Night Terror

Night Terror is not a particularly original film and clearly takes more than a little bit of influence from Steven Spielberg's suspenseful masterpiece 'Dual'. In spite of this, however, Night Terror is a decent romp that does at least entertain for most of its duration. The plot is very simple and focuses on a woman out on the road by herself. It just so happens that there's also a psycho around and when she witnesses him killing a police officer; she finds herself on the wrong end of his attention as she is stalked through the road by the psychopath. The film was made for TV and the budget restrictions are obvious because the film does not lift itself above the ordinary; but it keeps the focus on the plot and the suspense and this is enough to carry it on through. The lead actress is Valerie Harper, who apparently has a lot of TV credits to her name. She gives a decent performance; it not especially brilliant but at least she remains interesting for the duration. Richard Romanus is not memorable enough for me in his psycho role, however. It all boils down to the token and expected ending and while I would say that the film is slightly too long on the whole; it's still decent enough stuff and is worth a look if you can find it.

You can have days in life where literally everything goes wrong! Poor, neurotic housewife Carol Turner is experiencing such a day to the extreme, to say the least. She was scheduled to enjoy a second honeymoon, but then her hubby is stuck at work. Carol finds herself all alone in a motel room when she receives a phone call to inform her that her 9-year-old son is in the hospital due to an accident. She needs to go urgently from Phoenix to Denver, but there aren't any flights due to the bad weather. Carol hates driving on the Interstate, but now she must start a 16-hour drive with a gas tank as good as empty.

And yet, the worst is still to come for Carol. As night falls, she witnesses the brutal murder of a police officer by an unseen killer in a yellow Mustang. She rushes off and a deadly cat-and-mouse game ensues.

"Night Drive" is clearly inspired by the greatest television thriller of all times; - namely Steven Spielberg's "Duel". Of course, this one contains more dramatic background and a whole lot less suspense, but it has a handful of strong moments. Several sequences carry on for too long, like Carol's intrusion of an abandoned gas station, and actually reduce the tension level rather than building it up. The killer (Richard Romanus) is very menacing. He's mysterious, silent (when he does speak he uses a larynx box), and his mean personality is perfectly illustrated in an early scene at a roadside diner. He is creepy, but still not as creepy as a psycho that remains invisible the entire time, like in "Duel".

Night Terror is a simple thriller that tells the story of a woman driving across country by herself. The drive turns into what might be classed as a REALLY bad day, and the film effectively charts her run of bad luck which reaches it's most frightening when a psychopathic creep starts to follow her.

I used the term "simple" not as a criticism. The film achieves what it sets out to do, charting a frightening journey for a lone traveller out in the middle of nowhere. Valerie Harper is superb as the central character Carol, and for a lot of the running time she carries the whole movie single handedly. What impressed me about the film was that all the experiences are portrayed convincingly. Carol initially just runs low on gas, but from this, she stumbles from one stressful situation to another, each worse than the last, yet she handles each challenge with realistic ingenuity. I really liked her resourcefulness as more and more danger is thrown at her.

The film starts quite slowly as Carol leaves her family for a long drive, but it gets going soon enough and the middle third is the best as night falls and the real drama of Carol's ordeal is played out. Night Terror is actually a fitting title, as the movie lives up to it in this middle section. The story ends satisfyingly, although without all the loose ends tied up, but I really enjoyed it.

Only available on rental VHS from years ago, it's very unlikely that many people will see this now, which is a shame. I'm glad I did, as it's another little gem of 70's made-for-TV-movie fun.

This one has good and bad points. The climax and ending were the bad points. It's as if they really didn't know how to end it so they threw in the desert and helicopter stuff... followed by the hospital scene.

The good to it is that most of it is fairly interesting - all the middle stuff going on is sorta thrilling. The gas station scene is simply weird. I thought for a minute she was trying to break into a wall safe to try to find coins to use the phone, then I realized it was to turn on the gas pump. lol.

This would have a really good movie but the ending - when it became daylight in the desert and then the hospital scene was a bad way to end an otherwise decent made for TV thriller.

5/10

I saw this movie when I was a kid, and still remember it. The suspense in the movie was off the charts. It was on late at night and kept me up even after it was over. You really had no idea what was going to happen next. Once you started watching it you definitely could not stop. The character that used the voice box made it even scarier. Valerie Harper was awesome, and definitely showed that she can do more than comedy. I would love to see the movie again. Hopefully it will come back on, or there is a way to find it on video. For a made for TV movie I must say it was even better than some that I have seen at the movies. Back than they had to have good stories, and great actors since they couldn't rely on big budget special effects.