83 Hours 'Til Dawn

I haven't seen the original film, that this one is a remake of, but I guess it's better than this. This film is based on a true story, but I don't know how true to the facts it is. The plot is pretty good, but terribly predictable, partly due to the fact that the whole film is being told as a flashback. It's also slow, especially for a 90-minute movie. The acting is mostly decent at best, with a few exceptions. Samantha Mathis was pretty good, and Peter Strauss was quite convincing. However, pretty much everyone else was overacted and hardly believable. R. Lee Ermey was somewhat good, but since this is the same role that he always plays, it was to be expected. The characters are somewhat well-written. The dialog is bad and pretty cliched. The film is fairly boring, and hard to sit through, mainly due to the predictability of the plot and the bad acting. It does have some good sequences, though, and is decent overall. Due to the various bad factors of the film, it has little to no re-watch value, and is not worth owning, even if you can get it for virtually nothing. I recommend it only to fans of thrillers, and only if it's on TV, and there's absolutely nothing worth watching for those 90 minutes. 5/10

Remake of the 1972 telemovie 'The Longest Night', (itself based on a true story) which takes a different angle exploring the psychological profile of the kidnapper and his insatiable need for perverted gratification in his pursuit of 'money and power'.

Strauss is proportionately creepy as the volatile, sociopathic antagonist who despite a superior intellect, cannot acquire the success he so desperately craves leading to his sinister plan to kidnap millionaire's (Urich) daughter for ransom. Gracen is also good playing Strauss' vulnerable love interest and misguided accomplice.

It's difficult to compare the James Farentino original with this revision, they're both effective in building tension, although clearly this latter version is a more violent dramatisation significantly upping the ante on the hostage's predicament, not to mention introducing sado-masochistic elements which weren't present in the original.

Taut, tense and sufficiently shocking it's a suspenseful telemovie that effectively blends psychological thriller with a conventional 'clock-is-ticking' urgency that doesn't disappoint.

Peter Strauss is a delinquent who kidnaps the daughter (Mathis) of a millionaire (Urich) and keeps her closed in some kind of coffin buried on a forest and provides her with water, food and oxygen for 83 hours (from here comes the title).

Everything is very predictable, especially because the story is told by Strauss from jail (in a big flashback). What makes it good is the originality of the kidnapping itself, the way they hide the girl that increases everybody's tension: her family (of course), the cops and even Strauss and his female accomplice (who have a not very good relationship).

Summarizing, a good entertainment, the chance of watching Strauss in a good character and performance, and the joy of watching an early role of that great and very underrated actress called Samantha Mathis.

This movie was okay. I read the book when I was in high school and saw the first movie, The Longest Night. There were some factual errors and liberties taken for dramatic purposes which kind of ruined it for me since I had read the book first. When I saw the remake, I was expecting a more accurate version, but was disappointed that this movie also took liberties and dramatic license. Comparing the two films, The Longest Night is the better of the two overall. The design of the capsule bothered me in the second movie. It was very crude, shown as a large open space with the battery and wiring all in the same space occupied by the girl. In real life, the battery and wiring and fan was housed in an area that was sectioned off behind screens. The capsule in the first movie was an exact replica of the real one. The first movie also spent more time showing Barbara in the capsule and how cramped it was. The second movie never showed any shots other than her upper body. You never saw her feet and her trying stretch out.

The only thing that the second movie depicts better is the character of Ruth Eiseman Schier. In the Longest Night she is depicted as a strong,equal accomplice when, in fact, she was not. Elizabeth Gracen's portrayal was much more in line with the real woman than Skye Aubrey's sexy vixen portrayal.

It's a great crime story of survival and criminal madness. It would be great if someone would make a more gritty, realistic feature film that would be more factual. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before that happens. Also, a movie that doesn't use fictitious names would heighten the realism. There's a episode of FBI: The Untold Stories with Pernell Roberts that tells the story through narration and re-enactments. They use the real names, so I don't know why that couldn't be done in a movie version.

The fact that this actually happened (to Barbara Mackle, who wrote a book about her experience that this movie is based on) makes it even creepier. And the fact that the man who kidnapped her is now a doctor (Gary Steven Krist) is frightening. The fact that he thinks everyone should forgive and forget (and even wrote a book of his own) tells me that he has no idea what he did to that girl or what could have happened to her. It's been a while since I saw the movie, but watching it gave me the creeps, thinking that someone could do that to another person. Good movie.