Terreur dans la nuit

David Hess is better known for playing the evil Krug in Wes Craven's Last House on the Left, but in the 80's he decided to take the plunge into the world of film directing and the results are a bit mixed. Granted, it's nice to see this film cleaned up and on Blu-Ray since my first exposure to this film was on a truly awful, muddy, and dark Media VHS, but even a great remaster can't hide the flaws.

The plot is pretty much the exact same as Black Christmas with a group of girls staying at their sorority house over the Christmas break and being killed one by one by some psycho. It adds an insanely quick opening prologue (so quick that one wonders if it was the last thing they shot on wrap day and had 15 minutes to do it) that shows the girls accidentally pushing another sorority girl off a ledge (while chanting "sorority! sorority!" Huh?) so we know this is going to pay off later and probably be the killer's main motivation.

Some of the death scenes are inspired and some are cursory at best and the ending is bizarre to say the least, but the pacing doesn't lag too much and it's a fairly quick investment of your time. There are certainly worse slashers out there (or even Christmas slashers out there).

To all a Good Night has long since been touted as one of the worst of the genre pieces from the benchmark year in slasher shenanigans. But to be honest, it's really not that bad. Mark Shostrum's gore effects are great, and Jennifer Runyon makes a cute and approachable surviving girl. This is, of course, the first SLASHER movie to include a killer santa, which would be repeated in Santa Claws, Silent Night Deadly Night, Christmas Season Massacre etc. etc. Just for the sake of originality (!), Don't Open Till Christmas opted for a masked killer that killed people in Santa suits instead!

The only problems with To all a Good Night is that it's poorly lighted, a little off the wall and perhaps too under-produced. But it's certainly not the worst of its kind and is just about worth hunting out.

I read all the bad reviews before watching but I already know going in that it's from the 80's. A lot of the charm of an 80's movie is it's cheese factor, and this movie is no exception. The acting is not as bad as all these reviews say, I thought it was decent. The story is typically of that time period. A gathering of young adults to party and get naked and have sex to get hunted by a crazy Santa. It gets five stars for me, nothing great but watchable if in an 80's slasher mood.

Forget the cheerful seasons greetings, as here's another nasty little holiday slasher that's only made more interesting for the fact it was directed by genre actor David A. Hess. However his presence might have been better suited in front of the camera than just behind it. "To All A Good Night" is another addition to the Christmas --- Santa Clause slasher cycle and probably one of the least known, despite coming out around the same time as "You Better Watch Out" and even before the likes of "Silent Night, Deadly Night" and "Don't Open till Christmas". Still with that on mind, it's your typically rancid and atmospherically moody slasher that amusingly passes the time but in the end there's not too much to write about.

Sticking to a formula that seems to be popular; it opens in the past showing a prank going horribly wrong then moves to the present time which has a group of horny rich girls at Calvin Finishing School for Girls waiting to secretly smuggle in their boyfriends for some late-night parting, but after doing so they start disappearing as someone in a Saint Nick costume is going around making ends meat of them. Does the past have something to do with it… I can't see it any other way.

It had its moments (death by propeller was a neat touch), an unhinged, if wonky sounding electronic score and a cast (mostly no-names) that weren't too bad either. There's colourful bunch of characters (with expected red herrings; like Ralph the creepy looking gardener who can pop out from anywhere) and gladly they stood out from each other. The angelic Jennifer Runyon (in her debut performance --- although that's pretty for all the young cast) brings a grounded reality to her lead character. Her cute character was more sympathetic, thanks to her forlorn naïve innocence, but even so not worthless for that. Linda Gentile and Judith Bridges have titillating fun with their buxom parts. While Forrest Swanson and William Lauer are tolerable.

The location (a large sorority house) for such butchery is ominously remote, but David Hess' glum direction was kind of clunky with many murky set-pieces with a real uneven focus on the deaths or a real lack of build up to them. Some happen off-screen, while others come off jarringly quick. Some passages are lethargic, like the long stretches of fooling around, bickering and then the waiting game for the killer to strike (oh there's numerous leg shots of our psychotic Santa killer walking stairs). The story kind of starts of plain (with some flat writing) but when it begins to open up to where its actually going, it brings out some rather amusing (though not all that intentional) and odd developments. Plenty of contrived instances make there way in and there's one scene that paints it perfectly. After discovering a dead body one of the characters run to the phone to call the police, but *drum roll* the phone is dead. But just before picking it up… the killer perfectly times it by cutting the phone line just before it reaches his ear. But in the end it's the sudden revelation… well more so the outrageous second one that's a groaner.

A so-so seasonal low-budget slasher.

David Hess (Krug from Last House on the Left) tries his hand at directing in this mixed bag of a slasher film. After a hilariously quick and abrupt prologue, we're introduced to a group of sorority girls who are staying behind for Christmas break for a variety of reasons. A crazed Santa Claus-dressed killer has joined the festivities and he or she is out for blood. But why?

Most of the characters are interchangeable, the dialogue isn't great, and it's about as scary as a rerun of Columbo, but there's something charming about the whole thing. There are poorly executed day for night shots galore, some gore, and a few spirited performances to keep things afloat. Just try not to chuckle when a middle aged matron comes in and reveals she's probably dying of a disease and is never seen or heard from again. The ending is odd, too.

There are better Christmas slashers, but also far worse, so you might as well give it a shot if you like these kinds of movies.