Something Sweet In Which to Sink Your Teeth
By Rich Bruso
January 2007
Remember the eighties? The hair? The clothes? The makeup? Does the phrase "Members Only" cause you to twitch uncontrollably? Yeah, me too, and the electroshock therapy sessions aren't helping.
Back then, everything was over the top. Women would walk around all day sporting shoulder pads normally associated with professional football. The Lamborghini Countach had dealer-available rear and front mounted wings. Knight Rider and Miami Vice were in their prime and hair was feathered and crimped within an inch of its life. Even today, banks of Aqua Net-based fog occasionally reform over L.A.
This year, Amy and I received a caramel apple for Christmas. If the eighties were a caramel apple, they would be this apple. A succulent apple surrounded by caramel and then drizzled with three kinds of chocolate. Way over the top. According to the apple's maker, it served eight to twelve people, though we made do with only three.
Now, you may be asking, "What does an apple have to do with movies?" Nothing, except that you really shouldn't eat an apple like this while watching a movie. But if you do watch a movie, it should be an eighties movie, preferably one you can sink your teeth into, like Fright Night.
Yeah, we watched Fright Night. Yes, the one with Chris Sarandon, better known as Prince Humperdinck. Humperdinck, Humperdinck, Humperdinck!! And, as Amy pointed out, it features Amanda Bearse, which brings up another thing the eighties made famous: twenty-somethings portraying high school students. Remember 21 Jump Street? But I digress. Also in the movie is a character called Evil (his real name is Ed), a teenage expert on the occult who lives down the street. If he was introduced for comic relief, the effort failed. For most of the movie, he's just annoying. Eventually he becomes a vampire, at which time he becomes annoying and a vampire, with the ability to transform into a wolf.
Anyway, Fright Night is the story of a high school boy (played by a 24 year old) who is convinced that his new neighbor (Chris Sarandon) is a vampire. His proof? While spying through the window, he saw our fanged friend walk up behind a completely nude young woman, tip her head to the side, and slowly, gently, sink his teeth deep into her smooth, creamy, chocolaty, caramel covered…
Sorry, sorry.
Anyway, back to the movie. So, obviously the neighbor is a vampire. He has a coffin, he has a manservant, and he can turn into a bat. Plus, he has a pretty cool Jeep. So, why all the fuss? Apparently, this 'child of the night' has been completely draining several 'women of the night' and having his manservant dump the bodies behind the old train yard. To avoid suspicion, our vampire dresses in trendy clothing and eats plenty of fresh fruit, though I'd like to point out that his apples don't look nearly as succulent as the granny smith I found buried beneath about a half pound of chocolate and caramel. Man, was that a good apple.
But our vampire friend is a bad apple. He wouldn't even be worth smothering in that red candy stuff they use in carnival candy apples. In an attempt to stop his bloodsucking neighbor's murderous ways, our teenage-ish hero enlists the aid of Roddy McDowall. No really, he does. You see, before his brilliant portrayal of The Breadmaster in the animated Tick T.V. show, he played a washed-up late night B-movie host in Fright Night. Initially an unbeliever, Roddy soon learns the truth: the undead walk the streets of Los Angeles. In retrospect, this pretty much covered all of the eighties, but it was news at the time.
So, off to the old vampire standbys. Let's grab our crosses, bless some holy water, and sharpen our stakes for battle! Of course, when selecting the wood for the stakes, please pick a decent wood. Nothing is worse than reaching the core of a candy apple and getting splinters from the stick. Fortunately, my recent caramel apple, in addition to having enough gooey goodness to put a grown man into a food coma, had a superb stick. Very smooth and expertly machined, I couldn't coax a single splinter out of it.
The fine folks at Mrs. Prindable's truly know what they are doing. Of course, to call this master work a 'stick' is truly an understatement; it was a veritable stake. It would serve as a worthy addition to any vampire slayer's arsenal, though I would recommend getting all the caramel off first, especially the large amount that pools around the stem hole. There's nothing quite as embarrassing as dispatching a vampire with a sticky stake.
A lesser stake serves to help bring the movie to an end, with everything back to normal, except for poor Evil, last seen trying to claw a stake out of his wolf-shaped body. You see, Amanda Bearse's character, as the love interest, returns to normal when the head vampire bites it, but Evil, as a secondary comic relief-type character, isn't so lucky. Fortunately, the actor who played Evil did have a successful career after this movie, though it was in gay porn. In fact, according to imdb.com, this was one of his only non-porn roles. What that says about this movie, I'd care not to contemplate.
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