Customer Reviews

Hell Night [VHS]

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Yet another slasher film, but a good one.

Well, they're ALL good. But this is even better than most, mainly because Linda Blair and Peter Barton lend depth and sympathy to their characters despite some hokey dialogue.

It's initiation time on fraternity/sorority row. Four pledges must prove themselves worthy by spending the night at Garth Mansion, a huge abandoned estate. Years ago, Daddy Garth killed his wife and three mutant kids. The fourth mutant kid was never found. Legend has it he still stalks the mansion ...

Here's something odd. There are only four pledges: two guys (Barton and Van Patten) and two gals (Blair and Goodwin). Since when do fraternities and sororities hold joint initiations? And they are bid farewell on their initiation by a HUGE party. This implies a great many brothers and sisters. Yet at the rate of two pledges per year, the fraternity and sorority would each be down to eight members each within four years.

I guess director de Simone simply wanted lots of people at the party, but only two couples at Garth Mansion. I guess it's spookier (and cheaper) with just four pledges, never mind making sense.

Okay, I don't mind.

What's important is that the four kids are locked behind the tall iron gates of Garth Mansion, three upperclassman sneak in to scare them ... and the body count mounts!

The script and lead performances are a bit better than standard slasher fare. Barton portrays a sensitive rich boy. Blair is the poor girl with a heart of gold. She's also virginal, at first keeping Barton to his own bed, later cuddling and sleeping with him ... but just sleeping. Both keep their clothes on. Meanwhile, Van Patten and Goodwin fornicate like rabbits in the next room.

Guess which couple is killed first? And guess who survives the night?

Blair and Barton perform well, but Van Patten and Goodwin also add some dimension to their clich?d supporting roles: the [...] cutup and the sleazy party girl. Brophy, Neumann, and Sturtevant play the jerky upperclassman who sneak in to scare the pledges. They also provide much needed slasher-fodder. I liked Jenny Neumann in Stage Fright (aka Nightmares, Australian 1980), but she's under-utilized here.

Hell Night strikes tried-and-true horror psycho notes like a well-tuned instrument. One girl is pulled screaming down into a hole (although my favorite hole-dragging is in The Unseen, 1980). The psycho seems indestructible. They shoot him, but he keeps on going ...

But there are also some surprises, which is no small feat in this tradition-bound subgenre.

Cinematography and lighting are used to good effect. Shapes emerge from the dark, slowly, indistinct. Creeping up behind our unsuspecting heroes. Makeup is also simple but noteworthy. When we finally see him, the mutant resembles Nosferatu's Max Schreck.

The final scenes are visceral, even brutally poetic. 1981 was a good year for horror psychos, and Hell Night is prime vintage.

This movie should be up there with the likes of "Halloween" as a classic of the genre. Unlike most of the slasher flicks of the eighties, "Hell Night" is not full of gruesome special effects and blatant nudity. Instead the movie relies on suspense, and it does this very well.
Let's face it, the story is not the most original, 4 sorority pledges have to spend 1 night in "Garth Manor" to gain entry to their chosen fraternities. Some of their peers set out to make it a night full of frights, but as is turns out, they needn't have bothered....Garth Manor is truly haunted. Heard it all before ? So have I, but I don't think I have ever seen the subject matter handled so well.
As awful as the deaths are, there is very little blood involved, and I don't think I saw one fake intestine ! The chills however, are plentiful. The setting, a dark, gothic mansion, candlelit and isolated is perfect. The mood is goosebump enticing. The music is eerie and the performances are all good. Of course, Linda Blair shines, as always. Ms Blair plays the nice quiet girl wondering what the hell she is doing in this situation, who turns out to be the only one with the guts to grapple with the monster 1 on 1.
If only more horror movies had attempted to do what Hell Night did. Pick your actors for acting ability rather than willingness to show flesh, and spend some budget on script development and filming techniques rather than bucketloads of blood and gore.
I have been a fan of this film for years and when I bought the DVD was amazed at the difference in picture quality. I actually saw things that I had never noticed on my VHS copy. The DVD also includes a theatrical trailer and amusing and informative commentary with movies makers and Linda Blair also. It also has some background info and filmographies of cast and crew.
I cannot speak highly enough of this movie. I recommend it thoroughly to anyone who enjoys a scary flick, as well as Linda Blair fans. I never tire of watching this brilliant effort !

Hell Night is an outstanding film, in my eyes it is one of the best slasher movies that was made. I also believe Linda Blair performance was even better than the Excorcist.

This is not a review of the movie, but a warning to potential buyers of this item. If you are considering buying this item from Amazon, DO NOT! This movie was distributed by Anchor Bay and is now OUT OF PRINT. Amazon, however is selling DVR copies of this movie. The DVD does include the exact cover art as the original release but includes a dvd with no disc artwork, no insert and is, in fact, a DVR copy which you can tell just by looking at the color of the DVD itself. Official releases have a chrome or sometimes gold tint to the playable side of the disc whereas DVR copies have an almost dark blue tint to them.

I was expecting Hell Night to be another one of those cheesy 80's slasher flicks, but then i watched it, and found it was so much more than that. It's

highly original, entertaining,well acted, and beautifelly shot. It's pretty sad that it wasn't appreciated for what it was when it came out, due to the sudden rush of slasher flicks that premiered at the same time. In the end, i HAVE to thank Anchorbay for the great quality and extras on this dvd. It was about time!

"Hell Night" is an irresistible guilty pleasure from the early 80s slasher cycle, and one of the handful that actually still holds up (for instance, "Friday the 13th," "Prom Night" and "Terror Train" now seem about as suspenseful as "My Fair Lady").

Though the story is lame--pledges spending the night in a haunted mansion--the execution (sorry) is smart: "blood-dripped" font in the opening credits, trap doors, secret passageways, a hedge maze, catacombs under the house, a convincing monster, appealing actors, a really creepy "legend" that sets the story in motion, and even a little surprise twist regarding the antagonist. I love that our heroine Linda Blair is in Victorian garb (complete with heaving bosom), being chased around the old Victorian mansion. Nice touch. Ditto the scene of the fraternity arriving with torches, a la the "Frankenstein" villagers (in fact, the monster even looks like a leaner version of DeNiro's take on Shelly's creature).

I was struck, on my first viewing in almost 20 years, by how instense this movie gets. The last 20 minutes are quite nerve-wracking. I remembered the "rising carpet" scene vividly from the original release, and it still gives me chills (you should definitely let smart aleck little kids watch this--it will scare the hell out of them).

I'm also struck by how many shockingly bad decisions people in this movie make--like going BACK in the house 2 and 3 times, fully aware of what is waiting inside. It gets a little ridiculous after a while, though if you are watching with a group it makes for some lively discourse (Of course if they just hid outside in a bush until dawn, like you or I would do, there would be no movie).

There is a fun, light-hearted commentary included on the DVD. Always a pleasure to listen to funny anecdotes and about what a gentleman the guy playing the monster was, while watching people get their heads cut off.

You need this DVD.

In the huge glut of "slasher" films produced in the early 1980's, "Hell Night", starring Linda Blair, Peter Barton and Vincent Van Patten, has always been a favourite on mine on a number levels. A viewing last night confirmed for me that while the characters are indeed fairly shallow and the dialogue would certainly never be mistaken for anything penned by Oscar Wilde, "Hell Night", is definately one of the most atmospheric and beautifully photographed efforts to come out of this particular horror sub-genre. The superb lighting employed here showcasing the creepy mansion and its overgrown grounds, and especially the eerie cobweb laden underground tunnels adds tremendously to the rich look and feel of the film. I found it very entertaining with a suitably "Gothic" looking haunted mansion, appealing characters, a rather disturbing "killer", and best of all a very spectacular climax involving Linda Blair fighting off her attacker in an out of control car that is real edge of the seat material. A very noticable lack of blood and gore that literally "drenched", this "slasher" genre right out of existence later in the 1980's decade also makes this film more appealing than many of the "Friday 13th" clones then being produced.

From Irwin Yablans, the man behind a certain movie titled HALLOWEEN comes HELL NIGHT. Released in 1981, the film was riding the wave of the popular teen slasher pics so big throughout the 1980s. What many of those films lacked, and HELL NIGHT possessed was a truly scary story. The young coeds in this picture are Academy Award nominee Linda Blair, cute Peter Barton and the frequently lensed Vincent Van Patten. Thrown together in a creepy mansion for intiation, suddenly folks start dropping off like flies. You won't find a great deal of gore in this picture. The director is so great at his craft, its not necessary. What is present is just enough to be effective. The screenwriter and the director work hard at creating an atmosphere that helps support the plot. Overall, they are quite accomplished in this. Of course there are the "usual suspect" moments of dropping the keys, the car not starting and the ever so annoying practice of GOING BACK IN THE HOUSE, but DiSimeone's deft direction makes it all effective. Both the "creepy house" theme and the "killer on the loose" are well balanced elements in this film. This presentation on DVD is superb! The DVD package graphics are lifted from the memorable original film one-sheet, which is replicated fully inside. (If no one remembered what HAPPENED in the movie, this graphic of Linda Blair clutching on to the gate is hard to forget!) The creative menu screen is a surprise and the chapters are carefully selected and succint. The widescreen presentation is impeccable and the sound track has a dimensional feel even in mono. The commentary track with Blair, DiSimeone and Yablans is quite informative, if not always enlightening. Watching HELL NIGHT was remembering that not all films had to be gory like FRIDAY THE 13th to be eerily effective. As the 80s progressed, horror filmmakers lost sight of this. This is definitely a keeper. Just enought fright for a fun Friday night!

This is a fun movie, and well made. The people saying this is "tedious" don't know what they're talking about. Sorry, folks, but I calls 'em as I sees 'em.

It took me a while to catch up with "Hell Night"--I saw it on cable long ago, in the 80's, and I remember enjoying it then. Well, a few intervening years have improved this particular psycho killer on the loose movie. It might have gotten three stars from me then, but now it's so much fun that it rates five stars. Why do deformed people lurking inside abandoned houses go on mad murdering sprees? Well, in these movies, they just do. That's what you paid your five bucks for, and that's what you get.

We have our standard setup--fraternity pledges must spend a night in a creepy old haunted house. Of course, there really IS something very evil and dangerous in the house, and the pledges find they are in a dire situation. A night of horror ensues. "Hell Night" delivers the goods fairly well, and rates up there with "The Funhouse" as a well-produced, nice looking slasher film with style to spare.

The 80's saw a glut of slasher films after the release of "Halloween," and most of them were wretchedly awful, so the gems stand out, and this is one of the gems.

The acting performances are pretty decent all around. We have the wonderful Linda Blair, doing a screaming, cleavage-baring Hammer Films-style damsel-in-distress bit, sure to satisfy fans of that sort of thing. Vince Van Patten steals the show for a few reels when his surfer/party animal character "Seth" suddenly grows a brain and LEAVES THE SPOOKY OLD HOUSE as soon as he realizes there is a real killer on the loose. Seth then goes on to alert the authorities, procure a weapon, and return to the house to save his buddies. This is all very entertainingly bizarre for an 80's horror film because in most of these things, there are no characters so sensible and proactive. Van Patten literally has to be seen to be believed. The various supporting players also do well.

The spooky old house itself is a combination of two houses (one for the exterior scenes, one for the interiors) and some sets built on a stage for special business (catacombs below the house, hair-raising rooftop action, etc.). The DVD is a little murky at times, but the house is one of THE best spooky houses ever presented in a film. I think it rivals Hill House from the original "The Haunting". There, I said it.

Finally, although there is a good bit of blood and gore, the film has an admirable sense of restraint and never goes overboard in that department. Graphic violence is usually only quickly shown, and this helps the character performances stay in proper focus. This is what they call "class," guys.

A very nice-looking, well-acted horror film. Don't buy that new stuff they are calling horror films; all that new stuff is garbage. Get your microwave popcorn popping, and give this one a spin.

I'm a horror fanatic. This is one of those horror movies i love to watch over and over, especially during Halloween. Of course this movie is timeless. It isn't dated cuz the characters are all wearing halloween costumes while pledging for the nite at the mansion. The only dated thing is the hair. This was released after the success of Halloween, The Hills Have Eyes, and Friday the 13th. Hell Night is one of the best knockoff slasher flicks of the 80's. Next comes the Prowler and Madman. Other knockoffs that aren't really good are the following: Prom Night, Funhouse, Terror Train, Girls Nite Out, Just Before Dawn, The Burning, The Forest, The House That Dripped Blood, Maniac, He Knows You're Alone, Happy Birthday To Me, etc. The list goes on and on like the Energizer bunny rabbit. This movie is very atmospheric and eerie like all the Italian horror movies like Lucio Fulci, Dario Argento, Amando Osssorio. And it has great cinematography. Which is missing in today's American horror movies. And the screenplay is well written. The movie has some great dialog for a horror movie. It's not just some stupid one-liners like Paris Hilton's House of Wax. House of Wax remake basically copied Hell Night. But Hell Night is far superior. Linda Blair from the Exorcist 1973 stars in this movie. This movie doesn't have alot of elaborate gore like other slasher flicks but the movie didn't need it to be successful. If u like horror movies with girls running around a really eerie haunted mansion type of thing this is for you. Of course the killer(s) were deformed humans like Jason Voorhees but they really died by gunshots and stakes at the end of movie. No sequel here. It seems the best horror movies are the ones that don't have sequels and this is one of them. And this is an A-rated horror movie that was released in drive-ins(the good ol' days) and theatres. Hell Night isn't some sucky direct2video B quality movie. Of course this movie is cliched even back in 1981 but it still works unlike alot of horror movies of the 80's, 90's, 2000's.