Screams of a Winter Night

source: Screams of a Winter Night

This flick is way better than the garbage Hollywood produces today. I think to truly enjoy this movie you need to be interested in indie horror low budget films. You won't get no Gone with the Wind out of these old films. The stories were interesting, but a little bit more needed to be explained in "The Green Light" story. What was it? The ending could've explained better too. Anyway, this is better than the low budget shot on video trash you end up getting at Blockbuster. I hope this finds a re-release on DVD and in a cleaned up letterboxed format if possible.

I have this movie on the absolute WORST DVD bootleg in my entire collection of substandard DVD bootlegs. I remember seeing it though in the early 90's on a professional VHS tape, which more or less did justice to a low-budget 16 mm semi-professional film like this. This is an anthology/portmanteau-style film, but I don't know that ALL the stories were really based on urban legends (and this is definitely NOT the first horror film to mine popular urban legends anyway). This does have, as its first story, the old "couple parked in lover's lane, boyfriend gets out, and girlfriend hears scratching on the roof of car" tale, but it also manages to somehow throw bigfoot into the mix (bigfoot films at that time being very popular among low-budget, regional filmmakers). The second story though, about three guys spending the night in a haunted dormitory, is so idiosyncratically bizarre that it's hard to believe it could even be an urban legend. (The end of this story somehow manages to be jaw-droppingly stupid yet at the same time hauntingly disturbing). The third and final story about a female serial is more ho-hum. It COULD be an urban legend, but it's not one I've personally ever heard. The "frame story" here is especially effective. A group of young people are staying in a remote cabin and telling each other these stories(strangely, the characters in the scary stories are played by the same actors who are in the "frame story" even though they are not supposed to be the same people)while an ominous "ghost wind" howls increasingly loudly outside. The sound effects are very effective and the ending is GREAT and really makes the whole thing worthwhile. It really wouldn't surprise me, as another reviewer said, if this movie, like the early 70's stop-motion epic "Equinox", was a great influence on "The Evil Dead". This one certainly doesn't need the deluxe Criterion treatment "Equinox" recently received (complete with the $40 price tag), and it's possible the original elements aren't in too good of shape. But it certainly deserves some kind of halfway decent DVD release. Quentin Tarantino reportedly likes it a lot so maybe there's hope.

The first time I saw this movie, I was a kid and we'd gone to the drive-in. This movie was so deliciously scary that it's haunted me for years! I spent 10 years trying to remember the title and the last 5 trying to find it to rent it. The vignettes in this movie were all scary, and at the time, our local residents were trying to claim the frat brothers' vignette was based on the old Oregon Institute of Technology -- several buildings that were abandoned and haunted. "Gravity Hill", a place where your car could be pointing uphill and you'd put it in neutral and it would roll... UPHILL... existed near old OIT as well. No big budget, no known actors, and yet it was one of the best scary movies I've ever seen. I want this movie in the worst way. Somehow, somewhere, there has to be a copy!

A bunch of young adults go deep into the woods to a remote cabin and tell each other several scary urban legend-style stories. First and coolest vignette - A diminutive albino Bigfoot creature stalks a teenage couple who find themselves stuck in the middle of nowhere after their car runs out of gas. Second and most frightening tale - Three college fraternity pledges spend the night at an old abandoned hospital that's said to be haunted. Third and most disturbing yarn - A mousy, repressed young coed turns out to be a deranged murderess. Finally, our motley group of young adults discover that the local legend of a vicious Indian wind demon isn't far-fetched in the least. Director James L. Wilson and writer Richard H. Wadsack neatly craft a fun and engrossing omnibus outing that eschews the usual graphic gore and bloodshed in favor of creating and sustaining a potently creepy and nightmarish midnight-in-the-graveyard gloom-doom atmosphere; the opening credits sequence in particular is very chilling and the conclusion packs one hell of a terrifying punch. The isolated sylvan setting projects a truly unnerving sense of dread and vulnerability. The spirited shivery'n'shuddery score by Don Zimmers does the flesh-crawling trick. The pretty, fairly polished cinematography by Robert E. Rogers likewise hits the spot. Moreover, the game no-name cast all contribute winningly sincere and enthusiastic performances. A shamefully neglected and unheralded drive-in terror treat.

I watched this on Halloween night that year with the whole town and it scared the heck out of everyone at the theater. Good enough for me to look it up after all these years. Just something way creepy about the green light scene I can't forget. Im sure some of it is my youth perspective in 1979 but I think its in the class of something like Legend of Boggy Creek which is a classic because it brought something new though campy as all heck. Screams is dated by now Im sure but still good fun compared to a LOT of other bigger budget movies. Be nice to see it posted somewhere like on you tube as Im sure its a rarity! I gave it a seven meaning you ought to check it out for yourself.

As to why some have mentioned this film to be creepy, scary, uneasy, etc. Maybe I had to have first seen this when I was a teen or for that matter a pre-teen to appreciate this movie but seeing this as an adult after all the build up on how good this movie is supposed to be was a huge let down. And this is coming from someone who even to this day and age is still a sucker for scary movies. I recently watched "The Turn of the Screw", "Full Circle" (Mia Farrow), "Don't Look Now" (Donald Sutherland) and "The Ring" & those movies got under my skin and had me feeling uneasy and looking back over my shoulder for days. Not this film.

I think that this will become a cult classic - but not for being a good movie. When I was a teenager, I went out with friends to see this movie when it first came out in the late 70's. After it ended, we all gave each other a puzzled look and then expressed it in verbal terms - What was that! We wondered why we had spent good (and scarce) money on this fertilizer-in-celluloid-form. This is why I still remember that movie after all these years.

Quinton Tarantino included this flick in his 2007 LA Grindhouse Film Festival, and the print was not only from his personal collection, but he introduced the movie himself at it's first screening. His praise followed the lines of the review appearing at the head of this IMDb comments section: this was innovative in 1978 (I saw it first in its test market run, before it got national distribution). Tarantino asserted the belief that it was the first of the "kids-go-to-the-lake" scare flicks; that it was innovative in its "stories-within-the-story" for the genre; and, that for the dollars, the acting, directing, camera work and special effects are pretty damn good. And they're both right. It cost less to make and test market than the production of the average regional TV spot today. More trivia: note the name of the sound mixer: Ron Judkins. Two-time Oscar winner. William Ragsdale: "Fright Night", etc. And look up Gil Glascow in IMDb; he's worked steadily all these years.

This film is a sinful pleasure. Granted it is not the best film to come out of Hollywood, but that's because it did not come from Hollywood. Here is my point: First of all the film was written, directed and produced by kids (early twenties) from Louisiana. The initial distribution was with 4 prints they carried around to their local north Louisiana theaters. After it performed quite well it was picked up by a "Hollywood" distributor ( and of course the kids who made it got screwed). The film then performed very well both here and abroad. Another point is they raised all the monies to make the film(the movie cost less than 2 tickets and popcorn at a theater today) so you got to give them credit. Horror buffs can certainly see where some of the other films borrowed from this little indie. In conclusion, if you have ever thought of or dreamed of making your own film this is worth seeing (if you can find it).