Fright Night (2011)

Running Time: 106 mins
Directed By: Craig Gillespie
Starring: Anton Yelchin, Colin Farrell, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, David Tennant, Imogen Poots, Toni Collette, Dave Franco
Screenplay: Marti Noxon, Tom Holland
UK Release Date: UK - 2nd September

Quick Plot: Charley Brewster's life couldn't get much better, he has a nice bond with his single Mother, nice home, a new gang of cooler friends and the hottest girlfriend but when mysterious and hunky Jerry moves in next door, things start to get a little frightening. Charley realises his neighbour is a vampire, but will anyone believe him?

Review: Vampire films, books and TV shows aren't exactly uncommon in the world today, but Fright Night goes back to the famous ways with the creatures with a little more horror than Twilight or The Vampire Diaries. I'm not a horror fan at all so, you guessed it, the cast drew me to Fright Night along with the small comedy hybrid but I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would, even if I was frightened to the extreme.
As Fright Night starts it jumps right into the main plot, with disappearances and attacks in the local town which you obviously realise is down to Charley's strange new neighbour. After that it's more of a waiting game, letting the film continue with a little scares and the majority of the film's comedy until the long chase and battle scenes between Charley and Jerry. Once the story's at this point it's exciting, scary and quite enthralling. It's very dark and the screenplay is very carefully thought out which I believe is one of the reasons it the film works well collectively. The comedy covers for about one fifth of the film and it's mostly in the first 30 minutes, after that, with the odd joke here and there, it's a scary and tense cat and mouse chase.
The film is released in 3D with very few 2D showings across the country and after seeing it I understand why. I don't usually opt for 3D films, I find it depends on the look and quality trailer, but being filmed in with a 3D camera and not later converted, Fright Night is an extremely good 3D film. Without it, the film would have been less scary. With dozens of objects flying, blood 'splashing' and smoke and ash surrounding you it's scary and mostly the reason I jumped out of my seat.
Other than the horror being daunting, Fright Night is pretty much a great film because of the truly talented cast. Colin Farrell's sexy vampire Jerry is extremely intimidating and frightening. His sinister actions and body movement is enough to make you jump every now and then but it's no surprise he played the role perfectly. After Star Trek and Terminator Salvation in 2009 I was fully certain Anton Yelchin is one of the best younger actors in Hollywood and after this I still believe it.
He plays the common teenager and still gets away with it but his work is expanding and he's a lot different than most actors his age. He has different roles each time and his fine work continues to grow. I loved his character of Charley Brewster, the nerdy dweeb turned cool kid because of his girlfriend's status, as it's extremely relatable because of Yelchin. Toni Collette as Charley's Mum is, as always good, similarly with Imogen Poots as Charley's girlfriend Amy. Like most of his roles, Christopher Mintz-Plasse is the teenage nerd which you've got to admit he nails perfectly and adds the comedy, but later on he breaks out of it just a little, still packed with comedy but expands. As much as Tennant's character as the great wacky magician Peter Vincent seems to be funny at first glance, the jokes are merely him swearing and drinking. Although that works well, it's nothing incredible.

Fright Night lives up to its title of being extremely frightening with a few giggles here and there. Effects are satisfactory and compliments the 3D very well. However it's mostly a cast film with a great performance by Farrell and Yelchin with a fair one by Tennant.

3.5/5

Fright Night official trailer #2

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Horrible Bosses (2011)

Running Time: 98mins
Directed By: Seth Gordon
Starring: Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx, Kevin Spacey, Donald Sutherland
Screenplay: John Francis Daley, Jonathan M. Goldstein, Michael Markowitz
UK Release Date: 22nd July

Quick Plot: Nick, Dale and  Kurt are three regular guys with a regular work life style- they hate their bosses. Nick's boss is an unfeeling and sarcastic Dave Harke, Dale's boss Dr. Julia Harris is sexually aggressive towards him and a turn for the worst leaves Kurt at the hands of his original bosses sleazy and cocaine addict son Bobby. After a drunk evening the men decided their lives would be a whole lot easier if their bosses were dead and so hire a murder consultant to help them.

Review: A good, well thought out, extremely funny comedy is something everyone enjoys watching but we are often disappointed with comedies of today. But Horrible Bosses I thought was good, well thought out and extremely funny.
I first heard about the film through my researching of Jason Bateman. I'm a big Jason Bateman fan, I adore his type of humour in films/TV shows and in real life or at least what I see in interviews. He describes his humour as 'dry' but I just think it's very intelligent but also very silly. Arrested Development is one of my favourite TV shows and Michael Bluth I think is one of the best written characters in a TV show ever so it's no surprise I wanted to see this film for him. I thought his character, Nick, was a lot like Michael Bluth in fact but sadly didn't hold as much charm. Jason Sudeikis too had a good role but it was Charlie Day who was the standout of the film for me. This is the first film I have seen starring Charlie Day and I've got to say, he was perfect in it. He definitely had the majority of the one liners and held the comedy essence in it for me. Though saying all of this I've got to be honest and say the characters showed little development at all and Day's character Dale is probably the only one out of the three with the likability factor.

People think I hate Jennifer Aniston but I really don't in fact, quite the opposite. 'Friends' is another one of my favourite TV shows and I love each character, some a little more than others and Rachel was never one of the main favourites for me. It's not Anniston's fault really that's she's very type casted and seems to plays roles similar or identical to Rachel Green nevertheless I have enjoyed many of her films including The Switch (also starring Jason Bateman), The Good Girl, Bruce Almighty and now Horrible Bosses. She played the utter most perfect villain using her body and looks to her advantage in this role and I've got to say she was probably my favourite of the three bosses.
Kevin Spacey too played a marvellous evil boss and I can't think of anyone better to have had the role of Dave Harke because he played the psychotic, malicious character so smoothly I even found him a little scary.
When I first saw a trailer for Horrible Bosses I was in shock to see Colin Farrell's name near the end and had to watch again because he was unrecognizable to me. His part, though less objecting to his workers than Aniston and Spacey's, was utterly hilarious and I could not help but laugh out loud to his coldness and actions.

The three bosses were great but I loved, so much, Jamie Foxx's character of Mother***** Jones. Not only was his dialogue quick and witty joining with the three leads but he held some signature actions for his character, for example every time he took a sip of his drink I was in a fit. I feel as if the bosses and Mr Jones were a lot more developed than the three leads but all in all no depth for any of the characters which is a real shame but everything still worked well how it was.
Having watched all the different trailers I was adamant that I knew how the film was going to play out and end but I was mistaken and the film took a different lead than I had expected and I highly enjoyed it. It has it's obvious flaws you can probably see from the trailer but it's really quite good overall. The main reason I first wanted to see it was because of Jason Bateman, then I found the trailer hilarious and couldn't wait to see and was in a total wave of shock when watching because I found it even funnier than the trailer. I prefer it when films show a little humour in their promos then wack out something funnier in the film, an example in Horrible Bosses would be to say that Jennifer Aniston gets a whole lot dirtier than just eating a banana and a hot dog in her underwear or Colin Farrell doing a lot more than throwing orders out to fire the disabled and fat or even to say that Charlie Day has a lot more cracks than dropping..ermm..crack?

All round I really enjoyed it. It's a whole different humour to Bridesmaids but similarly I think it's the laughs everyone was expecting from The Hangover 2.

4/5

Horrible Bosses official trailer

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