Fright Night

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Fright Night
Film poster of Fright Night
Directed by	Tom Holland
Produced by	Herb Jaffe
Written by	Tom Holland
Starring	Chris Sarandon William Ragsdale Roddy McDowall Amanda Bearse Stephen Geoffreys
Music by	Brad Fiedel
Cinematography	Jan Kiesser
Editing by	Kent Beyda
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	August 2, 1985
Running time	106 min
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$9 000 000
Followed by	Fright Night II
IMDb • Allmovie

Fright Night is a vampire horror-comedy film that was released in 1985. It was followed by a 1988 sequel, Fright Night II along with numerous other merchandise including tapes, CDs, videos, DVDs, and comic books.

Starring William Ragsdale, Chris Sarandon, and Stephen Geoffreys. Also starring is Roddy McDowall, whose character's name, "Peter Vincent", is loosely based on veteran horror film figures English actor Peter Cushing and American actor Vincent Price. Directed and written by Tom Holland. The musical score was done by Brad Fiedel (who also scored The Terminator series) and the title theme song was performed by The J. Geils Band. The visual effects are the work of Richard Edlund, who also provided the effects for Ghostbusters a year earlier. The film contains a puppet that was cut from Ghostbusters. The puppet is the rejected "Ghost Librarian" character.

Fright Night was well-received, winning three Saturn Awards; it also won an award and a nomination at Fantasporto. It spawned a 1988 sequel which also gained a Fantasporto nomination. The film also turned out to be a surprise hit at the box office. It performed the best of any horror film released during the summer of 1985, grossing just under $25 million domestically. It was the second highest grossing horror film of 1985, bested only by A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge.

In 1985, a novelization, Fright Night by Craig Spector and John Skipp, was published by TOR Books. The novelization continues the film's tradition of paying homage to classic horror actors; Charlie's school, "Christopher L. Cushing High School," takes its name from frequent Hammer Films co-stars Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Fright Night was also adapted into a comic-book series by Now Comics.

An arcade-style computer game was released in 1988 for Amiga computers. In the game, players assume the role of Jerry Dandridge as he attempts to turn his victims into vampires before sunrise.