The Stay Awake

Excuated killer comes back from beyond the grave to murder off the student body at an all girl's Catholic school, which also happened to be the scene of the crimes he committed back when he was alive. Really terrible film with some of the worst special effects to ever grace a screen. Too slow moving and dull to boot! Aburpt ending also.

Rated R; Violence, Nudity, and Profanity.

I'm almost sure that this didn't get a theatrical release. It's so bad it's bad; not to laugh about or feel pity for it.

The acting is terrible; it's so bad that even the accent of the main actresses is horrible. The situations are slow and boring. There's little action in the movie but it's so cheesy that you can't tell if it's intended to be funny. The demon is laughable! those red eyes are pathetic. The serial killer ghost suddenly appears and tells things about darkness and it's power.

"The Stay Awake" is a prime example of how low budget horror movies shouldn't be made. Pathetic f/x, horrible acting, terrible direction and worst of all there's no connection between the events.

Please avoid this one at all costs. There's nothing good about it... There aren't even attractive women.

Horrible movie to boot to the trash can! You better rent a direct to video horror flick from the early 2000 rather than watch this. Any Full Moon Pictures movie is way superior.

My review was written in August 1989 after watching the film on Orion/Nelson video cassette.

"The Stay Awake" doesn't live up to its title, South African-made horror pic imported to U. S. video stores is a snoozer.

Moniker refers to a Britishism for a slumber party. The young heroines at St. Mary's School for Girls stay up all night in the gym as a stunt to help raise money for the institution. They're terrorized by a demon, calling itself Angel of Darkness, summoned up by a vengeful guy executed in the gas chamber in 1969.

Cast is good-looking but weak in the acting department. (An actor named Ken Marshall is credited, but he's not the U. S. thesp from "Krull" and tv's "Marco Polo".) Picture is so tame that when the requisite shower room scene is presented, one girl is even shown showering with clothing still on.

Monster shows up looking like a green reptile man, mostly limited to closeups emphasizing its orange eyes. Minor special effects are used in the final reel, but disposal of the beastie is unimaginative.

..... I played the dead nurse at the beginning of this film LOL.

It was a long long time ago but it was fun to be involved in :) I never actually saw the full film until recently, so I don't think I will be recommending it to my kids!

"The acting is terrible; it's so bad that even the accent of the main actresses is horrible. The situations are slow and boring. There's little action in the movie but it's so cheesy that you can't tell if it's intended to be funny. The demon is laughable! those red eyes are pathetic. The serial killer ghost suddenly appears and tells things about darkness and it's power."

I agree with the rest of the reviews too - rubbish!

But it's nice to see yourself on film, even if it's just as a body half buried in the bushes LOL.

I didn't find this to be nearly as bad as others have, but it isn't very good either, and certainly needn't be sought out to be watched.

It starts well. Somewhere in America, a killer is being walked down a very white hallway, down a red carpet, to an execution chamber. This is intercut with the crime scenes of the various women he has killed. This prologue was nicely done, I thought. The killer makes threats to return to kill more women, to kill these people's children, and he claims to be the angel of darkness and speaks in a demonic voice.

Nineteen years later, inexplicably somewhere in Europe, a group of young women are staying overnight at a girl's school doing a "stay awake" to raise funds. The killer shows up, first apparently as a poltergeist. We see shots from his POV, drifting into the school, through the hallways, as chairs move around, a picture falls from a wall, etc. This is intercut with the women doing aerobics in the gym. This scene goes on for some time. Some young men show up at the school to try to scare the women, and to hook up with them.

It's quite a while before the killer strikes, about fifty minutes, I think. He appears both as a sort of cross between Gozilla and a giant rat with glowing red eyes and a whip-like tongue, and as himself with glowing red eyes. As the former, it's pretty silly-looking; as the latter, he's fairly creepy looking.

There were some scenes I liked. One I recall: the women are scared by a gorilla mask which is thrown in front of them. They laugh at their fears, but when one of them picks it up she finds it to be heavier than it should be....

The voices do seem to be strangely dubbed. As far as I could tell, the actresses were speaking English, but at least a few of the voices don't seem like they would belong to the actresses. The young women's characters aren't well differentiated from each other, nor are the young men. Frankly, it's hard to tell most of them apart even visually.