Vampire Autopilot

This week, a horror comedy classic, a best friend, and transcendence (spoilers  for the first) . . .

From the Grave.

Three ideas from horror cinema's past.

◆ Fright Night, dir. Tom Holland, 1985.

1. Trash lore. Fright Night is horror fare that insists on the importance of horror fare. In Fright Night, a horror actor/host is drafted into a fight with a vampire, and all the Hollywood horror lore turns out to be true. We’re used to vampire stories that set their own special rules and distinctions from generic tropes. Not so Fright Night. There’s no need for any obscure grimoire—just a head full of trashy midnight screenings. Nothing is taken too seriously in Fright Night, but the worldview suggested by its recursive idea (the way through this vampire movie is the way through other vampire movies) is one in which genre matters.
2. Same as it ever was. My partner pointed out to me that Amy, our protagonist Charley’s girlfriend, fills a role familiar to women in vampire stories since Bram Stoker—as a conduit for men’s interaction, as a site of masculine struggle. What’s also interesting about this is that, despite the role she’s given, hers is quietly the most interesting story here. Charley’s just a teen who thinks his neighbor is a vampire. Amy’s a teen who’s uncertain she wants to go all the way with her (pretty crappy) boyfriend Charley, who then meets an older, more interesting guy—a guy who’s problematic in several ways, one of them being that he’s a vampire. If this thread isn’t given a satisfactory treatment, the reason seems to be that, while she stands out as an interesting, conflicted character, masculine vampire story autopilot means that Charley, vampire Jerry, and the filmmakers are all unaware of it.
3. Death performance. Fright Night never wastes a death. Evil Ed’s death is prolonged—staked as a wolf, writhing and transforming into a wolf-human hybrid, finally dying in human form. Billy’s death has him dripping green slime, melting, reduced to skeletal form, and finally crumbling. Jerry’s death involves a plume of flame; wind all around; green flames; a screeching, skeletal creature; and finally an explosion. Deaths here are occasions for elaborate Grand Guignol performances—as moments of goopy, gory, showmanship.

Right Behind You.

A thought on horror's present.

◆ Good Boy, dir. Ben Leonberg, 2025.

4. That dog. Good Boy is a haunted house movie and a movie about a dog. What’s most exciting isn’t its radical change of perspective so much as its model of animal psychology. Indy (the dog) has visions and dreams and has an authentic, coherent mind. Indy is, in short, a real character. It’s a depiction true to life but seldom represented on screen.

Living Deliciously.

A recommendation.

◆ Arrebato, dir. Ivan Zulueta, 1979.

5. Rapture. For fans of arthouse horror, Arrebato is a perfect film to obsess over. A product of bohemian, 70s Madrid (Pedro Almodóvar dubbed one of its voices), it’s a movie about movies, desire, addiction (in a unique, layered way), and transcendence. It is, to some degree, a vampire film. And it’s also, for me, my biggest personal discovery since starting this newsletter. Pair it with Pain & Glory for an intense double.

Dead of Night publishes every Tuesday. As I write this, modeling shows current deaths from the dismantling of USAID at 218,292 adults and 453,993 children. The time to resist fascism is now.