Did we leave anything out?

PREVIEW REVIEW: New trailer for Disney's Fright Night leaves no bean unspilled

LINKS / FRESHNESS RATING: Official Fright Night web site; official trailer at iTunes / This post contains major SPOILERS for both Fright Night films (1985 and 2011)

No, it's pretty much all there. Anything that you might have wondered about Fright Night, that is, the forthcoming remake of the second-best known film to feature Chris Sarandon in a starring role. (The first is, um, duh — Sarandon is the smooth weasel [Prince-somebody-or-other] who attempts to make Buttercup his princess bride in that one movie whose title I suddenly can't think of.) In the original Night, Sarandon is a vampire who moves in next door to a teenage kid. The kid figures out that the new guy is up to something creepy and eventually enlists the aid of Peter Vincent (played by Roddy McDowall), a former horror actor/TV host, to help him evict his unwelcome neighbor.

The new Night has Colin Farrell as suave bloodsucker Jerry and Anton Yelchin (Chekov in the recent Star Trek reboot) as not-so-terrified teen Charley. The trailer is about as matter-of-fact about Jerry as a gallon of whole milk. It says "whole milk" on the sticker, and that's exactly what's inside. Look, this guy is pretending to be the new neighbor, but he's really a vampire. No, seriously, check out this scene of him biting someone's neck, and this one, and this one and — wait do we have any more of the neck-biting scenes? Lest you wonder about Charley's response to all of this, the trailer shows him pooh-poohing a buddy's wild theories about Jerry, then developing suspicions of his own and breaking into Jerry's home, then having a couple of mano-a-mano confrontations with Jerry, then buying weapons to destroy Jerry and then — come on people! Do you want us to actually go see this thing or not?

Charley has a hot girlfriend, Amy (British actress Imogen Poots), so the trailer shows a) where Jerry stashes hot girls, b) what he does to them later on and c) a scene of Jerry capturing Amy to ostensibly egg Charley into coming after him. The fate of Charlie's jumpy buddy is revealed, Jerry's counterattack destruction of Charley's home is shown, and there's even a fake-out "Yes, that took care of Jerry!" moment both shown and revealed to be a fake-out. Suspense, atmosphere, intrigue — this trailer more or less shrugs and says, "Whatever." It would be one thing if Fright Night were a less plot-driven sort of film. A romantic comedy, say, like Anna Faris's What's Your Number, which also recently revealed itself on iTunes. Almost every romantic comedy has the same basic formula, so it's no surprise to watch that trailer and feel like you know everything about the movie already.

A horror film, even one with an arch, raised-eyebrow tone, is a different animal. People want a suggestion of what's to come — a hint, a taste — not a freaking scene-by-scene checklist. The Farrell/Yelchin Fright Night won't begin to screen, if at all, for several weeks, so it's possible I'm not being entirely fair taking the filmmakers to task for revealing all of their secrets in a trailer. For one thing, the trailer doesn't even hint at the Peter Vincent character, purportedly played in the new film by David Tennant, who's actually a bit of a name at the moment after five seasons of starring work in Doctor Who. Because Peter Vincent is less of a presence this time around? Because the new version is more about a one-on-one Jerry-Charlie showdown? That may be the only thing to remain a mystery about Fright Night until it opens.

P.S. — Come again? Here's a funny excerpt from Roger Ebert's review of the original Fright Night: "The best line in Fright Night belongs to Roddy McDowall, who plays a broken-down old hambone actor who used to star in vampire movies. 'The kids today,' he complains, 'don't have the patience for vampires. They want to see some mad slasher running around and chopping off heads.' He's right. Vampires, who are doomed to live forever, have outlived their fashion. They've been replaced by guys in ski masks, who hack their way through Dead Teenager Movies." Yeah, the culture sure got over its fascination with immortal blood-drinkers, didn't it? We never heard from that musty monster cliche again.