Fright Night 3D. (15) Directed by Gary Gillespie. Starring Anton Yelchin, Colin Farrell, David Tennant, Imogen Poots, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Toni Colette. 110 mins 3/5

Having quit his role as the Doctor just at the point when the series got really interesting, David Tennant’s subsequent film roles have a lot to make up for. So far he has handled whatever is thrown at him with casual aplomb. Here he is asked to play Russell Brand. He does this rather well though, like asking Marlon Brando to play Bernard Manning or DeNiro to play Lennie Bennett, it’s perhaps not getting the best use from a considerable talent.

This is a vampire movie and you may need another vampire movie like you need a stake in your heart. It is a remake to boot just to further dampen expectations but I’d have to say that in its own unremarkable way Fright Night is thoroughly entertaining.

Set in a suburban world that is even more Spielberg than that of Super 8 it’s the story of a kid (Yelchin) who quickly discovers that his new next door neighbour Jerry (Farrell) is a vampire. In desperation he turns to Peter Vincent (Tennant) a Las Vegas satge magician/ showbiz vampire for help.

There are some great set pieces, all the performers are fun to watch and most of the words that come out of their mouths are fun to hear. A colleague suggested that Toni Colette was wasted playing the mother but I’d argue the opposite, she makes a perfunctory role that bit more interesting. There are no really big laughs but a steady stream of smiles and one or two quite shocking moments. The 3D is used in a properly gimmicky way.

Jerry boasts at one point of having survived for 400 years but you wonder how because he’s not exactly discrete, litter bugging the neighbourhood with a trail casually discarded bloodied corpses.