Night Angel

OK - I have to admit it: I love old school 80's & 90's era, electro/disco music and this decadent atmosphere that you CANNOT really find in todays mystery/horror/whatever films (there are exceptions, of course).

This one isn't too dumb, really. Compared with lots of silly hollywood 'horror' this one is much much preferable. We even have enough style, music and few gore effects to get things going. And of course, as you have probably understood by now, there's an evil mistress that is trying to rule the world. And then, the final supposedly climactic ending sequence. This is quite an OK viewing, with quite pleasant & amusing characters.

No masterpiece, by no means, but should be OK for most horror fans and fans of that particular atmosphere I described above.

"Night Angel" for most part follows the typical staples of 80s supernatural horror with lukewarm results. It wants to be an erotic thriller with supernatural touches, but the uncanny aspect cheapens it. Considerably silly and weakly acted (with the exception of an always amusing Karen Black), and while uninspired, it's never boring due to competence in its polished direction and outrageous old-school latex make-up effects (thanks to some outlandish hallucinating nightmare sequences). Director Dominique Othenin-Girard was at the helm, who previously directed "Halloween 5" the year before and some of the visual and atmospheric aspects collide here. He sure does like the blue filter when staging the lighting. It's violent, sensual and brooding, but done in a rather tacky manner. Just look at the lust-filled orgy sequences. While serious in tone, some elements are tawdry then say shocking in what it aims to achieve and the dialogues at times can make you groan. The story centres on the fashion magazine industry where glamour and vanity attracts evil in the shape of an ancient evil demon in woman form. Nothing surprises in the writing with the usual raving character suddenly appearing and they know how to vanish this succubus. A mysteriously infatuating Isa Andersen might look the part, but acting-wise was less desirable and some of her delivery raised a chuckle. While across from her is a wooden hero in the shape of Liden Ashby and Debra Feuer fairs much better as his romance interest.

"She's Satan's whore wife"!

This movie has pretty much all the best stuff that comes with a good 80's horror movie. The execution of the plot is what usually tells 80's horror movie apart from all other decades in my opinion. There always has to be some extravagant action sequences involving some sort of sexualized pain infliction, lots of heavy gasping and strip dancing sex scenes with some guts on a spring styled gore to top it all off. Check, check and check!

So this movie introduces us to Lilith, a cool demon for an eighties styled horror to center around. Here in this movie they have decided to depicted her as the incarnation of lust and embodiment of evil with a tiny call out to Pazuzu (see if you can find it). Her powers are mostly psychic enabling her to send images into people dreams and thoughts and also move objects around telekinesis like. Lilith was very well portrayed by German actress Isa Jank in this movie whom I've never seen before in any horror and I thought she did an amazing job on this role while being very sexy.

Acting wise we also get some familiar faces from horror which should be a welcome sight to many. I was surprised to see B. J Turner here as well as I am a fan of the movie Scarecrows (1988) too and now this movie. I barely recognized Doug Jones, the man is a true chameleon much like Jenette Goldstein both of whom are always worth seeing, Jenette not being in this movie though but they are worth comparing.

Phil Fondacaro's appearance is unfortunately barely even cameo its so short but good never the less as is Roscoe as the narrator. Karen Black on the other hand was great also but seen plenty of times through out the movie, very enjoyable performances all round and truely leaves you wondering what people were thinking rating this movies so low and easily places this movie in the top 5 most under rated horrors of the 80's both due to how few people who have actually seen it and how poorly it has been rated by those who have seen it.

As I wrote earlier, there is a plethora of 80's horror elements in this movie and it would require a very long review to cover them all. Eitherway I will say that it was refreshing to watch a horror and not at all feel the need to fast forward at any point. Also being a fan of weird horror I should point out that this movie does come with a few flash in the pan weird body horror moments mostly towards the end, nothing quite as extreme as Society (1989) though but still welcome.

If you like under-rated horrors like this I would recommend the following: Impulse (1984), Xtro (1982), Nightwish (1989), Spookies (1986), Subspecies (1991), Dead and Buried (1981), The Dark Side of the Moon (1990), and Silent Madness (1984). All worth the watch if you can find them.

An ancient evil entity named Lilith is reborn and assumes the shape of an incredibly sexy young woman (German-born Isa Jank, "The Wrong Guys"). Lilith proceeds to aggressively contrive her way towards being the cover girl for a fashion magazine called "Siren"; meanwhile, she goes about seducing and destroying various horny and mindless men. A virtuous employee named Craig (Linden Ashby, 'Melrose Place') doesn't like what she does to the office, so he teams up with a savvy old woman (Helen Martin, '227') to vanquish the demon. He also takes the time to romance Kirstie (Debra Feuer, "To Live and Die in L.A."), the sister of his boss Rita (Karen Black, "House of 1000 Corpses").

"Night Angel" is acceptable cheese ball fare, no more and no less, yet it does still hit the spot fairly well for anybody who's got a soft spot for this kind of thing. It's got plenty of lovely ladies and sex scenes to keep the audience satisfied, as well as some wonderfully garish makeup FX by Steve Johnson ("Night of the Demons"). It does improve as it goes along, leading to a major set piece of atmosphere and effects; the most memorable bit of business takes place around the 56 minute mark. Dominique Othenin-Girard ("Halloween 5") directs adequately, giving us enough "good" stuff to prevent our minds from wandering too much.

The delectable Ms. Jank, most of whose acting credits consist of TV appearances in her native country, does seem to be enjoying this moment in the spotlight. The rest of the cast is passable, if not inspired, although it's nice to see veteran character actress Martin in an actual heroic role. (At first, you think she's just some sort of pest.) Notable creature performer Doug Jones ("The Shape of Water") has his second credited acting role as shameless horndog Ken. Also appearing are Gary Hudson ("Road House"), Sam Hennings ("Seedpeople"), Twink Caplan ("Clueless"), and Phil Fondacaro ("Troll"). Roscoe Lee Browne ("The Cowboys") does the opening narration. Hennings bares enough of a resemblance to Klaus Kinski to be good for some chuckles.

All in all, an agreeable watch. It's worth sticking with just to hear that end credits song belted out by none other than Screaming Jay Hawkins!

Six out of 10.

After brief narration giving a bit of information about Lilith, an ancient demon transforming into seductive woman and killing horny men since the dawn of mankind, the infamous Night Angel crawls out of the hole in the ground in front of viewer's eyes. Viewer's eyes will be pleased by the fact the demon already looks like naked woman. The only thing that gives away Lilith's true identity is a disfigured hand with sharp claws. The devil woman changes the shape of the hand before she goes on her manhunt and chooses a head of well known fashion periodical as the first victim. The boss gives the mysterious beauty a lift, Lilith invites herself into his fancy house, seduces him and then slashes his throat with fingernails while rich man's little son watches in horror. She also removes heart from victim's rib cage. Soon, redaction of the magazine becomes a place of witchcraft when Lilith decides to spread evil in the printed form. Lilith first causes a fight between two men at the discotheque, one of them falls into elevator shaft, the other one is badly injured by broken glass. Lilith introduces herself as the right hand of magazine's new boss played by Karen Black and turns the whole staff into zombie-like creatures. Craig, one of the employees, doesn't like the change of magazine's style and becomes another man on Lilith's death list. He tries to defeat the demon with the help of his girlfriend and elderly black woman who knows Lilith's hideous secret... Night Angel represents a perfect example of 80's supernatural horror, packed with mechanical monster effects and latex gore.