Any time I post a #SpolerAlert review you can be sure it’s full of spoilers. It’s a chance to create a dialogue with people who have actually seen the movie and want to praise and/or gripe about shit that might ruin it for you if you haven’t seen it yet. That’s my disclaimer.

Saturday night I checked out one of the most polarizing movies in recent memory, the Fright Night remake. Seriously people, no one can agree on this thing. So here are my couple pennies:

I liked it.

The problems I had with the movie are all comparisons to the original. On it’s own it stands up as a really fun popcorn flick. The cast is great. I honestly can’t say enough good about the casting in this movie. I think they nailed it. I was especially pleased that David Tennant stripped off his wig almost immediately and didn’t spend the movie acting like Criss Angel but looking like Russell Brand (I was worried, true story). As for the effects, they’re a combination of good and and cheesy as shit, which works well. I, like the other 87 people who saw this movie this weekend, watched it in 3D which was handled really well in my opinion. It was usually subtle enough that you almost forgot it was 3D, then when they did give you a jump scare it was way more effective. That and the exploding vampires were kickass.

My main contention is with the variations from the original’s plot. The original pretty much opens with Charlie figuring out Jerry is a vampire and then he spends the next hour trying to convince everyone he’s not crazy. That’s the whole crux of the movie. The remake handles a pile of character development in the first half hour and then has Evil Ed tell Charlie that Jerry is a vampire no more than 2 minutes after we first see the guy just being neighborly. At this point Ed and Adam (the kid from the prologue) have already done all the detective work. Call me crazy, but that sounds like a great movie. A couple geeky high school kids chasing around a vampire trying to get him on video and downloading apps about dealing with the undead. To be honest, it’s what I was hoping to get out of this.

But the way Fright Night 3D handled it, the whole thing came across like the end of Spiderman 3 when the butler tells Harry all kinds of crap that just makes him forgive Spiderman/Peter. It seemed kind of contrived and like it was just there to move the plot along. I’m really hoping there’s a crazy extended cut on the DVD that fixes all this.

OK, I’m going to stop talking myself out of liking this movie. It’s one of the better vampire movies I’ve seen in a long time, the only problem is it’s not as awesome as Fright Night. But, seriously, what is?