Fright Night Remake Gains Steam, Picks Up Mad Men Writer

Posted by Neil Miller (neil@filmschoolrejects.com) on November 12, 2009

Ever since it was resurrected by Dreamworks in May, the remake of Fright Night, the 1985 horror comedy from director Tom Holland, has been striking fear into the hearts of fans across the web. The project was originally set up a Screen Gems, but it died a slow, painful death due to a desire to stray too far away from the original film’s plot and tone. But at Dreamworks, they appear to be keeping the original horror/comedy vibe from the first one, and in order to do so they’ve placed screenwriting tasks in the capable hands of Marti Noxon.

Noxon, who has most recently served as a writer on Mad Men, has the right kind of pedigree needed to bring the story of a kid who discovers this his next-door neighbor is a vampire to life. She served as a writer, and for a short time as showrunner, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

Given the original film’s fairly rabid following (who can resist the fanged-up Amanda Bearse?), I’m sure there are a lot of folks out there who are not on board just yet for this remake. The question becomes: does the addition of Marti Noxon help? Word from inside the production (according to THR) is that Dreamworks is just looking to give the film an update, a polishing with some new special effects. That doesn’t sound so bad, does it?

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