Fright Night Predicted the Two Sides of Nerd Culture 40 Years Ago

Nerds ruled the 1980s, or so it seemed. Not only did geeks get their own franchise with Revenge of the Nerds, but they also were mainstays in movies such as The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, and also films not starring Anthony Michael Hall.

So it’s no surprise that the 1985 vampire film Fright Night would feature a couple of nerds in the lead. Written and directed by Tom Holland (the guy who made Child’s Play and Psycho II, not the Spidey one), Fright Night follows horror aficionado Charley (William Ragsdale) as he becomes increasingly convinced that his new neighbor Jerry Dandrige (Chris Sarandon) is a vampire. He gets help along the way from not just his girlfriend Amy (Amanda Bearse) and washed-out B-movie star Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall), but also his best pal “Evil” Ed (Stephen Geoffreys), whose horror knowledge outstrips even that of Charley.

While Charley and Ed are both nerds, Fright Night portrays them very differently, both celebrating their passion for culture and their potential for toxicity. In retrospect both represent an archetype of online life that would become common place in the 21st century.

Brewster Is So Cool?

In one of Fright Night‘s most quotable moments, Amy expresses her frustration with Charley by grabbing a sandwich from a fellow student in the school cafeteria and smashing it into her boyfriend’s face. Standing nearby, Ed crows, “Ohhhhh! You’re so cool, Brewster!“

Given the obvious tropes at play, the exchange feels like it could from almost any ’80s movie. We’ve got the nice girl, the nice nerdy boy, and the boy who’s a little too nerdy to be the hero. The nice nerdy boy suffers an indignity, but it’s just enough to allow us viewers to sympathize with him, to pull for him even if he is being kind of a jerk to his girlfriend.

However, Fright Night goes further to suggest that Brewster’s nerdiness is a good thing. The film makes him a horror nerd, an aficionado of the knockoff Hammer films that starred Peter Vincent within the film’s universe. Even though he has to get some of the details from Ed, Charley’s knowledge of horror allows him to recognize that Jerry Dandridge is a vampire and that housemate Billy Cole (Jonathan Stark) is his familiar. He’s also the one who gets the idea to track down Peter Vincent to help fight Jerry. In this context, Charley really is cool enough to be our hero, while McDowall’s fearless vampire hunter turns out to mostly be comic relief.

Of course Fright Night isn’t the only ’80s movie to make a nerd a hero. But whereas films such as Revenge of the Nerds build to a climax in which the nerd is validated by having sex with a girl (whether she wants to or not; see, again, Revenge of the Nerds), Charley is portrayed, surprisingly, as an actually decent person.

Charley initially ignores Amy’s attempts to move his hand out from under her shirt and then gets angry at her when she has to push him away. He whines about how he always hears “no” from her, but the film doesn’t focus on his indignation. Instead Holland cuts back to Amy to capture her reaction, hurt and uncomfortable by Charley’s bullying. It’s at that moment that Charley stops and realizes what he’s done and apologizes, a true rarity in ’80s nerd movies. Charley’s nerdiness allow him to show respect to Amy and to defeat Jerry, but Fright Night gives us a more traditional—and tragic—’80s nerd in his pal, the appropriately nicknamed Evil Ed.

Inner Evil

Like nice guy Charley, Ed initially plays like another mainstay of ’80s movies: the guy who’s even nerdier than the main nerd. Actor Stephen Geoffreys leans into his character’s unpleasant qualities, his shrill cackle and irritating smile, both on display when he’s introduced in the film laughing at Charley’s poor math grade.

Yet for all his rough edges, Fright Night also finds some fundamental decency in Ed, most obviously in the care he shows toward Charley. Even though Charley insists on calling him “Evil,” a nickname he detests, Ed agrees to help his pal by explaining vampire rules such as never inviting one into your home (a rule that Charley immediately discovers his mother has violated). Also like Amy, Evil worries about Charley’s mental well being. Both Amy and Ed hire Peter Vincent to “investigate” Jerry, a ruse intended to show Charley that his neighbor is nothing to fear.

That mixture of unpleasantness and decentness comes together in Ed’s downfall, a surprisingly sympathetic scene. It begins with Charley, Amy, and Ed leaving Jerry’s house after the investigation with Peter Vincent, which ended with Charley even more convinced after noticing that Vincent actually believes in Jerry’s vampirism. Frustrated that the attempt to dissuade his friend failed, Ed pretends that he’s been attacked by Jerry and begs Charley to kill him.

“Kill me, Charley,” he pleads. “Before I turn into a vampire, and… give you a hickey!” Ed lets loose with an obnoxious laugh, and Charley pushes him away. Still, the camera stays with Ed as he walks off, insisting one last time that there’s no such thing as vampires. That’s when Jerry actually does arrive and turns a suddenly frightened Ed by appealing to his sense of rejection.

“You don’t have to be afraid of me,” Jerry tells Ed. “I know what it’s like being different. Only they won’t pick on you anymore. Or beat you up. I’ll see to that.” As Jerry makes his offer, the camera cuts back to Ed, whom Geoffreys plays differently than he has anywhere else in the film. For the first time, Ed looks hurt and vulnerable, both scared and grateful that someone else understands what he’s going through.

Moving as this moment of recognition is, it doesn’t lead to more understanding. Unlike Charley, who actually listened to Amy’s fears, Ed embraces the way Jerry has empowered him. That sense of empowerment is evident in his very next scene when he pounds on Vincent’s door and begs to be let in because there’s a vampire outside. Vincent hurries the boy in, convinced that he’s found someone else just as scared as he is. Once inside, however, Ed begins cackling again, this time with more menace than before. Once constantly scared and bullied, Ed luxuriates in Vincent’s fear, so pleased that he gets to be the scary one now.

In this moment, Ed is much more like the guys from Revenge of the Nerds who take the girls and lord their power over the jocks. But where most ’80s movies treat the reversal as some sort of cosmic justice, Fright Night reveals Ed’s turn toward bullying for what it is: pure toxcity and monstrousness.

A Nerd To the End

Ed and Vincent have one last confrontation in Fright Night, one last chance for the young nerd to terrorize the former movie star. This time Ed exerts his full power and transforms into a wolf to chase Vincent through the halls of Charley’s house. But when he lunges to strike the killing blow, Ed ends up getting impaled on a broken spindle.

What follows is Ed’s slow transformation from wolf to person, the type of scene common to movies after An American Werewolf in London in 1981. It’s a chance for the special effects artist (in this case, Steve Johnson, who worked under Rick Baker on American Werewolf) to show off their skills. The visuals are impressive to be sure. But the scene isn’t just about dazzling the audience. It’s also about showing Ed for what he really is: stil la scared and sad little boy. As he resumes his human form, Ed reaches out for Vincent, who looks on in pity, extending a hand of comfort—the opposite of the exploitative hand that Jerry extended when turning Ed.

In many ways, the contrast between Charley and Ed represent two sides of nerd culture, as well as how the greater culture at large perceives them. While Charley represents a familiar ’80s and beyond fantasy of the awkward, shy nice guy who just needs to bloom like the ugly duckling, Ed inadvertently represents a more modern conception of the nerd: someone who is angry, lonely, and easily susceptible to manipulation.

Like certain algorithms and online personalities, Jerry is a powerful figure who manipulates Ed’s genuine anxieties and turns him into something actually evil and grotesque. He makes Ed the monster who, ironically, wishes to tear down and destroy Peter Vincent, an actor he simultaneously professes to have idolized his whole childhood while trying to drink Peter’s blood. A bit like segments of modern online fandoms that find a renewed sense of identity out of lashing out on social media at the creators of their formerly favorite media and stories—think Star Wars, Marvel, or DC stans who attempt to bully actors on IG or Twitter because someone on YouTube told them this person ruined their childhoods—Ed is radicalized into something ghastly and perverse. Still, even Peter Vincent and the movie can have sympathy for the confused kid underneath all that vitriol.

For the most part, Fright Night the movie has a happy ending. By the end of the film, Charley has been vindicated when he and Vincent use their knowledge of vampire lore to burn Jerry in the sunlight and free Amy from his thrall. His properly nice guy nerdiness wins out. But it is Ed’s death that really sticks with viewers—so much so that we’re willing to ignore the closing sound of his malicious cackle, which sets up the lackluster and justly forgotten sequel Fright Night 2. Ed’s lonely death stands today as a warning to nerds against the desire to bully those who bully you, to seek acceptance by putting down others.

Ed’s end contrasts to the type of nerdiness that Fright Night supports, the type that pairs passion for something with a respect for others—a nerdiness still rare in films today.