- 8
...a cleverly balanced mix of scares and laughs that is funnier and more terrifying than the 1985 original on which it's based.
—Robert Koehler Variety
- 8
...Gillespie takes the material and manipulates it into his own macabre homage. Retrofitted with new variations on familiar characters and contemporary enough to make a nasty neck biter loose in Vegas seem perfectly plausible, it continues August 2011's run of late Summer season savers.
—Bill Gibron filmcritic.com
- 7
...a slick remake.
—Michael Phillips Chicago Tribune
- 7
As vampire movies go, Fright Night is a pretty good one.
—Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times
- 7
The real treat...is Farrell.
—Scott Bowles USA Today
- 7
A steady supply of spiky humor and a game cast keep this cooking most of the way, though the pacing could have been tighter and the film seems as if it's about to end two or three times before it actually does.
—Todd McCarthy Hollywood Reporter
- 7
...works reasonably well as a scary movie. Though some of his work gets muddied in 3-D, Gillespie knows how to stage shocks, gore, and action sequences...
—Keith Phipps Onion AV Club
- 7
...a slick remake.
—Michael Phillips Los Angeles Times
- 7
...honors the original...without falling into the traps of slavish fandom or smarty-pants spoofery. The old ?Fright Night? was both self-aware and effectively scary, and if this one seems to prefer gruesome digital effects to old-fashioned bump-in-the-night spookiness, it still succeeds in keeping the audience both tickled and anxious.
—A. O. Scott New York Times
- 6
Damn, that Farrell is good.
—Peter Travers Rolling Stone
- 6
...one of the minor triumphs of this Fright Night remake is Farrell's coolly assured performance, a cocksure spectacle of masculine virility...
—Ed Gonzalez Slant Magazine
- 6
The original Fright was the Scream of its age -- filled with very clever quips about horror movies and quite bit of blood. The new one? Half the humor, twice the gore. Still, casting Colin Farrell as the fanged one is a big win.
—Peter Paras E!
- 4
...feeble comic one-liners and slow pacing combine for a routine fangfest in this remake of the 1985 film...
—Kyle Smith New York Post