So I watched “Fright Night” again over the weekend and I have some questions.
At Club Radio, Jerry Dandridge tells Charlie to bring Peter Vincent to his house if he wanted to see Amy alive again. But Dandridge has sent Evil Ed to kill Vincent and there hasn’t been time for Dandridge to find out that Evil failed. So why does Dandridge think Vincent is still alive?
There’s this big dramatic scene where Peter Vincent brandishes his cross to repel Dandridge, who laughs at him and says he has to have faith for it to work. Cue dramatic music swell, Peter Vincent finds faith and Dandridge is repelled. So if he was unable to repel Dandridge because of a lack of faith, how come he was able to repel Amy and burn Ed?
Why would Amy revert to human if Dandridge was destroyed before dawn but Ed wouldn’t? Or would he, and Charlie and Vincent just didn’t care enough to try to save him? And why did Amy revert to human, since Dandridge was not destroyed before dawn?
What was Billy Cole supposed to be? He takes six kill shots including one to the head and keeps coming, but a wooden stake to the abdomen finishes him? According to Vincent Cole’s not a vampire because he walks around in daylight, so what is he?
It’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie, but if memory serves …
Vincent was able to repel the two minor vampires by the cross alone. On a stronger vampire (such as Jerry), he has to believe it will work. In other words, the cross by itself isn’t enough to repel a strong vampire; it has to be wielded with faith. However, the cross by itself IS strong enough to repel/affect a weak vampire.
Billy was the vampire’s familiar. In some legends, the familiar is just human, but in others he has some of the vampire’s abilities. If I’m remembering right, when he was staked he collapsed into a pile of sand, suggested that the vampire had created him through some sort of magic.
Can’t answer your first question re: the Vincent/Evil Ed/not dead situation. Maybe Jerry was just trying to cover all of his bases, and having Vincent brought to his house was a backup plan in case Evil Ed failed.
Wasn’t Evil Ed “converted” before Amy? Maybe that has something to do with him not being able to be saved.
I never understood why Amy was saved, though, since as you note Jerry was destroyed after sunrise.
I love that movie! Sexiest vampire ever! As to Evil Ed,
Jerry must know he failed - recall he’s in the back of
jeep as they take off from club. Also, agree WR to Cole:
in some vampire mythology, a familiar who drinks blood of
vampire without having been bitten becomes part vamp/part human. Also, re EE not returning to human…my thought was
he’d already bitten someone else (altho not spelled out in movie) as this is my understanding regarding killing of vampire to save victims.
This doesn’t make any sense. Why would he believe it would work on Ed (the first vampire he repels and burns) and believe it would work on Charlie if Charlie had been converted (he makes Charlie grab the same cross that burned Ed before allowing Charlie to enter his apartment), then believe that it wouldn’t work on Dandridge (thus in fact guaranteeing that it won’t work on Dandridge), then believe it would work on Amy after not working on Dandridge, THEN believe again it won’t work on Dandridge but changing his mind within seconds so that now it does?
Sauron
I’ve never heard of a vampire having a familiar, at least not called a familiar. There’s the Rehnfield type of semi-enslaved/mesmerized human, but other than Billy I’ve never seen one die any differently than any other human. I’ve checked my reference books and I don’t find anything about familiars. What are some vampire legends which include them?
Sauron
He was converted a few hour earlier. Dandridge bit Ed right after he split off from Charlie and Amy (they were still close enough to hear him scream). Immediately the street lights go out and Amy and Charlie pass the torn out transformer or whatever it is. Meanwhile, a fully-converted Ed attacks Peter Vincent at his apartment while Dandridge chases Amy and Charlie, cornering them in Club Radio. Ed is repelled, Dandridge seduces Amy and escapes from the club with Ed hanging out the back. There just isn’t time for this scenario to have happened in real time. Although Dandridge does seem to have some ability to teleport, there’s no time for Billy to get the Jeep there. But it does raise another question. Why does Ed convert instantly to a full vampire while Amy takes hours and hours?
RE: The cross: I’m not talking about Vincent having faith that the cross would work on a vampire; I’m talking about Vincent having faith in the eternal life promised by the cross; in other words, the source of the cross’s power. It can also be seen as a function of the vampire mythos. The “young” vampires (Ed, Amy) have always heard about the power of the cross over vampires; it’s part of the legend. So they would automatically be repelled by the cross, simply because that’s what they believe. Jerry has had decades, maybe hundreds of years, to fight against the power of the cross.
There are multiple legends of vampire-type creatures – the wampyr and the vunderlak are two that spring to mind immediately, although there are others. I’ll try to do some checking and dig up the reference to familiars. Rehnfield, as you mentioned, wanted to be a vampire, which is why he was working in the minor leagues of bloodsucking by eating strange things – flies, spiders and finally a bird.
However, it’s entirely possible that the special-effects guy on the set told the director that he had a really cool way for Billy to die. That could be the whole reason for the visual. I dunno.
Only thing I can think of regarding the Ed/Amy conversion, and the reason it took so long for Amy … maybe becoming a vampire causes a mental unbalance if it happens quickly. Jerry loved Amy, and wanted her to be his wife. He didn’t want her mind destroyed. Just guessing.
I was similarly confused when I saw John Carpender’s Vampires for the first time this weekend. Jack and Montoya keep Katrina, a woman who was bitten by *the * master vampire Valek, because she’s supposed to be psychically linked to the master before she’s turns into a vampire herself in a few days. When she asks Montoya why they won’t let her go he explains, but assures her that if they kill the master first, she won’t turn into a vampire. Eventually she bites Montoya. To make a long story short, she turns into a vamp before they stake Valek, so she can’t be human anymore. However, at the end of the movie Jack still thinks that Montoya is going to turn into a vampire himself, and vows to hunt him down. The master is dead before Montoya has turned, so shouldn’t he stay human?
That’s amusing, considering his character in the wonderful, underappreciated Heaven Help Us was a Catholic altar boy who couldn’t stop masturbating. Looks like as “Sam Ritter” he’s devoted himself to helping other men masturbate.
I would go along with this in its entirety except for one thing. Ed isn’t just repelled by the cross; he’s burned by it. It makes sense that vampires would reflexively recoil from the cross; in fact, Dandridge does just that the second time Vincent brandishes the cross (although not the first time which kind of shoots the theory, except I suppose Dandridge could have been expecting it the first time and sort of braced himself for it). A big old wound to the forehead seems kind of extreme for being psychosomatic.
jk1245
I smell a True Hollywood Story. They left off the classic “Hunk Hotel” where he was actually credited under his non-porn name. He was also the only one of the three “kids” who didn’t end up with a series on Fox.
Hmmm. Maybe it’s similar to the stigmata that some priests and monks were said to exhibit. Or maybe we’re trying too hard to find logic in a horror movie.