Night Killer

This obscure Italian horror (my copy has Portuguese subtitles embedded!) has an appalling start with a group of late eighties dancers jerking about to just as appalling music, whilst the slasher style violence and nudity commences. It recovers, however, despite the low budget and average acting and whilst it becomes rather confusing, we never loose interest and in the end the film wins out. Much is mundane and predictable but the central performance is very good and there are impressive scenes including a sexy take on Red Riding Hood and a most enthusiastic, tying to the bed, sequence. As I say from the beginning you will wonder if this is worth sticking with but gladly it is and there are some decent twists along with the occasional hysterics.

The day Claudio Fragasso (or Clyde Anderson, as he prefers to call himself) dies and arrives at the gates to confront Saint Peter for the trial whether he belongs in heaven or hell, I strongly advise him to plead "temporary insanity" for the year 1990! I don't know what Fragasso smoked back then, but it must have been great stuff! How else would you explain the fact that he spawned both "Troll 2" and this "Night Killer" in in and the same magical year? These two films are extremely different in terms of content and atmosphere, but both are incredibly awful yet wondrously absurd and insanely entertaining. "Troll 2" is legendary trash-heritage and world-famous, whereas "Night Killer" is obscure and unknown. Undeservedly so, I must emphasize, as this utterly bonkers horror oddity should urgently be discovered by all fans of slasher movies, rape & revenge thrillers, gialli and bizarre cult films in general!

You know that indescribably joyous feeling you experience when watching something truly bad and amateurish, but simultaneously so much fun? Well, "Night Killer" guarantees this feeling from start to finish! According to notes in the trivia-section and some random interviews I read on the internet, Fragasso initially intended for this film to be a psychological thriller without gore, but behind his back the producers instructed Bruno Mattei to shoot an additional load of nasty and sleaze-laden sequences. Personally, I think this is a bunch of nonsense. Fragasso is simply incapable to pen down a serious psychological thriller and, besides, he and Mattei have been best friends and business partners since the late 70s already, so I find it difficult to believe Mattei would "betray" his buddy Fragasso like this. "Night Killer" is indeed unstructured, clumsily edited and totally senseless, but that's just the regular way these two geniuses work together. Pure entertainment is what matters, and "Night Killer" delivers.

The film opens marvelously, with 2 random beauties in standard 80s aerobic outfits savagely getting slaughtered during their dance rehearsal by a maniac in a monstrous mask and a glove with sharp claws. You'll read in other reviews that the killer's mask resembles Freddy Krueger's face, but the people who wrote that should urgently re-watch the entire "Nightmare on Elm Street" series. The mask looks like an ugly demon's face, mutilated by a flamethrower and then resurrected again. The claws on the glove are clearly made of rubber, and yet the maniac manages to bore holes through women's stomachs with them! The script then suddenly seems to realize the 1980s are over, so the action moves away from the dance academy. Our sick killer subsequently targets beautiful single mother Melanie Beck, and stalks her with obscene phone calls before perpetrating into her house. Maybe, just maybe, Melanie is a logical choice because she fondles her naked breasts while talking to herself in the mirror. He attacks and viciously rapes Melanie, but she survives the attack and enters in a state of shock and complete amnesia. Melanie escapes from the hospital and attempts to commit suicide, but the poor thing runs into a crazed madman again and he holds her captive in a sleazy motel room. The film then insists that we believe Melanie's new kidnapper, Axel, is the same person as the ugly mask murderer, and meanwhile he also cheerfully continues to slay other women, like a prostitute with whom he enacts a perverted Little Red Riding Hood role-play! If you think "Night Killer" can't possibly get any more jaw-droppingly absurd or delirious, just wait until you witness the completely deranged denouement!

But now for the hardest part of this review. How to possibly rate this fantastic piece of rubbish? In terms of sheer entertainment, I'm honestly tempted to reward "Night Killer" with a perfect 10/10, simply because I was rejoiced from start to finish and even watched some key sequences several times because I couldn't believe my eyes the first time. Other arguments for a high rating are the fast pacing, the copious amounts of reasonably decent make-up effects and the truckload of bloodshed and perversion. A massive score is also quite misleading, of course, because "Night Killer" inarguably remains pure trash with terrible acting and lousy scripting. Still, I had a tremendous great time and I give it 8/10. Finally, one last example of unscrupulous and typically Italian horror marketing. The "official" title of the film is "Non aprite quella porta 3", which literally translates as "Don't Open That Door 3". It's the local title under which the horror classic "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" got released in 1974, and thus they wanted everybody to think this was a sequel. Never mind the fact there isn't a chainsaw in sight, and the producers also didn't take into consideration that the actual "Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part III" also came out later that same year, in 1990.

... because as cinema with a coherent plot and convincing acting it fails completely. Let me also say that Chris Stuckmann's video review of this is what caused me to watch it ,and I can't unhear what he said, so I may repeat points that he made.

This thing had to initially be a porno film that the backers/makers decided would make more money as a horror film in the tradition of Cannon Films. There were scenes added by the backers to give the film more gore, although overall, in the gore department, it is nothing severe.

This film is about a homicidal maniac who dons a Freddy Krueger like mask and just one claw on one hand - in the tradition of Michael Jackson??? - and goes about killing random women by...punching a hole through them? Help me out here medical students, but wouldn't things like muscle and internal organs and a spinal cord make that rough going for a flimsy plastic claw? Plus the "Night Killer" is definitely a day killer. Not once did I see him strike at night. But then those kind of scenes cost money.

So the film opens on some kind of dance routine rehearsal for a show that is being overseen by a woman who initially has perfect diction but then in just one scene transitions to having some kind of speech impediment that makes her incomprehensible. So the Night Killer does some killing in and around the rehearsal involving characters we know nothing about and then the film just leaves that behind to never return there again.

The film then moves on to Melanie Beck, a mid 30s author (??? her frantic bra-less typing is never explained) who ends up being Night Killer's next victim. Except she lives. But the trauma causes her to forget everything about what happened including what the attacker looked like and the details of her own life including her name and the fact that she has a daughter. If you want to know what happens, then watch and find out.

This thing is just a treasure trove of bad inexplicable filmmaking, from the decision to score a man walking a child to school with 80s hardcore porn music, to scoring the suspense scenes with soft core porn music, to Melanie Beck deciding to get into a conversation and argument with an obscene phone caller, to the Night Killer, when he is shown from the back in street clothes, having the wrong build and hair color to be the person who turns out to be the actual culprit. Oh, and then there is Melanie's daughter who is the world's tallest pre-pubescent child who is constantly being referred to as "just a baby".

If you are looking for quality horror, don't watch this. But if you are just in the mood to say "What the...???" then you are in the right place.

The movie is awfully good. It doesn't have any good characters, the directing is horrendous, the cutting is mushy, the score is bad and the whole movie is great.

I laughed my ass off when I watched the movie. Don't expect any good movie. You just gonna have to watch Night Killer without your brain, brainlessly.

P.S. why is it called Non aprite quella porta 3? Did they think that they are gonna skip the previous two movies and make the third one. I just want to know that.

I recently watched the Italian slasher 🇮🇹 Night Killer (1990) on Tubi. The story follows a woman with a tragic past, having survived an attack that caused amnesia. She moves to the countryside to find peace, but soon begins receiving phone calls from a man who wants to date her. Meanwhile, a serial killer is on the loose in town. Could the calls and the killer be connected?

The film is co-directed by Claudio Fragasso (Troll 2) and Bruno Mattei (Zombie 3) and stars Peter Hooten (Orca), Tara Buckman (The Cannonball Run), and Richard Foster (Talking to Strangers).

Night Killer is a wild movie with over-the-top costumes and masks. The storyline and circumstances are somewhat cliched and straightforward, and the acting and dialogue are inconsistent and off at times. However, the kills are entertaining, and the gore is well-executed, with added scenes that were added-in after the original production specifically for extra shock value. There's also some classic Italian horror nudity, and a soundtrack that's as cheesy as some of the plot points. Despite its flaws, there's just enough here to keep horror fans engaged.

In conclusion, Night Killer is an uneven addition to the horror genre but worth a watch for enthusiasts. I'd score it 5.5-6/10 and recommend it with the right expectations.