Hell Night

Hell Night. 1981. Dir. Tom DeSimone. With Linda Blair, Vincent Van Patten, Kevin Brophy, Jenny Neumann, Suki Goodwin, Jimmy Sturtevant, Peter Barton. Written by Randy Feldman.

Badness:

Enjoyment Factor:

I love eighties horror movies. It is, I think, a remarkably rich and eclectic variety of titles. I will always a soft spot in my heart for slasher films of this period. If done well, they can be incredibly enjoyable. If done poorly, they can be dull and lifeless. Hell Night, unfortunately, is the latter.

It is a slow and uninteresting entry into this beloved subgenre, and stars Linda Blair, post-Exorcist, trying her very best to emulate Jamie Lee Curtis. She does not succeed. Blair plays Marti, who along with a few other college pledges, most spend the night in an allegedly haunted house. At first, the pledges are pranked into thinking that there really are ghosts. But then, as people are mysteriously murdered, we wonder…

This is not a fun bad movie. It is just bad. It’s dated and hard to really care what happens. The cinematography, by Mac Ahlberg, is more colorful and lush than this film really deserves. Some of the more cheesy effects and slasher moments feel like something out of an episode of Scooby-Doo, Where are You?