One Dark Night

source: One Dark Night

If you are a history nut--or you have some curious obsession with Adam West--then you are invited to this cheesy bit of nostalgia. If, on the other hand, you have any taste at all, then avoid this at all costs. It is paced at an unbelievable rate, the acting is 2nd rate, the production quality looks like a 1980s home movie, and the scares-- tho they do finally arrive--are simply not worth the wait. First: the pace is unbelievably slow. There are two plot threads that inter-twine, which may be part of the problem. One is about the daughter of a dead "energy vampire," while the other has a three girl "club" wanting to harass a "newbie." Why this takes so long to work out is beyond my understanding. So unless you have a night of insomnia, don't bother with this flick. Second: the acting is just plain bad. Adam West doesn't even ham it enough for some chuckles. The dead magician's wife has only one look: frightened confusion. Meg Tilly--whom I enjoyed in 1983's "The Big Chill"--is simply flat. And the rest of the cast--from the basketball loving boyfriend to the head of "The Sisters" club are just amateurish (e.g. the leader of the club says at one point, "You named it; you claimed it".) The cinematography/directing is just poor quality. Lighting is bad. The color seems washed out (which I believe is NOT intentional). A run through a graveyard is worst then Romero's 1968, "Night of the Living Dead" (which we can understand. considering it was 1968). And the interior shots of the mausoleum are tedious. Again, don't waste your time. I recalled that "Poltergeist" also came to theaters in 1982. Hard to believe these two films shared the same historical space because the scares are so fundamentally different. Perhaps it was the direction. Perhaps the production quality. Perhaps the acting (JoBeth Williams and Craig Nelson head the cast) is just light years better. I can't say for sure, but the scares are simply not worth your time here. I have to confess, this one was recommended because of other films I had been watching, so I checked it out. Please don't make the same mistake and waste your time. At least I penned this cautionary tale for you while I was watching!

Poor Adam West. He went from playing Batman to appearing in this toxic waste. I was completely losing patience with this "scary" movie. It was over an hour before something remotely interesting happened and that's too long for any movie, let alone a scary movie. And that something "interesting" was nothing more than some furniture being moved around and doors closing. Even the real "action" was terribly lame. They spent two-thirds of the movie or more building up the awesome telekinetic powers of Raymar, who was dead. In the meantime we had to bear through three vapid high school girls looking to terrorize a pledge to their sorry sisterhood. The entire build up was for this Raymar character to either rise from the dead or create havoc from the dead. Either way it was a fail. It's clear that the movie was low budget, which I don't hold against it, but low budget or not the whole premise was bad. And don't let me start on the acting. I've seen better acting at amusement parks. I can't believe I was watching a digitally remastered version. I thought they only did that for good movies--you know, the movies people actually want to see.

One Dark Night is not an ordinary horror film. From the opening scene where multiple hearses pull up to pick up the dead they have your attention! I've enjoyed this film from the first time I saw it. It was hard to find a good DVD copy, and I watched it again tonight with pleasure. It contains a lot of elements unusual to horror films of the period, and it can really keep you guessing. This is the first film in which I saw Meg Tilly. I've really enjoyed the work she and her sister, Jennifer, have done over the years. It's hard to forget Adam West as Batman, but I managed. If you can find a copy of this, make yourself a bowl of popcorn and settle back for a very enjoyable hour and a half.

Famous and mysterious recluse Raymar, who's some kind of lethal telekinetic psychic vampire, abruptly dies under bizarre circumstances. Nice girl high school student Julie Wells (a warm and sympathetic performance by the lovely Meg Tilly) wants desperately to be accepted by the snobby clique the Sisters (played to sublimely bitchy perfection by Leslie Speights, Robin Evans and the ever-cuddly Elizabeth Daily), so she agrees to spend a night in a creepy mausoleum where Raymar's body has been interred as part of an initiation rite. Naturally, Raymar still has his extraordinary powers, so it's going to be a very long and harrowing night of pure nerve-wracking terror for poor Julie. Director/co-screenwriter Tom McLoughlin (who later gave us the enjoyably tongue-in-cheek "Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives") eschews graphic gore in favor of creating a brooding and eerie atmosphere, but fails to pull this particular feat off because the first hour is way too slow, talky and uneventful to be remotely scary or suspenseful. However, I nonetheless still found this flawed fright flick to be oddly appealing and entertaining. The big poofy hairdos, a goofy music montage sequence, badly timed false scares (including the ubiquitous hand on the shoulder gag!), a scene at a glittery video game arcade, kids gleefully smoking pot, and the hilariously dumb teen slang ("nerdle brain"!?) give this picture a certain endearingly quaint 80's period charm. Hal Trussell's handsome, polished cinematography (I especially dug the smoothly gliding Steadicam tracking shots), Bob Summers' spooky, yet funky hum'n'shiver synthesizer score, and Tom Burman's splendidly ghoulish make-up f/x are all up to snuff. The ever-stolid Adam West of TV's "Batman" fame merely takes up space in a nothing secondary part. The mausoleum makes for an impressively vast and unsettling main location. The grand finale with a bunch of ghastly rotting corpses popping out of their coffins and floating about qualifies as a marvelously macabre shock set piece. Sure, this baby definitely ain't some unjustly unsung gem, but it still delivers plenty of pleasingly silly and diverting cheesy fun all the same.

definatley one of the worst horror movies ive ever seen. i use the term horror loosely, becuase there is nothing horrific about this bomb. first of all, it has adam west in it. that should be enough, but ill continue. the extremley boring plot starts off with tilly having some drama thing with her father, then going out with her freinds(including the token black). then she has to spend the night in a supposedly creepy cemetary as an initiation into one of those teenage club/gangs.(after you see the jackets the girls wear, youll wonder if this is such a good idea)no one knows that a powerful magician(i think its a relative of hers.who cares?!) is buried in a crypt there. all of a sudden, the wizard is awakened, and unleashes his fury via lame 70's tv style lightning bolts from his eyes, and rotting zombies obviously being pushed by grips out of camera range. the zombies dont move, and neither does west. and then i wondered, what is a great actress like tilly doing in this dreck? should've been titled"one dark night, i was bored and wrote a script". wish i coulde give it a negative rating, like -74.

The story does have some potentials to get deeper into human supernatural powers but fails to deliver it the right way ... yes, does have some scary moments as well but nothing i'd feel like i'd have missed if not watched this truly weak movie! and the VFX with the zombies in the end ... GOSH! could it be any worse? the only 'great thing' about this movie is the presence of the eternally rare beauty Meg Tilly! and that's about it all ...

Let me start by saying I was only 2 when this movie came out but I loooove a good low budget 80's horror flick especially early & mid 80's(cheesy or not!)...a few good ones that I can think of off the bat are "Demons"..."Demons 2"..."Happy Birthday To Me"..."April Fools Day"..."Slumber Party Massacre"..."Witchboard"..."Chopping Mall"..."The Evil Dead" etc. BUT this movie is TOTAL garbage the special effects are crap (even for a low budget film),the storyline is whack & does'nt hold your interest...the acting is bad & not in a "so bad it's good" way...the killings are lame & ridiculous...& the finale was really poor! I kept waiting for it to get better but sadly the movie never lifts off,I can't believe people said this scared them when they 1st saw it cause this movie IS NOT scary! I watched this with my girlfriend on Friday (she also loves 80's horror) & when it was over we just watched each other & rolled our eyes then she buried her face in the pillow shaking her head & laughing in disbelief. Anyway enough of me slandering this doo doo pile of a "movie"...I actually feel awkward as I'm blasting this movie so much cause I'm not really a negative guy & I always try to find something good about movies I watch but I had to make an exception here because this film is that terrible! Those people that gave this movie a good rating & said it scared them must've been on acid when they watched it!

I have to admit, this film is definitely worthwhile. It is somewhat corny and silly, but it still means well. Meg Tilly (when she still had her teenage-girl hair) plays a high schooler who, in order to fit in with a bunch of snooty girls, must accept a very challenging initiation: sleep in the Hollywood Mausoloeum! Not many surprises or spoilers here, but the film does have very eerie atmosphere. We learn to sympathize with the quiet, shy and sweet Tilly and we learn to totally despise her nasty tormentors. And why Adam West is in this movie is beyond me. 8/10

I bought this on video under the title "Entity Force" for £2 second hand at a pawnshop, mainly because I liked the cover. What I got was an OK early 80's horror film that could have had more gore and titty but what it lacked in the gore/titty department it made up for in cheese. The climatic zombie fest towards the end of the film left nothing to be desired. The zombie's legs didn't bend when they walked! Also a valuable lesson is learned as a result of this film, whenever you encounter a back-from-the-dead physic with blue lightening coming out of his eyes, use your compact mirror!