are prettier than their female counterparts are any better? Throughout vampire lore, the vampire’s sexuality has always been a blur. Dracula hints at homosexuality as well, whether male or lesbian attraction. Vampires are dead from the waist down. Intercourse for them is feeding. The exchange of fluids for a vampire is a transfusion and this goes back to the earliest vampire tales.
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Oh yeah, it also takes place in 1985, hence his 80’s fashion. Not to mention vampires are almost always fashion plates (except for those animalistic brutes like in 30 Days of Night or similar films).
Q: Why does the girl’s hair get suddenly long after she is bit and then back to normal when they kill the vampire?
A: In the old Hammer Film vampire movies like Brides of Dracula, Dracula Prince of Darkness, Terror of Dracula, the female victims are usually sexually repressed, conservative British types who literally never let their hair down. They have boring fiancees and lead stuffy, boring lives. Then along comes that sexy undead Count who shakes things up a little and does a little tooth sex romp on her neck and before you can say “Twilight” she’s liberated. This transformation was usually shown by an increase in the woman’s bust line and her hair was not only down, it seemed to gain inches in length overnight. It’s a stylistic thing, not a continuity error, and it became a hallmark of those old-time films. When the vampire was killed, things went back to normal. It’s intentional.
Q: What do you mean “Hammer” films? What’s that?
A: Hammer was and still is a British film studio that put out unique spins on old horror material and basically created a whole new subgenre in horror that was built around grand old actors like Christopher Lee, Vincent Price, and Peter Cushing. Many consider Lee’s portrayal of Count Dracula superior to Bela Lugosi’s iconic count.
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Roddy McDowell’s character, “Peter Vincent” is a play on words from the old Hammer days. It’s a combination of “Peter Cushing” and “Vincent Price.” Of course, if you never saw any of these films then you wouldn’t know that. PETER Cushing on the left. VINCENT Price on the right. Put ’em together and you get PETER VINCENT.
There are plenty more but hopefully, you got the point. The simple fact is that the 1985 Fright Night was meant to be a fun tribute for people who remembered a better time in their entertainment. Its tagline makes this point clear: “If You Love Being Scared It’ll Be the Night of Your Life.”
I got Peter Vincent. He was in my soul. When he held the award for one of his old films, gazing at it with longing and sadness, he was talking to me. I could feel his nostalgia. And I could smell the sentiment. I wanted to go back and I hadn’t even fully left yet.
Kelly and I watched the full movie. No sucking face or necks. From opening to closing credits, the film had our attention. She loved Peter, enjoying his line, “And I have always WON!” Kelly got the old-school horror inside jokes and references.
I swear I was more in love with her when we left that movie at almost three in the morning than when I threaded up the machine and started it.
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I drove her home; the sun would be up in a few hours. I told her how the movie made me feel. I was leaving for Penn State in weeks. My life was different, but I had such a great time in high school and it was over before I knew it. Just as I was truly enjoying it, it was over.
I told her I feared the same with our relationship. I was never in love with someone like her and I told her to her face. She was moved. When we parked at her house she kissed me and held me for so long. She wasn’t going anywhere she promised. Even when I left for school we would stay as in love then as were now.
No Jerry Dandridge was going to come and take her. There were a lot of them out there and she was a perfect vampire target. She told me no guy ever talked to her the way I did. She said I had so much passion for things, so much feeling and it was contagious for her.
We likely said “I love you” a dozen times before she got out and walked inside. I went home and slept most of the following morning away because of our midnight Fright Night screening.
The following weekend was spent at my house. My mother was working the night nursing shift and I was dad was out of town. We had the house to ourselves. I had the old RCA Video Disc player. Remember those? You had a giant disc encased in a plastic carrier you shoved into the player and it literally played the video with a record player, diamond stylus.
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I had about 20 discs but Jaws was my prize. Kelly was on the couch, I was on the floor. It was a hot August, late summer night and I was well aware the loud crickets outside were summer’s final concert.
Fall was coming. Summer was dying.
Right around the time, the shark scared Brody while he chummed, she leaned off the couch and whispered into my ear, “Guess what we can do?”
I looked at the clock, saw it was almost two in the morning, and everything in our little town, save for a handful of diners and Perkins were closed. She smacked me on the head and said it again, fluttering eyebrows, and then gave me her “come hither” look.
Sex. She meant sex. Holy shit…she meant SEX.
It happened that night, in the basement rec room and a factor was Fright Night and how my sensitive side spoke to her after we watched the film one week earlier.
It transformed me. No longer a virgin. And I was so shaken, I drove her home as the sun came up. On the way back to my house, just as the town was waking up and the first light was growing brighter, I blew through a red light at a four-way on Main Street.
Some big, Porky’s-type guy with white hair in a boat of a car veered, avoiding my car T-boning him on the driver’s side. I slammed on my brakes, he did as well and we skid into the center of the intersection.
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The guy rolled down his window, eyes blazing, and mouth already screaming I am sure. He yelled something like, “Don’t you fucking stop at red lights?” Something like that. I do know what I replied.
I was already apologizing. My hands shot off the wheel and up. Warding him off to not get out and come to my car and pummel me.
“I am so sorry,” I yelled. “I wasn’t thinking! My mind was elsewhere! I just lost virginity last night and—“
I never got to finish. The guy’s face went from a mask of anger to “The fuck?” He shook his head, cut me off in mid-sentence and drove away, dismissing me with a hand flip.
Not the answer he was expecting.
It was after six in the morning when I got home. My mom was at the kitchen table as I came through the door. She had her cigarette in hand, the newspaper before her, and a half-empty glass of orange juice before her.
“Someone’s slinking in,” she said. She was amused.
There was no sense in hiding it. I was so shook about my near-death experience, I needed to talk. I sat down and waited.
“So…what’d you do last night?”
It was a huge benefit to have a mother I could tell anything. “I had sex with Kelly for the time.”
She paused. Took this in. Exhaled her smoke. “Sex for the first time? Or sex with Kelly for the first time?” She was a details oriented mom.
“Both,” I replied.
She nodded. “Yeah? Well, how was it?”
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I wanted to go into detail about this whole feeling of loss. Instead I said, “It’s not like they portray it in the movies.”
She smiled, took a drag, exhaled and said, “It never is. Pass the orange juice.”
I did. I got up. Kissed her on the head and went to my bedroom. A boy going back to his room which was once decorated with Star Wars curtains and bedsheets. Now it seemed too small and for a little kid.
The movies said I was a man now, only I didn’t feel it.
I was Peter Vincent, adrift in a brave new world that held all kinds of surprises that I may not be ready to tackle.
I just wanted the security of my little TV set world…the set of Fright Night where I could control the narrative and the environment.
I left for college two weeks later. I did organize a road trip to a neighboring university that was showing Fright Night in their auditorium on 16mm and my new friends and roommates loved it.
However…nothing was the same. It all changed in the course of two weeks and now that bygone era is the center of my horror filmmaking soul.
I am still swimming upstream. Still getting beat up. Still fighting against the current.
Thank you, Dread Central…for the memories.
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