Night of Bloody Horror

Horror? Hahaha! This is a trashy so-called thriller that is slightly reminiscent of Hitchcock's Psycho. Only that this one is totally predictable and full of gore. Gerald McRaney gives a good performance, but it doesn't save the film from mediocrity. There is almost no suspense, in fact waiting to see if the next scene is worse than the one you are watching is far more suspenseful. Really, one would try hard to find a movie with more fake special effects than this one; the sound is often unsynchronized, while the red paint you keep in the basement would have worked better in the gore scenes! Anyway, this one's for the cult trash fans, like me.

3

This was another of those cheap low-budget horror movies I remember seeing in newspaper ads or television commercials on late night as a child in the '70s and wondering what they would be like. The version I watched on YouTube was a little faded and washed out but I saw clearly enough to understand what was going on and enjoy a little. I say a little since with the running time being about ninety minutes, there's not enough time to give too deep characterizations as to motive for the various murders that happen here. As the lead suspect, a young Gerald McRaney is pretty adequate in one of his earliest roles (though he must have considered himself the luckiest man with the women he kissed here). There's also a nightclub scene with a local rock band called The Bored that has a few sixties moments like having some frames printed in negative form with some painted colors added. (and can you dig the cyclone-like special effects that depicts McRaney's "migranes"?) Despite the tagline being "Keep telling yourself, It's only a picture, only a picture...", I don't think the few gore scenes were all that scary, in fact, they looked a bit fake. So on that note, Night of Bloddy Horror is no great shakes though it's not completely boring either. P.S. The theatre that was playing this movie in the late '70s (and perhaps the late '60s as well when this was first released) was the now-defunct Joy's Robert E. Lee one which had four screens during a time when most cinemas in our area had just two. The movie house I just mentioned was perhaps one of 200 owned by one Joy N. Houck, Sr. whose son, Joy Jr., was this film's director. By the way, my neighboring city New Orleans (where Joy Jr. was born) was the location used for filming.

I could think of approximately a dozen other and more appropriate titles to name this film, but "Night of the Bloody Horror" certainly isn't one of them. Okay, I realize the creators just picked out of bunch of appealing key words that are likely to raise an interest among horror fans, but any movie title should at least be a bit relevant, don't you think? None of the main events - not even the finale – happen during the night, the film honestly isn't that bloody and it definitely isn't horrific. But still I suppose you can't be overly harsh or negative-minded when watching "Night of the Bloody Horror". This is the third film directed by Joy N. Houck Jr. that I've seen (alongside "The Brain Machine" and "Creature from the Black Lake"), and I can already make some vast establishments & generalizations regarding his entire repertoire. First of all, the good man clearly never experienced the pleasure of working with a halfway decent budget! All three films that I've watched were obviously made on a shoestring budget and therefore lacked proper editing, adequate lighting & photography and convincing make-up effects. On the other hand I also have to admit that the films don't really suffer that much from their own cheapness. They're all spirited and enthusiastically made mini horror-productions that attempt to cash in on contemporary classic genre titles. "Psycho" heavily inspires this film and it nearly goes over the top in trying to equal the same sinister atmosphere as Alfred Hitchcock's classic milestone. The script introduces Wesley Stuart; a thirty-something bachelor who clearly has a whole lot of issues to deal with. He has an uncanny & dominating mother (don't they all?), he spent 13 years in an asylum for accidentally causing his younger brother's death and regularly suffers from excruciating headaches that are illustrated through cheap 'n cheesy blue spirals. When two of his girlfriends are found brutally murdered (after the strange headaches caused a temporary blackout), the police automatically assume that Wesley resumed his old murderous habits again. "Night of Bloody Horror" is an okay time-waster, but it naturally doesn't feature any surprise elements or genuine thrills. The finale is embarrassingly predictable and the murders are substandard. The biggest problem, to me, is that Wesley Stuart is such a boring and faceless protagonist! Half an hour into the movie, I was still thinking: "Wait…who's this guy again? Oh right, he's the main character!" Gerald McRaney apparently went on to have a very successful career in television, but he totally lacks the charisma to play the lead role here. Another dreadful thing to endure here is the overload of needless and annoying padding material. In order to lengthen the film a bit, Houck Jr. adds pointless collages of Wesley's relationships and – even more irritating – endless footage of a rock band playing in a local redneck bar. The band's name is The Bored, by the way. Well, they surely inflect their name on to the viewers. "Night of Bloody Horror" isn't really worth checking out, except maybe if you're a very tolerant fan of no-budget horror.

It's obvious this film was inspired by Psycho. That is not necessarily a bad thing. This is not a carbon copy of Psycho but it's very similar to the Hitchcock classic it's just not nearly as good as Psycho.

I would say that Night of Bloody Horror (1969) has it's entertainment value for a small audience - including myself. The film is not good but it's not all that bad either, it's sorta in-between.

Gerald McRaney from Major Dad is in this film. It's cool to see a film he started out in.

Overall this one isn't a great horror-thriller but it is good for something slightly different if you enjoy movies similar to Psycho.

5/10

Low-budget mess starring a young Gerald McRaney (boy, was he skinny) is mostly pointless and boring, but does have a few unintentionally funny moments.

My favorite part is when the cops haul Major Dad in as a suspect in the murders of two of his girlfriends and demand to know if he's a fag. Another good scene is the fistfight that takes place on the dance floor of a nightclub in the middle of the obligatory late-1960s psychedelic band's ultrahip set -- without anyone noticing.

The movie undoubtedly would have been better off going for more splatter instead of trying to build suspense in its obviously "Psycho"-inspired way, especially since what few gore scenes there are are amusingly fake. Remember pretending to be impaled as a kid by holding a fake sword under your armpit? That's the level of sophistication here.

Not the biggest piece of crap ever, but definitely not that good either. Oh well, at least it was filmed in "Violent Vision" (tm).