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Peter Vincent
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Peter Vincent
Vital statistics
Role Vampire Expert
Gender Male
Age 33
Race Human
Status {{{status}}}
Appearances Remake
Played by David Tennant

Peter Vincent is a British stage illusionist working on the Vegas strip, at the Hard Rock Casino & Hotel.  His show revolves around horror-movie imagery; he styles himself as the Master of Darkness, a fearless vampire killer.  Peter is also a world-renowned expert on the occult and supernatural, specializing in vampires and Kabbalah, and he has a vast collection of antiques, texts, and supernatural paraphernalia.  

He lives in a lavish, Gothic-styled penthouse suite at the Hard Rock and is sleeping with his assistant Ginger.  He drinks too much, favoring the bright green melon liqueur Midori. While he at first comes across as a hack, it's also made clear that he knows more than he is saying.  He has ties to vampires that stretch back into his past, ones that he is reluctant to go into but have left him with a deeply-rooted fear of vampires.

Peter Vincent-0

History[]

Peter Vincent had his first experience with vampires long before the start of the film, when he was only a child.  His parents were killed by one.  He claims the only reason that he managed to survive was that he had the sense to hide.  Since then, he's spent his life obsessed with them, researching, preparing... the next time he met one, he would be ready to defend himself.  

Over time he became a household name, not only for his expertise in occult studies, but also as an illusionist.  His show Vampyric toured worldwide and at the end of its run, he was approached by the Hard Rock Casino & Hotel in Las Vegas to headline for them.  So he settled in Vegas and created his new show, which he called Fright Night.

We are first introduced to Peter in the midst of a dress rehearsal for his magic show.  When one of the pyrotechnics tricks fails, he breaks character, halts the rehearsal, and storms offstage in a huff.  It's then that Charley Brewster appears, pretending to be a reporter for the Vegas Sun there for an interview.  Peter brushes him off at first, but at Charley's pleading he decides it can't hurt and offers Charley ten minutes.  He tells Ginger to bring him upstairs to Peter's penthouse.

Upstairs, Peter pours himself some midori and starts stripping off his stage costume before asking Charley what he wants to know.  Charley dives right in, asking Peter how one might kill a vampire.  Peter is initially amused, but quickly begins to lose patience with the questions.  Then Charley drops the act, telling him frankly that he believes his neighbor Jerry  is a vampire and insisting that he needs Peter's help.  Peter scoffs until Charley starts to pull out his photographic evidence, at which point Peter realizes he's genuinely serious about this.  It stirs bad memories; discussing theories and lore are all well and good, but Peter wants nothing to do with the real thing.  He asks Charley to leave, and when Charley gets more insistent, Peter gets angry.  He calls for Ginger to come and show Charley out, refusing to listen.

Peter was shaken by the incident; it's on his mind the whole rest of the day.  After that evening's show, he and Ginger have sex, but it doesn't go very well - there's too much on his mind.  He goes off to brood and smoke and drink, staring out the window at the Vegas lights and trying not to think.  Ginger tries to cheer him up and chat about the show, but he doesn't want to talk and just makes a tart comment on her performance.  Irritated, she flips him off and makes a comment on his own performance - "You were early again, in the bedroom!"  Peter can't come up with much of a response to that except for a resigned "Fuck you."  Ginger goes back to the bedroom in a huff.

When Peter goes to pour himself another drink, he catches a glimpse of some papers on his bar - the photos that Charley had tried to show him, he'd left them behind.  They were printouts of photos from inside Jerry's house - and Peter, to his horror, recognizes one of them,  An old tapestry with an elaborate coat-of-arms.  Peter goes to his safe and pulls out a sketch on very old paper, obviously drawn at least a few decades ago.  Sure enough, the pictures match.

He calls Charley's cell phone and curtly offers him his help, telling him to come back to Peter's place in an hour.  When Charley arrives, his girlfriend Amy Peterson is with him, both looking a little worse for wear.  Prickly and defensive, Peter states that he's only going to give them info, he refuses to get involved any further than that and won't help them try to kill it.  Peter pours another drink to help settle his nerves, and then starts to tell them what he knows.  Their vampire is a species from the Mediterranean, a strong breed that nest in the earth and kill slowly, keeping their victims alive for days.  Snackers, he calls them.  He tells them that they can't fight this vampire by themselves.  It's too strong; they'd need an army to kill it.

The meeting is interrupted by a phonecall, the guy from the front desk informing Peter that he has a delivery.  Peter tells him to send the delivery guy upstairs, then sends Ginger to get the door.  It's Charley who realizes something is off - it's far too late at night for a delivery.  But it's too late, and the now vampiric Ed Lee appears in the doorway disguised as a package boy.  While he's distracted threatening Charley, Peter backs away slowly and grabs the nearest weapon at hand - a crucifixion nail, which is lethal to vampires.  He brandishes it at the intruding monster, but when Ed points out that he'd have to get pretty close to use it, Peter's courage fails him, and he runs off screaming.

Peter heads straight for his panic room, with Ed hot on his heels.  He only just gets inside and shuts the door in time, the heavy hydraulics shutting it on and severing Ed's arm.   Charley and Amy and Ginger are left to fend for themselves while Peter stays put, drinking his Midori straight from the bottle and watching Ed's severed arm twitch on the floor.  He can hear everything going on outside, and can see Amy and Charley on the security monitors, but the vampires don't show up on the film.  It's on the security monitor that Peter sees Ginger's bloodied body, laying on the floor of the elevator.  Caught by horror and grief and guilt, Peter breaks down.

Peter can't see the vampires on the cameras, but he can hear everything, and he can see Charley and Amy fighting them.  He can see Amy firing one of his pistols, and flinging a gobletful of holy water.  He can see Charley in another room, weilding a large axe and then staking one.  He watches them take off down the emergency stairs, and then, he waits.  He waits for ages, until the penthouse has been still and silent for ages.  And finally, cautiously, Peter creeps out of his hiding place.  He dresses quickly and packs his bags, intending to get out of town before the vampires come back.  Ginger is dead, the safety of his home has been breached, and Peter has no intention of getting killed.

Before he can leave though, Charley shows up, alone.  Peter wonders for a moment if he's been turned as well, but Charley still shows up on camera.  Charley tells him that Amy's been taken, and he doesn't know if she's alive or dead or turned.  He's going to the vampires lair to end things once and for all, and he wants Peter to come with him.

Peter refuses, telling Charley about the vampire that had killed his parents, how he'd told himself that he'd just made it up, that it was easier to believe in monsters.  He tells Charley that trying to fight would be suicide.  Charley can play hero and get himself killed if he wants; Peter prefers life.  Charley is disgusted with him, and says that he doesn't want to live to tomorrow if it meant he'd be someone like Peter, who would bail on people to save his own skin.  Charley starts to leave, but his words get to Peter, and he calls Charley back.  Peter gives him one of his most prized weapons, a stake said to be blessed by St. Michael.  If he kills Jerry with it, it's said to also turn all of Jerry's vampiric progeny human once more.  He also advises that the most effective way of dealing with Jerry would be to set him on fire, saying that a vampire on fire won't be thinking clearly.  Charley takes the stake and leaves to prepare.

After much deliberation and a lot of alcohol to steel his nerves, Peter reluctantly gears up with a shotgun, a stakegun, and other weapons, and follows after Charley.  When he gets there, Charley has already been busy smashing all the windows to let in the sunlight.  Peter runs into Charley, fully armed and wearing a flame-retardant suit.  Peter tells Charley that he guessed he didn't want to be a man like him either and shows him the weapons he's brought.  {In a deleted scene, Charley notes that Peter is stinking drunk and smells strongly of Midori.  Peter retorts that Charley smells worse, and Charley mentions it's kerosene.}

Charley shows Peter a tiny cell where he'd found Amy only moments before.  Peter examines it and discovers a trapdoor in the floor.  Peter climbs in first, followed by Charley.  The door leads to the basement, which has been dug out and turned into a reeking filthy lair.  Following Amy's calls for help, they sneak through the lair until they find her in a small room.  Charley starts to step towards her, and suddenly a clawed hand grabs Peter by the neck and throws him back down the hall into a wall.  It's Jerry, he'd been on the ceiling out of their line of sight.  Jerry locks Charley in with Amy, then turns to deal with Peter.

When Peter sees Jerry in person for the first time, he realizes instantly that he recognizes him - Jerry is the vampire who killed his parents.  And it's clear from Jerry's speech that he recognizes Peter as well, even all this time later.  Jerry stalks towards him, taking his time, and Peter frantically tries to shoot him while backing away, but his shots do nothing.  Not paying attention to where he's going, Peter topples backwards into the heart of Jerry's den.

He stands, waiting for Jerry to attack, and is at first confused when all Jerry does is throw a rock at him, cutting his forehead.  He realizes Jerry's intents soon enough though - at the smell of his blood, Jerry's vampire progeny begin crawling up out of the dirt floor and walls, all of them hungry for Peter.  Peter puts up a valiant effort at fighting them, wounding one and killing another before his stake-gun misfires.  The young vampires swarm and overpower him, pinning him to the ground and feeding from him.

Peter isn't strong enough to fight them off, but luckily Charley bursts in then, picking up Peter's dropped shotgun and blasting a hole in the floor above them to let the sunlight in.  One of the vampires feeding on Peter is killed by the sunlight, and the others jerk back, leaving Peter laying in a pool of sunlight in the middle of the cellar. Charley takes shelter there as well, and they watch as Jerry and Amy, now a vampire as well, approach and taunt them.  

Peter's skin starts to smoke under the sunlight from the early onset of vampirism; he can feel the changes starting within his body.  Defeated, Peter lights one last cigarette, but when Charley sees his lighter, he starts to move again, pulling up the hood and eye mask of his suit.  He asks Peter to set him on fire, then tackles Jerry, who panicks and can't fight him off effectively.  While they struggle, Jerry desperately trying to fling Charley off, Peter takes up his shot gun and fires on the other young vampires, keeping them busy.

As Jerry launches himself and Charley into the ceiling, it is destroyed further, letting in more sunlight, and Jerry gets caught in a strong shaft of light and starts to burn.  Knowing it's their last chance at saving the young vamps, Peter grabs the St. Michael's stake off the floor where Charley had dropped it and throws it to him, reminding him "In the heart!"  Charley drives the stake home, killing Jerry.  As he dies, all of the young vampires, including Amy and the slowly-turning Peter, writh on the floor as the vampiric entity is ripped from them and drawn back to Jerry, turning them back into humans.  Jerry explodes into burning ashes.

Reeling from the shock of it, everyone slowly sits up again, and Peter runs to the unconscious Charley, patting out the flames still licking at his clothes.  Then he pulls off Charley's mask, lightly smacking his face and trying to coax him awake.  When Charley awakens and lets Peter and Amy know he's okay, Peter is so happy that they actually killed Jerry and all made it through alive and human that he kisses Charley.   Exhausted and relieved, he flops backwards onto the dirt floor.

Some time later, when their wounds have had time to heal and Charley and his mother have found a new house to replace the one Jerry destroyed to try and get to them, Charley and Amy are shown crashing at Peter's penthouse, enjoying a romantic moment on the floor by the fire.  As they start to undress, Peter bursts in, dressed for a night out.  He'd forgotten his phone and come back to fetch it.  He teases the young lovers affectionately and bids them not to do anything he wouldn't do - which, he admits, doesn't really narrow it down.  He then leaves them to it, heading out.

Weapons & Equipment[]

During the final confrontation with Jerry and his vampiric victims, Peter was armed with an array of weapons at his disposal. He carried much of his excess equipment in a harness that he wore underneath his trench coat and several weapons were attached to his clothes.

Weapons[]

  • Winchester Model 1897 Trench Gun: Peter's primary weapon was a modified WW2 Winchester Model 1897 "Trench Gun".
  • Stake Gun: When Peter dropped his Trench Gun while fleeing from Jerry, he whipped out a 6 round stake gun that was hidden under his trench coat. The gun worked only 2 times before failing on Peter when he aimed it at Jerry. Peter then reacted with "Fucking eBay"; indicating that he purchased the weapon online.
  • Curved Knife: Before Peter and Charley's confrontation with Jerry, Peter used an old knife with a curved blade in order to open a floor trap in the holding cell that held Amy.
  • Wooden Stakes: Peter was seen to have had at least 4 wooden stakes that were placed in his harness when he showed Charley is personal arsenal and before saying "Let's kill something".

Quotes[]

  • "I fucked her. Filthy."
  • "I'm gonna pop your cherry!"
  • "Ahhh, leather, it don't breathe, y'know? Fuckin' rashes are fucking killin' me..."
  • "You want to know how to kill a vampire. Seriously. Well, let's think.  You've got fire... beheading... you could make him a big, garlic-y omelette... or go traditional, stake through the heart -- BAM!"
  • "I read books, man. What, do you think I'm hanging out with Dracula? And the Easter Bunny? Fuck off!"
  • "Illusion, remember?  People see what they want to see."
  • "What, in Clark County, Nevada? GINGER! Oh, yeah, 'cause that's a hotbed of supernatural activity..."
  • Get. The Fuck. Out of my house.
  • "I'll tell you what I know, but that's it. Alright? Don't expect me to join your little Scooby Gang!"
  • "It's a strong breed. You're gonna need an army!"
  • "eBay, I order things late at night when I've had a few cocktails, so you know, some nice stuff."
  • "There will be no fighting. There will only be surviving. Maybe."
  • "Look, if you want to be a dead hero, good for you.  I'm out.  You think I'm a coward. I'm not.  I'm a realist."
  • "I guess I don't wanna be a man like me either. Let's kill something."
  • "See that? Like a great date. You get me drunk, I'll try anything."
  • "HA HA (Stake Gun malfunctions) Fucking eBay!"
  • Charley: "How you holding up?"  Peter: "Oh fucking great"
  • Peter: "I'm smoking."  Jerry: "Yeah.  You're turning."
  • "Ya little shit.  Next time you're gonna use my plan, give me a heads up first, yeah?"
  • "If you are naked, I am absolutely going to look!"
  • "Alright, that's it, I'm out of here.  Don't do anything I wouldn't do! ...That doesn't narrow it down. There's like... minigolf and sushi. Carry on!"

Video[]

Tennant discusses his character on the set.

Photos[]


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