“You’re So Cool, Brewster”: Homophobic Cool in Fright Night (2011)
If it’s true that the first few years of a new decade better encapsulate the trends and sensibilities of the previous one, then Craig Gillespie’s 2011 Fright Night remake is a nu-metal nightmare. The 2000’s were an era of MMA cage fighting, peekaboo thong straps, Axe body spray, and Kid Rock. As we approach the point in the 20-year nostalgia cycle at which we are meant to long for those times, it feels as pertinent as ever to wonder what were we thinking? It’s no secret that the original Fright Night (1985) is a queer-coded romp just spicy enough for an “R” rating (Griffiths, 2016; Bloody Disgusting, 2020), but the remake, stretching for the same rating, is toothless at best and downright homophobic at worst.
Not much of the Fright Night plot has changed, but the 2011 Charley Brewster (the late Anton Yelchin) really is cooler than his 1985 counterpart, or at least he’s trying to be. The undercurrent of the modernized plot is Charley’s maturity or lack thereof, how it develops, and what it is versus what he understands it to be. But this misguided portrayal of what it means to come into adulthood leans heavily on heteronormativity. Charley’s masculinity is called into question repeatedly in contrast to the alpha male characters surrounding him. His girlfriend drives him to school while his meager transportation, that traditional phallic stand-in, is a wobbly motorbike that won’t run. His popular new friend derides Charley’s choice of beverage, a mochaccino, and the color of his shoes: puce. (This will come up again later when alpha vampire Jerry notices his shoes and Charley lies that he plays basketball in them.) It’s no surprise then when Amy wants to have sex for the first time and Charley fails to perform; it’s consistent with Charley’s “shortcomings” in the context of the movie’s messaging.
In stark contrast, Jerry Dandridge (Colin Farrell) is muscular, joyless, performs physical labor, and his motorcycle runs great, by the way. He warns Charley that it’s his job to take care of his mother and girlfriend, who is “putting it out,” and that women who look a certain way “need to be managed.” This occurs when Jerry asks Charley for beer because he has a girl coming over who turns out to be a go-go dancer: an on-the-nose masculine double-flex. Charley’s mother is clearly taken with Jerry, and the character’s famous 1985 line “With my luck? Probably gay” has been changed to “Bad bet. He is a player.” Jerry’s telltale manservant is also conspicuously absent from the remake.
While Jerry’s extreme version of masculinity contrasts Charley’s attempts to step into manhood, other characters also underscore this dichotomy. As the movie opens, Charley has already attempted to distance himself from Evil Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) as one of his embarrassing childhood friends in favor of his new “cooler” friends, the leader of whom is Mark (Dave Franco). Ed represents Charley’s childhood, but the movie marks their “uncool” relationship as nearing homoerotic and feminizes Ed especially in the process. When Ed and Mark finally come together because Ed wants to speak privately with Charley, Mark taunts him saying, “Just the two of you? That’s so sweet,” an obvious joke of which homosexuality is the punchline. Ed’s apt clapback is “Don’t you have some sluts to go fuck?” — a joke highlighting Mark’s toxic masculine tendencies that is lost on him. (Mark’s response: “Yeah. I do.”) Later, irritated by Ed’s insistence that Jerry is a vampire, Charley tells him “Don’t spaz out.” The parallel between Charley’s treatment of Ed and the traditional treatment of a hysterical female underscores Charley’s implied fight against homosocial if not outright homoerotic behavior and relationships. Ed does have fairly intimate knowledge of Charley, after all: “How about that one time you took my Stretch Armstrong so you could tie it around your balls and jerk off for an hour?” Notably, Jerry’s monologue about Ed not fitting in, commonly read as a statement of Ed’s queerness, remains in the 2011 movie.
The new take on Peter Vincent is also worth mentioning. The original Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall) is played by a gay actor and named in part to honor bisexual horror icon Vincent Price. But any potential queerness in 1985’s Peter Vincent (David Tennant), and there may arguably be some, is quickly overshadowed by hyper-aggressive, hyper-masculine tendencies. When Charley finally meets him face-to-face and alone in his home, the new Peter Vincent brings exaggerated attention to his penis almost immediately. His misogyny is on full display especially in his interactions with the women around him. He brags about which ones he’s had sex with and otherwise treats them like servants, particularly Ginger, whom he refers to as a “lazy cow.” Could the new Peter Vincent be read as queer? Could his embrace of toxic masculinity be an exaggerated yet unconvincing attempt to mask his queerness? There is a definite argument to be made there, but even so, his 2011 portrayal still demonstrates the value placed on aggressively toxic masculinity over other modes of being, especially queer ones. While explicitly mentoring Charley in his fight against vampires, Peter may also implicitly be a mentor for presenting exaggerated straightness, ineffective though it may be. After all, when Charley has defeated Jerry and rescued Amy, it is Peter Vincent who allows Charley and Amy to use his home for their first sexual encounter (though not without interruption).
Fright Night (2011) doesn’t admit its homophobia outright, but it often comes close. One question at the heart of the story is whether or not Charley has outgrown his nerdy childish impulses, whether he really is cool or just a geek who’s trying too hard. But the message of this movie is that “cool” equates to toxic heteronormativity, and falling short of that isn’t cool. It puts a new spin on Evil Ed’s famously sarcastic line, “You’re so cool, Brewster,” a line that is surprisingly unforced in a remake that diverges so far from its source material, it’s most accurately read Fright Night, No Homo.
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Bloody Disgusting, 2020. Fright Night (1985) Feat. Peaches Christ. [podcast] Horror Queers. Available at: <https://play.acast.com/s/horror-queers/frightnight-1985-feat.peacheschrist> [Accessed 10 October 2020].
Gillespie, C. 2011. Fright Night. [video] Available at: <https://www.amazon.com/Fright-Night-Anton-Yelchin/dp/B0094M2TB8/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=fright+night&qid=1604278236&sr=8-2> [Accessed 21 October 2020].
Griffiths, C., 2016. You’re So Cool, Brewster! The Story Of Fright Night. [video] Available at: <https://www.shudder.com/movies/watch/youre-so-cool-brewster-the-story-of-fright-night/a5a3e197b71cdcbf> [Accessed 25 October 2020].
Holland, T., 1985. Fright Night. [video] Available at: <https://www.amazon.com/Fright-Night-Chris-Sarandon/dp/B000WN4MVS/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=fright+night&qid=1604278093&sr=8-1> [Accessed 3 October 2020].
