Hell Night

"Hell Night" is a fun little 1981 horror film from the producer of "Halloween". The plot is as follows - Twelve years ago, a man savagely murdered his wife and three of their deformed and disabled children, leaving only one son as a survivor, then hanging himself in his family mansion. Now, twelve years after the horrible murders, four college pledges for the Alpha Sigma Ro fraternity/sorority are forced to spend the night in Garth manor for their initiation. All seems to be going well, and the upperclassmen play a few tricks on the newcomers to try and scare them. But the jokes become horrifyingly real when the pranksters and the pledges begin to die. Could it be possible that the fourth son of the Garth family is still lurking somewhere on the grounds?

I'd been wanting to see this for quite some time now, and I finally got my hands on the DVD and I thoroughly enjoyed this film. Is it clichéd? Sure it is, very much so, actually. The plot (while it isn't as original as it could be) is well paced and entertaining all the way. It blends both the slasher and haunted house horror sub-genres, and it does it with style. Sure, the horror clichés are present, but these clichés don't take the film down. The mansion was large, old, and creepy inside, adding to the classic haunted-house horror film feeling. Not to mention the pledges are dressed in period costumes reflecting the olden days. The acting was decent, not perfect but good enough. Linda Blair of "The Exorcist" is our main leading heroine, and her innocent character of Marti is likable. Peter Barton plays Jeff, and Vincent Van Patten plays the tough surfer dude along with Suki Goodwin as the party girl. All of the actors performed well for the most part, no real complaints there.

There are some memorable scenes in the film, especially the rug scene and the chase in the underground tunnels with Marti and Jeff and the old deformed psychopath. Speaking of the villain, he was actually rather creepy and the makeup effects were decent, although we don't really get to see his face until the finale. There are some creative murder scenes that have surprisingly good special effects considering the time the film was made. But the film's overall atmosphere was the best part if you asked me. It kind of reminded me of a Scooby Doo episode with it's style and story, but much more violent than anything you'd ever see on a cartoon show.

Overall, "Hell Night" is one of the most fun '80s horror films out there. The whole film has a fun, festive tone, and there are some pretty spooky scenes and the atmosphere was perfect in a classic, haunted-house horror kind of way. The atmosphere is killer (literally), there are some scary murders, and Linda Blair is the leading lady! What more can you ask for? Definitely check it out if you are a fan of the genre. 9/10.

Basic Plot = four pledges must spend the night in Garth Manor, twelve years to the day after the previous resident murdered his entire family. Two of the pledges, Marti (Linda Blair, The Exorcist) and Jeff (Peter Barton), ignore the rumours that the now-deserted mansion is haunted by a crazed killer, until one-by-one, members of their group mysteriously disappear. Could this be part of the fraternity prank or is it a demented former tenant seeking revenge? When the seemingly innocent rite of passage turns deadly, these college students will do anything to survive Hell Night." Hell Night is a fun way to waste a couple of hours, a definite popcorn flick which isn't a bad thing, the cast are clearly having fun with they're roles, Suki Goodwin, as Denise, is a scream; providing the film's main comedy moments without really grating. She sails through the film on a wave of booze, Quaaludes (whatever happened to those?) and double-ententes. Linda Blair is also as effortlessly likable as you'd imagine, as the slightly tomboyish girl (with the handy mechanic skills).

Hell Night never fails to be entertaining,It's the fun early 80's slasher flick - designed for retro thrills, fun scares and popcorn munching. It takes itself seriously enough to stop from descending into self-parody funny to talk about innocence in a film where a bunch of people get carved up in creative ways, but HELL NIGHT is a perfect twilight genre example of the slasher flick before it descended into self parody and rapidly shrinking budgets.

Linda Blair, everybody's favorite head-tolling girl, stars as an extremely cute college girl named Marti. Together with 3 other students, she's locked overnight in a haunted mansion as some sort of fraternity initiation rite. The house used to be inhabited by a family of weirdoes (figures…) and the deformed son is believed to still dwell around in the tunnels underneath the mansion's basement. While the other fraternity members are playing pranks to increase the eeriness, the real killer comes to interfere…

Of course, you can't really refer to this 'Hell Night' as being a good film. It's an 80's slasher, produced in-between two 'Halloween'-films. The only reason of this film's existence is to raise more money, so you can't be too demanding for plots, logic or credibility. In it's own specific category, this is a more than decent film. I can name you over a thousand similar films that are worse but only a few that are better. It's amazing what a competent director (Tom DeSimone – specialized in 'Women Behind Bars'-flicks) and a devoted cast (Linda Blair!!) can achieve. There are quite a few suspenseful sequences in Hell Night and the gore is not exploited for once. The settings are decent but sometimes underexposed, which is a bit of a shame. Overall, this a lot more tolerable than the average flick in which teens are slaughtered by the dozen.

I love slasher films and this is one of my favorites....it seems one of the biggest complaints about 'Hell Night' is the lack of blood. Am I the only one here who remembers two other horror classics that have little bloodshed....'Halloween' and 'Texas Chain Saw Massacre' and before you disagree....watch them again. And notice that all the times that Leatherface smacks heads with the hammer and carves bodies with his chainsaw- very little blood hits the ground.....even 'Prom Night' shows black screen when someone is getting hacked up with an axe... And not all slasher films have to have the 'guess who the killer is' theme....in 'Halloween' we knew it was Michael Meyers and 'Chain Saw Massacre' we knew it was Leatherface and his family.... Back to 'Hell Night'...I thought everybody gave really good performances throughout...Linda Blair and Vincet Van Patten standout the most. I enjoyed the background story about the house's history...the house itself was an excellent setting. Character interaction was interesting...it didn't seem like pointless time filler. The killers were alot more scary than most of the slasher villains...plus the fact that they didn't get a lot of screen time which added to the suspense. A very under-rated slasher film. 'Hell Night' and almost any slasher film post 1979 are called 'Halloween' rip-offs...but, remember 'Black Christmas' came out years before 'Halloween'

Linda Blair stars as one of four college pledges who must spend the night in the creepy old mansion(reputed to be haunted, with a murderous history) in order to join the sorority and fraternity. Seniors plan to pull pranks on them for fun, but discover to their dismay that "reputed" turns out to mean "factual"...

Surprisingly effective thriller may not be original, but has good performances and direction, which create characters you come to care about, and a genuinely spooky atmosphere, especially when it moves underground. Scary and (reasonably) smart, this one stands out from the usual "slashers" of the period, and results are above average, with a memorable ending.