Reféns da Noite

What am I saying? RPM was a classic piece of quality entertainment besides this. Billed as a horror film - the reality is, this piece of juvenile tripe is a fright-fest ONLY from the script, direction and acting viewpoint! Horror - Sesame Street style! To be honest, Bert is more terrifying!

How the hell did they get Whip Hubley and worse, Corbin Bernsen (LA LAW??) roped into this? Not professional enough to be even called a "student film," this lamer than lame tale of a few genetically altered and frenetically digitised bats terrorising Bernsen's housing estate is so pathetic it defies serious critique.

Has anyone in the history of cinema looked and acted LESS like a cop than Tracey Nelson? The only thing worth watching is spunky Katie Stuart as Hubley's sexy daughter Genny! That's sexy, as opposed to intelligent!

As someone mentioned, yeah it is very clear and colorful however - just like a child's finger painting. On DVD even more so, I can't believe I wasted $6.95 on this offal!

Sometimes when you rent a video cassette or DVD you don't expect much, especially if the packaging looks poor. Well, this was the case with this one, but nothing prepared me for what a load a c**p this was gonna be. I mean, I didn't expect a drama Pacino-style, but a somewhat entertaining horror film that I have a soft spot for. It was not even a horror film. I have NO idea what Corbin Bernsen was thiking accepting his role - he's not a world class actor, but still TEN times better than this (then ofcourse, he accepted a role in The Dentist too..)

The storyline is awful, I'd almost say there ARE none, and the acting - oh my god, the humanity - especially those two teenage girls posing as assistants for the doctor in the beginning of the movie. Never before have I seen such highschool-amateur-theater on film in my life - and me saying that says a LOT. I crumbled my toes and actually felt ashamed wasting my time watching.

This film does not even deserve ONE point, it is a disgrace!

Confession. I will watch any monster movie, especially really really bad ones. And this definitely ranks with the worst ever. With scenes poorly revisited from almost every other monster/horror movie, this is what I refer to as a "Movie-Loaf". Shamelessly dragging "Jaws", "Carrie", and even bits of "Twister" (Aluminum cans come in sooo handy sometimes), this movie makes the entire "Piranha" series look realistic and highbrow. A pair of ultra precocious teenage surfer types add a gut churning touch for those unaffected by the cheapness of the bat effects. I almost fell off my sofa when I learned that these bats use RADAR as opposed to the usual echolocation (sonar). The computer jargon, thrown in apparently at random, will insure that this movies remains "dated" for all time, if anyone ever has the shamelessness to re-run it (thank you Sci-Fi). That said, if you love to laugh at movie making at it's worst, this is a real gem. Where's the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew when you need them? I suggest watching it with some good humored friends and a case of beer. You may want to start in on the beer before you put in the movie however.

The first time I saw this, I agreed with all the other posters who say this is a BAD, BAD movie. Watching the acting is like eating old, cold popcorn with no butter, salt or anything. And the better I knew the actor to be, the worse the acting seemed. For this I blame the director. The plot was transparent, the characters cardboard, the motivations only hinted at or missing entirely. For this I blame the writer. The second time I saw it, it was vastly more entertaining because I knew not to expect any better, and I could appreciate the flashes of creativity, humor and even humanity that are peppered through the film.

The writer, Jim Geoghan (if that really is the writer's name/identity -- have you taken a look at his photo? is that for real?), has mostly written for sitcoms. The punch-punch-punch, joke-every-ten-seconds style needed to keep the attention of the average sitcom watcher does not translate well onto the movie screen, and the 22-minute time frame doesn't lend itself to the habit of thinking deeply or extensively (or sometimes at all) about character, meaning, emotion, motive or the nature of creativity.

The director, Kelly Sandefur, appears also to have gotten his start in sitcoms, and the same comments apply. But he also seems to have mainly done Visual Effects Filmography, which explains a lot. Just as movies directed by long-time stunt performers tend to have lots of spectacular stunts, sometimes (often) to the detriment of the story and music video directors tend to create chaotic, nihilistic, iconoclastic films, this film looks just great, but the other qualities suffered.

In fact everything about the look of this film is really very good. The cinematography, lighting, staging, focus, sound -- everything technical is in fact excellently done.

The serious film student, especially one with ambition to make films of one's own some day, can definitely profit from a study of this film and its faults and its strengths. The main lessons: writing is important. Match your writer to your subject. For example, the humorous parts of this film fell flat because the writer is used to a laugh track guiding the audience to the (intentionally) funny parts. A playwright can often write a more effective script because he's not used to relying on a sound track to guide the emotion of the viewer -- he has to do it with the story. Also, match your director to the material. Don't ask a music video director to direct a tender love story, or any scene that lasts longer than three minutes. And if you ever get to make a movie (and if you can afford it), get all the technical crew of this movie to work for you! But first, see to the writing. A badly filmed great story will be easier to watch than an excellently filmed mediocre story.

Here we go again. Pretty predictable and no matter how cheesy this movie gets...something keeps you hanging in there for the finale. Is it the blood thirsty bats? An unlikely detective(Tracy Nelson)teams with an animal control officer(Whip Hubley)to uncover the mystery behind a small town being terrorized by genetically-created bats. Nelson is so wrong for the role it is pathetic. Corbin Bersen and Nicole Clendenen are more than a tad over-the-top. Redeeming is the cute Katie Stuart. There is an interesting solution to jamming the bat's radar. If you expect horror...prepare for a headache from the negative shake of your head.