In formulating his story about Charley Brewster, a normal teenager who discovers that a vampire has moved into the house next door, Holland was determined to "respect all the conventions of a traditional vampire story--coffin-beds, empty mirrors and the like--but to place them in a contemporary context." Says Holland. "One of the reasons the genre faded was that nobody could figure out how to contemporize vampire films. I like to think that this is one vampire story that works in contemporary terms."
Holland's background gave him some unique qualifications for the writing, casting and directing of "Fright Night." He moved into production from a successful acting career, during which he starred in three soap operas ("Love of Life," "Flame in the Wind" and "A Time for Us"), made over 200 commercials and appeared in such films as Jacques Demi's "The Model Shop," with Anouk Aimee, and "A Walk in the Spring Rain," with Ingrid Bergman and Anthony Quinn.
A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of UCLA and member of the California Bar, Holland had written a number of successful screenplays, including "The Beast Within," "Class of 1984," "Psycho II," "Scream for Help" and "Cloak & Dagger," before finally getting a chance to direct "Fright Night."
Not surprisingly for a former actor, Holland was adamant on one point: "I wanted to avoid at any cost having the special effects overshadow the acting. There's a lot more to the story than just its frightening moments. It's very strong on warmth and relationships, and it's got a lot of humor in it. We needed really good actors to carry off those elements, and once we had them, I wanted to let them show their stuff.
"The humor in 'Fright Night,'" says Holland, "springs naturally from the situations in the script, not from an attempt to parody vampire films. If someone told you that there was a vampire living next door, you'd laugh, wouldn't you? Well, that's what happens when Charley tries to tell people what he's seen."
Holland also sees sexual rivalry as being an important subtext of the seduction of the movie. "This is more a psychological suspense thriller than a traditional horror film because of the subtext of the seduction theme that the vampire represents. Vampires are a metaphor for seduction. Forgetting about vampirism, what this film is about on one level is an older man trying to take a younger man's girl away from him."
Columbia Pictures presents a Vistar Films Production of a Tom Holland Film, "Fright Night," starring Chris Sarandon, Roddy McDowall and William Ragsdale. Produced by Herb Jaffe and written and directed by Tom Holland, "Fright night" also stars Amanda Bearse, Stephen Geoffreys, Dorothy Fielding, Art J. Evans and Jonathan Stark.
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BIOGRAPHY