Night Screams

Another day, another long-forgotten 80's slasher that came to my attention because it looked like it had to offer some decent murder sequences, T&A and a handful of clumsy and not-so-convincing red herrings. And yes, "Night Screams" is a more or less enjoyable horror effort, but only just as long as your expectations are kept to a minimum. We follow the usual crowd of stereotypical and irritating high school teenagers as they throw a graduation party in the football jock's house. However, there are two escaped criminals hiding in the basement and the hunky football star David himself suffers from aggressive behavior when he doesn't take his carefully prescribed pills. Soon after the party-goers are killed off in fairly imaginative ways (one girl has an axe planted in her skull, another guy's face is literally barbecued) and director Allen Plone begs us to think the culprit is either David or one of the mad thugs in the cellar. The plot twists don't really work, but I admire Plone for trying and there's at least a little bit of style to find in his film. Although that does not include the tasteless footage of porn movies and another inferior 80's slasher ("Graduation Day") that continuously plays on TV-sets in the background. I guess none of the actual actresses wanted to take her top off, so they needed to steal the padding from other movies. "Night Screams" is a forgettable and truly run-of-the-mill 80's slasher, but we've definitely seen worse already and avid fans of the decade will certainly not regret watching it.

Some of the people are fleshed out, others you could care less about when they die. The deaths are different and at least try to be clever. But there are too many potietnial killers and it seems to confuse the plot someone.

THe plot itself is not all that well put together but it tries and it not as bad as it good be.

Somewhere in Wichita David is a potential college football star who's just won a four year scholarship to a college somewhere in Oklahoma.His mates decide to throw him a serious farewell party whilst his folks are out that night.Unfortunately three uninvited guests secretly gatecrash these nightly celebrations,two are convicts who've fled from lockup,now hiding out somewhere in the homes cellar while our third interloper is a mental patient escapee with a connection to the party guests and notably David himself.Soon the bodies start to pile up...Watchable slasher with gore,nudity and plenty of movie clips from Herb Freed's "Graduation Day"."Night Screams" tries to be a bit different than the rest of its low-budget neighbors.The action is slow and the bodycount includes ten murders or so.7 out of 10.

By the time Night Screams came out, the slasher film had gone past life support and was at death's door. Night Screams doesn't do much to revitalize the genre, but it's competently and professionally made with a few reasons to tune in.

A seemingly unrelated murder kicks off the film as two people are murdered while watching Graduation Day on TV (if you think it's gonna get meta or something, think again). It's years later and a mentally disturbed football player has a party while his parents are away and his friends are brutally murdered one by one. There's also two homicidal bandits on the run who have chosen his basement to hide out in to avoid the law, but they're such obvious red herrings that their subplot doesn't amount to much.

If you're looking for gore, Night Screams actually does deliver in that department. People are stabbed, electrocuted, suffocated, and even burn on a grill like a hamburger. If you're an 80's fashion enthusiast, there's also a whole lot of questionable hairstyles and wardrobes on display.

Behind the uninspired title lies an equally uninspired slasher that fails to deliver those essential ingredients of any good trashy horror: gratuitous nudity and gore. Initially, the film shows promise, opening with a girl getting topless in a changing room before being attacked by a masked maniac, but then it becomes apparent that this is actually a scene from 1981 slasher Graduation Day, as watched by two of this movie's characters before they are stabbed to death. Nudity borrowed from another film doesn't count (which also negates some T&A later on, which comes from a porn film being watched at a party), and the subsequent stabbings are lame.

The rest of the film continues in this disappointing fashion as a group of friends at a post-graduation party are bumped off in tame and uninventive ways off by an unseen maniac. Suspects include the escaped lunatics hiding in the basement, and football star David (Joseph Paul Manno), who is prone to outbursts of violence if he stops taking his meds. Of course, these turn out to be red herrings, but the real identity of the killer isn't hard to guess.

Of the numerous murders that occur in the house, we get a guy skewered with a fire poker, poisoning in a sauna, an axe in the head, a guy barbecued on a stove and stabbed in the neck, strangulation, suffocation, electrocution in a hot-tub, and choking with a pool cue, none of which are likely to satisfy gore-hounds. The best part of the film comes earlier on, when the escaped criminals are involved in a shootout with some cops and kill the staff of a diner in cold-blood: it's a surprisingly brutal scene, with some bloody squib-work.

2.5/10, rounded down to 2 for diabolical dance troupe The Sweetheart Dancers, whose terrible moves would get them four 'NOs' on America's Got Talent.