chance on the hot screenwriter kid", not figuring that Fright Night would be as successful as it ultimately became. Casting The Peter Vincent character was named after horror icons Peter Cushing and Vincent Price, and Holland specifically wrote the part for Price, but at this point in his career, Price had been so badly typecast that he had stopped accepting roles in horror movies. Guy McElwaine, then the head of Columbia Pictures, suggested Roddy McDowall for the part. McDowall had already starred in the Holland-penned film Class of 1984, so Holland was immediately receptive to the suggestion. "He understood the part", commented Holland, "and he also understood what he could do with it, and he really wanted it!" McDowall was particularly interested in the genesis of the character. "In the film, I perform as being in my late 20s or early 30s in the film clips of my old movies-all the way up to my 60s, when I'm the washed-up has-been", McDowall adding that the role interested him because, "I'd never played anything that old." Holland and McDowall built a lasting friendship, and McDowall eventually invited Holland to a dinner party where he introduced him to Vincent Price, who was flattered that the part was an homage to him and commented that the film "was wonderful and he thought Roddy did a wonderful job." Chris Sarandon's agent gave him a copy of the script and he replied, "there's no way I can do a horror movie," but he decided to give the script a once-over and was immediately captivated by it. "I thought this is one of the best scripts I've read in a long time", Sarandon said, "beautifully constructed, it was obvious that this was a labor of love, it was clear that the writer/director's approach to it was one of wanting to have fun with the genre without making fun of it, the characters were beautifully drawn." Sarandon was worried about being typecast as a villain, but the script resonated with him because the story was deeper than just an average monster movie. "Forgetting about vampirism, what this film is about on one level is an older man trying to take a younger man's girl away from him", commented Holland. Although he liked the screenplay, Sarandon was still leery of working with a first-time director, so he flew to Los Angeles to meet Tom Holland and producer Herb