"Fright Night" - C+

What is this, vampires again? So soon?

Yep ..... we've got vampires again.

From that venerable stock of pure cinematic schlock known as the 1980s comes this gem, "Fright Night." This little film successfully manages to take bits of comedy, hints of a teen-friendly tale and mix them all together with the vampire-in-suburbia mythology.

The low down from down low: Charley has all the usual hang-ups of your average mid-1980s teen — poor grades, a nagging mom and girl troubles. But unfortunately for Charley, things get way more complicated when a flamboyant vampire moves into the creepy house next door.

Charley has his brushes with the evil from across the lawn before enlisting the assistance of friends and a local TV legend to take on the vampire.

Covering some new ground: In the end, this is yet another story of vampires mucking about in the "real world," bothering Joe Average and causing mayhem. What's different here is the overall softening of the unworldly with silly comedy bits that were pretty common with just about every teen/relationship flick of the time.

Don't get me wrong when I talk about the comedy and boy-girl angles. The departures are just a slight twist on the otherwise over-done storyline, but they are not major distractions. In fact, they help move things along when everything might otherwise be a little sluggish.

The vampire lead is played very well by none other than Chris Sarandon, he of "Prince Humperdinck" fame in 1987's "The Princess Bride." Chris is smarmy, cruel, evil and a little whimsical. In short, he's not your average vampire skulking around in a cape and grubby burial clothes.

And when Charley seeks some assistance, he enlists the help of another great performer — the late great Roddy McDowall. Roddy deftly portrays this down-on-his-luck local TV movie host and washed-up B actor who gets to finally do it for real. He's pretty convincing in this one.

There are even a few good special effects throw in towards the end. You'll likely get a kick out of the well-produced modeling work employed to bring the scare long before computers took over everything.

Grade: highest-possible C+ (for brining it funny and creepy and all the way around entertaining)