A Noite do Horror

My review was written in April 1990 after watching the movie on Magnum video cassette.

Nice special effects highlight this regional horror pic, a one-man effort made in Colorado by John Henry Johnson three years ago and currently in video stores.

Title refers to a remote weekend hangout, reportedly haunted, on the outskirts of the small town of Dudley, where teens congregate. Unfortunately for Patrick Keller and his chums, three ghouls in a crypt led by Brent Ritter are conjuring up the dreaded Muldoon Man, a missing link of sorts, to take over Earth.

THe kids go to witch Bettina Julius for help. They ultimately defeat the baddies, including the Muldoon Man, who blows up real good at the cemetery climax.

Naive pic is fun to watch and could have been a sleeper success if Johnson had built his story around something less cliched than the old "teens on an outing" standby. The Acting is weak, but makeup effects are interesting. Johnson has done his homework, even coming up with a nice Jean Cocteau-invented mirror-to-another-dimension gimmick.

A group of horny and obnoxious teenagers find the corpse of the Muldoon Man buried under Colorado cemetery.The ancient mythological creature Muldoon Man has an army of zombies and ghouls,who follow his orders and are hungry for some teenage blood.I remember having seen "Curse of the Blue Lights" on Polish cable TV many years ago under the title of "Przeklenstwo niebieskich swiatel".The acting is bad and the plot is childish,but I must say that make-up effects of ghastly ghouls are excellent.The film lacks nudity and gore and it resembles "Spookies" and "Neon Maniacs".Die hard zombie fans may want to check this very rare local oddity out.I doubt that it will ever be released on DVD.6 ghouls out of 10.

The basic plot of "Curse of the Blue Lights" revolves around a decrepit group of ghouls living beneath a Colorado cemetery. Aside from consuming the dead, they are plotting to raise the petrified remains of a towering entity. Enter a group of teenagers who get involved caught up in their plot and must struggle to stop the ghouls and avoid a gruesome fate.

Apparently inspired to some extent by the works of writer H.P. Lovecraft, this low-budget offering has surprisingly sophisticated makeup effects, but little else. The acting is poor and some of the dialogue is bad to the point of pathetic. Some is evidently intended for humor, but the result appears rather childish. Strong points include sets and some of the shooting locations as well as the special makeup effects. Die hard fans of ghoul and zombie flicks might have some interest in this one, but most other viewers should steer clear.

I hoped for something like Return of the Living Dead but got instead some muppets-like "horror" show. Well, show is maybe a too favorable word to describe Curse of the Blue Lights - the movie somewhat does not know if it wants to be a serious horror movie or a horror comedy, in the end the director and writer achieved to conjure up a bad mix that provides not much really funny jokes nor some serious gore and feel for horror. Anyway, this one is not a total waste or failure, and in the case you are one of those rare lone wolfs still hunting for some unknown 80s horror cheese, this one may fill your belly. Verdict: meanders on the thin line of really bad and cheesy.

From the third minutes until the very end you will have to laugh (or cry). I think the hungarian version is much better than the original one... It was nice to hear famous hungarian artists become zombies :-))) We have already organized a "The curse of the blue lights fun club". We have the T-shirts, and poster on the wall. We are also planning to make a color like bikers have... :-))