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The film has risen from the dead more often than its undead sex-fiend protagonist. That includes an unnecessary but decent Colin Farrell remake and an upcoming documentary about its legacy, You're So Cool Brewster!
The Hollywood's Queer Horror series is resurrecting it once again, this time with an emphasis on its gay overtones and cast stocked with gay icons.
Fright Night isn't the most obvious film for the Queer Horror treatment. The series—hosted by organizer Anthony Hudson as his drag alter ego, Carla Rossi—is a sort of vaudevillian road show complete with Muppets-style banter between Rossi and the resident tech guy. It typically shows more overtly gay films like the Rocky Horror quasi-sequel Shock Treatment, Sleepaway Camp and the notoriously homoerotic A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge. But Hudson says Fright Night fits perfectly.
"It's great, and it does have a lot of queer questioning," he says of the tale, where a sexually repressed teen turns peeping Tom when a vampire moves in next door. "It's got Roddy McDowell and [gay icon] Amanda Bearse. All the supporting characters are queer. Then there's the confusion about Chris Sarandon's live-in carpenter who's just…there."
That's to say nothing of the film's breakout character, Evil Ed, played by cult legend Stephen Geoffreys before his second career in gay porn. Hudson may or may not give audiences a peek at that X-rated footage during the typically raucous event, which Hudson describes as a "room full of queer people cackling throughout the whole movie."
The connection between queer culture and horror runs deep, the drag-clown emcee says. "The whole question of the series is, why are we so interested in these horror films?
"Why is there a strange interest in this genre with a really select subgroup of people?" he asks. "There's the idea of the other, the monster. For queer people, a lot of us can relate to the monster better than we can the super-popular jocks or the cheerleaders who are getting murdered. Growing up, we were the weirdos. We were the ones who were being made fun of. We were the ones who were afraid of ourselves. I think there's something about relating to the other."
Charlie Brewster might not have set out to become a gay icon, but thank God that Queer Horror has awakened the subtext of the classic, allowing us once again to view it in all its 35 mm glory. The cackling and drag-queen banter is just extra blood in the bank.
SEE IT: Fright Night screens at the Hollywood Theatre on Thursday, Feb. 18. 9:30 pm. $8.
Also Showing:
It's been more than a month since David Bowie went to the big goblin kingdom in the sky, and the Mission has graciously not stopped playing Labyrinth since. Let's hope this never ends. Mission Theater. Ongoing.
In 1985 Steven Spielberg took a break from blowing things up and making us cry over aliens to adapt Alice Walker's seminal novel The Color Purple. Mission Theater. Wednesday-Friday, Feb 17-19.
There's very little that hasn't been written about The Godfather, so let's just keep it simple: The Godfather is arguably the best film ever made, and every chance to see it on the big screen should be seized and cherished. Mission Theater. Wednesday-Friday, Feb 17-19.
The Portland Black Film Fests continues at the Hollywood, this week featuring the lucid prison boxing film Penitentiary (Wednesday) , documentary A Ballerina's Tale (Thursday), and film-history lesson Spirits of Rebellion (Saturday). Hollywood Theatre. See HollywoodTheatre.org for full festival listings.
Reel Jazz goes down to Louisiana for a revival of Elia Kazan's groundbreaking 1952 version of A Streetcar Named Desire, a film that would be perfect were it not for its exclusion of Apu Nahasapeemapetilon's breakout "I'm Just a Lonely Paperboy." Clinton Street Theater. 7 pm Thursday, Feb. 18.
The tale of a serial sexual predator preying on underage girls and married women at an exclusive resort, Dirty Dancing creeps its way back to local theaters. Academy Theater. Friday-Thursday, Feb. 19-25.
Corey McAbee's surreal, goofball black-and-white sci-fi cult favorite The American Astronaut lands at 5th Avenue Cinema in all its raunchy, bizarro glory. 5th Avenue Cinema. 7 & 9:30 pm Friday-Staturday, 3 pm Sunday, Feb. 19-21.
If you've never experienced Ken Russel's mindfuck, Altered States, just know it involves William Hurt tripping out on an experimental drug in an isolation chamber. That's all you need to know, aside from the fact that there are a few dispensaries near the theater that you should absolutely be visiting prior to this one. Laurelhurst Theater. Friday-Thursday, Feb. 19-25.
As is tradition, All Classical is once again screening the overlooked 1998 period piece/travelogue The Red Violin, a film that charts the travels of an antique violin across continents and years. Basically, it's Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, but with a violin instead of sassy talking dogs. Hollywood Theatre. 2 pm Saturday, Feb. 20.
Shot over the course of three days, the Whiteman Brothers' avante documentary Peekaboo Rose is a gorgeous look at Portland in 2008 certain to draw wonder, as well as inspire at least one audience member to bemoan how much the city has changed since then. 5th Avenue Cinema. 7:30 pm Saturday, Feb. 20.
In an effort to teach kids hilarious fart-based insults for preschool Family Pictures is screening Monty Python and the Holy Grail. 7:30 pm Saturday and 2 pm Sunday, Feb. 20-21.
By the power of Greyskull, or maybe just the power of being a super shitty, the Dolph Lundgren-starring childhood dream-killer Masters of the Universe ascends to the throne of Hecklevision. Hollywood Theatre. 9:30 pm Saturday, Feb. 20.
The Silence of the Lambs celebrates 25 years of lotion jokes and increasingly horrible predecessors on the silver screen (no slight to the Hannibal TV show… RIP). Mission Theater. Sunday-Monday, Feb. 21-22.
A group of deranged Insane Clown Popssees take to the porn-strewn streets of New York in the 1980 grindhouse flick—oh, wait, it's Night of the Juggler. Not "juggalos." Well, either way, James Brolin can still be Violent J. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Tuesday, Feb. 23.
Willamette Week