Hell Night

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.

Overlooked this one when it was released but after seeing the DVD on sale and reading some positive comments on this site decided to part with my cash. Was I disappointed? No. Once you get past the cheesy opening with its gloriously B-movie style credits it turns into one of the more interesting stalk and slash films of the 80's. The set up is simple - 4 frat pledges have to spend the night in a mansion with a sinister past and a killer on the loose... who will survive? Do we care? Well yes, these kids are surprisingly likeable and, by cleverly putting them in pre-20th Century fancy dress in a candle lit house, removes them from the contemporary teen horror genre. The killings are pretty conventional – decapitation etc.– but the film then builds up to a tense and exciting final 30 minutes with a few surprises and a brilliantly staged ending. I'm probably over-praising this film somewhat but my expectations were low and my rewards were a decent 6.5/10!

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.

This film is everything most slashers are - i.e. redundant, pointless, silly and all the rest of it. However, unlike the majority of the sub-genre; this one isn't all that bad. The plot is hardly original in it's fusion of the haunted house tradition and eighties slasher trash, but at least it gives the film a slight edge over it's less imaginative counterparts. The plot sees a group of four high school 'kids' having to spend a night in a creepy old house as an initiation ceremony for the fraternity they want to join. However, this isn't just a creepy old house and by way of a super-camp story telling sequence, we learn that the master of the house killed himself, his wife and three of his four horribly deformed children. This, of course, means that one survived; and that one, is course, rumoured to still be hanging around the creepy old house. That is, of course, a rumour that turns out be true! What then follows is the usual slasher sort of stuff, with the kids inside getting sliced and diced along with the ones outside, who were just trying to make their new frat-mate's stay a little scarier.

Linda Blair, now all grown up since her role in The Exorcist, takes the lead role and does pretty much what you would expect the heroine to do. There's some nice murder sequences in this film, but the gore is never over the top. I actually like over the top gore, but despite not having much of it, it never really harms this film. The murders are stylishly shot, and the way it portrays them allows it to be shocking without the need for a lot of bloodshed. In a sub-genre that is primarily concerned with bloodletting; this is actually quite admirable. The sets are one of the best things about this film. The Gothic mansion gives it that great atmosphere that is usually reserved for haunted house movies. The movie doesn't always make best use of it's settings, however, with too many scenes being restricted to close-up's when a shot that takes in more of the surrounding area would have been better. The fact that the killer is deformed gives it a bit of an edge over the likes of Halloween because aside from there being a killer, you also want to see him to find out how badly deformed he is. It is a disappointment when he's finally revealed...but the wait holds some suspense. On the whole, this isn't all that good; but it's not bad either. Slasher fans will find something to like.

What impressed me the most about this "slasher" movie is I honestly cared about the characters and felt bad when they died! That never happens with me & horror movies-- usually the characters are annoyingly lamebrained oversexed fools and I can't wait for them to get axed. HELL NIGHT has much going for it, including an amiable atmosphere, enthusiastic & easy-going performances (especially by the Boom Mic, who I thought deserved an Academy Award for his brief but frequent appearances), decent sets (including the outdoor ones, a bit reminiscent of The Shining), and villains who I swear looked straight out of SCOOBY DOO. (Not that that's a BAD thing, but it's just not too scary.) I honestly thought the script was well-constructed and funny and character exposition was given in an unobtrusive but helpful way (i.e. Linda Blair working as a mechanic.) There is absolutely nothing new or groundbreaking in HELL NIGHT, but it's a sterling example of how to polish up an old apple and make it look appealing and new-- and taste good. (Sorry for that awful metaphor...) Contrary to what others might tell you, Vincent Van Patten really grew on me, and I loved that surfing scene. He's my boy! Rating: 7/10.