Customer Reviews

One Dark Night

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I saw One Dark Night watching T.V. one night. It was about 1:00 A.M. and nothing was on so flipping through the channels I stumbled on to one of the best horror movies I've seen. I'd never heard of this film nor had I seen it anywhere. Finally, thanks to Shriek Show "One Dark Night" is coming to DVD.

When you consider the setting for the film, a mausoleum, you know it's going to be creepy. Just the thought of sleeping overnight in a mausoleum makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up. One dark night is a perfect movie to watch on a late evening or on Halloween night; it's a cinematic example of what Halloween is all about. Containing lots of spooky elements that you look for in horror films:
Mausoleums, Telekinesis, graveyard scenes, and coroner scenes,including a very strange and eerie scene where 6 dead girls are found in the recently deceased man's appartment all piled together with their staring eyes wide open! The background music is quite effective too in adding to the moviegoer's experience.

"One Dark Night" is an underrated and, most likely, underviewed horror movie. Easily worth recommending for fans of the early 80's horror flicks that we've all come to know and love. Well worth and evening and soon to be added to my collection! (Thank you, Shriek Show!)

I must admit that although most people don't seem to hold this film in high regard (I don't think it's even considered a cult classic)this is absolutely the best horror movie I have ever seen! It was released to east coast theaters in the United States on March 4, 1983. I was thirteen-years-old when I saw it with my parents that weekend and this movie left quite an impression on me. It touched me in a way no other film has before and I will never forget it. Not that it frightened me, no far from it, but I became obssessed with it and still am to this day at the age of thirty-four, one year older than Tom McLaughlin was when he directed it. I believe it was filmed in the fall of 1982 and took only twenty-eight days to make. It was shot on location in LA using the Hollywood Cathederal Mausoleum for interior shots. A set was built of marble and plywood for the special effects and the filming of the corpses coming out of their tombs. It had an excellent cast: Meg Tilly fresh from her role in "Tex" and whom I developed a crush on after seeing the movie, the handsome David Mason Daniels who bears a slight resemblance to Christopher Reeve and for whom I developed a kind of hero worship at that young age (where are they now
,I wonder whatever happened to him, he was a good actor), Adam West(of the '60's batman series), Melissa Newman ( Paul Newman's daughter), Robin Evans as Carol ( a former model and later a "Rip tide" girl(1984)), Leslie Speights as Kitty ( I wonder whatever happened to her too?), Elizabeth Daily ( Valley Girl(1983)) and of course a great writer director, Tom Mclaughlin. I have nothing but praise for this film and am eagerly awaiting its release on DVD with special features. I've heard some companies are interested in releasing it, I sure wish they would hurry up and do it! The VHS copies available look really crappy, but if you can manage to rent it( highly unlikely no video stores I know of have it) it's well worth it, I promise you! Buy this film and you will not regret it, watch it in the dark alone , with friends or better yet with your girlfriend or boyfriend. It is definitely a night you will remember until the day you die!

This was a movie I saw in the theater when it came out in the early 80's on a double feature with Trail of the Pink Panther (which sucked).....One Dark Night scared the crap out of us. We thought because it was rated PG there wouldn't be anything to it. It was AWESOME...very scary and the effects are great. This is a great slumber party movie. I'm SO glad this is finally on DVD.

Who would have thunk it? Who would have thought One Dark Night (1983), aka Night in the Crypt (1982), aka Dark Night aka Entity Force aka Mausoleum aka Night of Darkness aka Rest in Peace, in all its relative obscurity, would find its way onto DVD (in a two disc set, no less) before some other, more well known horror nuggets from the 1980s, like Night of the Comet (1984), Curtains (1983), Night of the Creeps (1986), From Beyond (1986), or Visiting Hours (1982)? Actually, Visiting hours is set for a DVD release in April 2006...but I digress...co-written and directed by Tom McLoughlin (Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, Sometimes They Come Back), the film stars a young Meg Tilly (Psycho II, The Big Chill). Also appearing is Melissa Newman (Revenge of the Stepford Wives), Robin Evans (Fire In the Night), Leslie Speights (GoBots: War of the Rock Lords), Elizabeth Daily (Valley Girl, Streets of Fire), David Mason Daniels ("Days of Our Lives"), and Adam West ("Batman", Chicken Little), sans the Batsuit.

As the film begins it's a dark and stormy night, and we see a woman awoken by vision...next we see a small convoy of coroner's vans approaching an apartment building in a downtown area, arriving at a bizarre scene of a number of deaths within one of the apartments including one man and six women. Turns out the man was named Raymar, and, when alive, was considered some sort of great and powerful mentalist. Next we meet a group of high school students including Julie (Tilly), Carol (Evans), Kitty (Speights), Steve (Daniels), and Leslie (Daily), whose got a hicky on her neck the size of a softball, indicating she may have been attacked by an overly amorous shop vac. Seems Julie is interested in joining the local, harmless girl gang (known as The Sisters), only problem is Carol, the leader of the gang, and quite the hot little number, is determined to give Julie a hard time as she still smarting from getting the old dumperoo from hunky Steve (Steve took up with Julie shortly afterwards). Anyway, she decides Julie should spend the night in a local mausoleum, the same one where Raymar was recently interred (the woman at the beginning was actually Raymar's estranged daughter Olivia, played by Newman). The Sisters, including Carol, Kitty and Leslie (three girls doesn't seem much of a gang) goad Julie into going along with the stunt, their intent being to come back later and scare the wits out of her...which really isn't necessary as Raymar, who, as it turns out was (and still is) some sort of psychic vampire, and he's not completely dead (seems the negative psychic energies he drew upon when alive are sustaining him in some form after his death). The Sisters show up (sans Leslie who chickened out), Steve eventually makes the scene, and all get to experience the weird fun a semi-dead psychic vampire can wreak on a mausoleum full of oozing, rotten, maggot ridden corpses (talk about having friends, or should I say fiends, in low places)...

One of the things that sets One Dark Night apart from a great many horror films released in the 1980s is there is no blood. There's some ooze (emanating from the rotten corpses), but nary a drop of the hemoglobin...that's not to say no one gets murderlized, but it's just not shown in the graphic detail normally present in the various slasher films of the day. What the film lacks in visceral content, it makes up for in creepiness and atmosphere (most of the film takes place in the mausoleum). I'll be the first to admit that while there's really not much of a story here, the special effects aren't terribly special, the pacing very slow at times, and the acting often amateurish, the movie has charm and heart (in spades), and succeeded in keeping my interest. Now I say there isn't much of a story, but one could make the argument that it was kept simple. As for the special effects, some were quite good, considering the low budget nature of the film. Some of the corpses show a good deal of detail, while others looked pretty rubbery. One interesting aspect was the animated corpses didn't actually walk around, but hovered about a foot or so off the ground as Raymar used his awesoma powers on them to do his bidding. I was kinda disappointed Raymar didn't do much of anything except hover in one spot and shoot electricity out of his eyeballs (that bit looked cool), as he used his powers to manipulate his surroundings...I guess when you're in a semi-dead state, the less you move around the better. I mentioned the acting in general was amateurish, but, for most, this seemed their first, real gig (including director McLoughlin), so I don't want to come off sound harsh or unnecessarily critical. I would have liked to seen Adam West have a bigger role as he was limited to the part of Olivia's husband, and didn't have a whole lot of screen time. Tilly was believable as a high school student, but the rest seemed a lot more mature than any of the kids I ever attended school with, except maybe for that one freaky kid in everyone's class who was able to grow facial hair before anyone else. That Robin Evans...her character may have been a nasty, vindictive, mean spirited one, but she had it going on...can anyone tell me why Kitty, the African American girl (woman) constantly had a toothbrush sticking out of her mouth? It was really annoying, so much so even one of the characters in the film commented on it. I said the pacing is slow, and it is, up until about the last twenty minutes or so, when things really kick into gear...there's a great number of scenes showing the wall of Raymar crypt cracking and red light emitting from said cracks prior to his finally rising from the grave. Yeah, okay, we know he's stirring about inside so let's get on with it...despite the obvious flaws the movie was still a lot of fun, and worth checking out if you're into harmless scares sans the gore.

The picture quality on this Media Blaster/Shriek Show 2 set DVD, presented in widescreen (1.85:1) anamorphic, looks decent, but does suffer from some flaws due to age as a couple of frames are missing, and there's dust and specking present. I've read where the original elements weren't available, so they had to make due with what they could find...while the picture may not be perfect, it's a hell of a lot better than any of the various bootlegs I've seen over the years. I thought the Dolby Digital mono audio came across well. As far as extras, there's a feature length commentary track with director Tom McLoughlin, a behind the scenes featurette entitled "R.I.P.", an alternate director's cut of the film titled "A Night in the Crypt", trailers for other Media Blasters DVD releases including The Being (1983), Frankenstein's Bloody Terror (1968), Just Before Dawn (1981), Devil Dog (1978), Anthropophagus (1981), Love Bites (2001), and a High School Horrors Triple Feature set. Oh yeah, there's also an actual film cell thrown in for good measure.

Cookieman108

By the way, if I learned anything from this film it's not to flick your spent doobie at the tomb of a dead mentalist, as they seem to take offense...

Morbid,macabre,dark. Never did a Film have a more fitting Title. I first saw this film as a kid on television and have loved it ever since. A rather unconventional horror Film, most of the Film contains no Blood or Mayhem as the bulk of the Film prepares the Viewer for the last 15 minutes during which all Hell breaks loose. Despite the lack of Gore this Film succedes due to strange floating camera work an effectively weird soundtrack and a very Macabre Plot.The whole tone of the Film is unrelentingly Grim and Morbid, many of the key scenes take place in a Cemetary and Mausoleum and the last portion contains a wealth of Images that would give small children a thousand Nighmares. One Dark Night indeed.

Okay, So here I am, an avid horror movie fan since i was about 8 years of age. I'm 35 now and I seen this film back in September of 1982 with my 7th grade school chums. Few Girls, Few boys and we all got freaky scared from this film. Story line is typical of any other films we see today; Girl wants to be in snotty clique with popular girls in school; meanwhile, Creepy Old Man killer/kidnapper "RAYMAR" [A name you will always remember after seeing this thriller..] is being buried in the local Mausoleum. JUST AS THE SAME NIGHT the snotty girls hold there initiation for the 'nice girl Julie' to scare her to death. Howeverrrrr...the joke is on the girls! I wont give anything away but this film was both written very well and directed very well. FOR A PG rated film, THE SPECIAL EFFFECTS ARE GREAT! Today this would 'clearly' be PG-13. I had a chance to email the writers of this great film and I'm hoping its changed, but back last year he said they were not going to have any features with the girls. A commentary would of rocked with them today to watch them 'then'. It would of been cool to see where they are now because all the girls in this film were unique and had different likings about them. I especially enjoyed watching ROBIN EVANS playing the No. 1 mean girl CAROL! SHE IS GORGEOUS in this film and with its 80's look its just alll so inocent and I wish I could go back into time, to that night when we all walked to the movies when life was easy to see ONE DARK NIGHT!

I placed my order weeks ago and I'm waiting for the 17th to get my NO. 1 80's Fun Filled Horror Film. I hope you all enjoy this film as everyone else who submitted there reviews.

I saw One Dark Night watching T.V. one night. It was about 1:00 A.M. and nothing was on so flipping through the channels I stumbled on to one of the best horror movies I've seen. I'd never heard of this film nor had I seen it anywhere. To this day I still look in my local video stores for it but nobody has it.

When you consider the setting for the film, a mausoleum, you know it's going to be creepy. Just the thought of sleeping overnight in a mausoleum makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up. One dark night is a perfect movie to watch on a late evening or on Halloween night; it's a cinematic example of what Halloween is all about. Containing lots of spooky elements that you look for in horror films:
Mausoleums, Telekinesis, graveyard scenes, and coroner scenes,including a very strange and eerie scene where 6 dead girls are found in the recently deceased man's appartment all piled together with their staring eyes wide open! The background music is quite effective too in adding to the moviegoer's experience. Granted this isn't an Oscar nominated film but it is a great horror film never the less and well worth watching, if you can find it. I'd recommend this movie to anyone who loves the horror genre you shouldn't be disappointed.

A tired initiation theme livened up but one stella performance from Meg and some creative lemonade making from the crew. Quite frightening if you can get into it as much as our heroine. The extra disc is endless footage of filming without narration and interesting as that.

One Dark Night received a limited theatrical release in a year when the slasher film was pretty much scraping the bottom of the barrel. Though still a "teens in peril" formula, it earns it's keep by bucking the trend of stalk-&-slash by reaching for some genuine supernatural thrills, and gruesomely morbid set pieces. It really has more in common with the likes of Phantasm than Friday The 13th.

I know many find the first two-thirds slow-going, but I think One Dark Night delivers a relatively sustained build-up to the show-stopping climax, that still gives a honest dose of the creeps.

Rewatching this movie after years have gone by, I can say it's all about the last 20 minutes, with a very slow but engrossing build up. The finaly 20 minutes are when all the creeps come out, and the corpse effects are on par with what was going on in the hit Poltergeist the same year--in fact, a couple of the corpses look like they were borrowed from that film! The other plus of this movie--it has EG Daily, an 80s teen flick queen!

As for the video, the transfer is sharp, but the film itself is loaded with tears and specks, as well as some REALLY choppy edits, as if it was recorded from the actual cinema projector reels. Audio is a bit muffled, and only in stereo. There's a director commentary--and then on disc 2 (yes, it's actually TWO discs) there are behind the scenes clips and stills, plus a "director's cut" of the film--which shows it was originally titled "a night in the crypt." You also get a warning before this cut that it's from a very bad original print--and it is. Also, it's not different enough to actually sit through the whole film again, but it's nice to have it considering the DVD is so cheap for 2 discs.