Hell Night -Review-

[Zach]

Hell Night is, without a doubt, one of the most underrated horror films of the early 1980s. Starting as a wild, carefree frat party, the tale takes a quick, terrifying turn when a small group of fraternity and sorority pledges are forced to spend the night in a supposedly haunted house on the edge of town. The plot is simple enough to begin with, but as soon as the kids are locked in, the film springs to horrifying life..Conventional, but well presented slasher with a large dose of dark Gothic atmosphere, remarkably garish art direction and spirited performances led by the delightfully charming Linda Blair. This item is another slasher that's not all that interested in exploiting (with gore taking a back step), but director Tom Desimone keeps things rather old-fashioned, slow burn and rallying up successful slabs of random suspense and hysterics. Sure the material is quite brief, but there's occasional wit, an odd air to it and the characters have personality. Co-stars; Vincent Van Patten, Peter Barton, Jenny Neumann and Kevin Brophy chip with amusing turns. The menacingly forlorn tone is laid on thick, where the creaky, old mansion becomes a prominent character and the deformed killer of the piece keeps mostly in the shadows. The make-up is not that imaginative, but still manages to hold a creepy vibe. Dan Wyman's lavished synthesiser score chalks up plenty of ominous stings, which perfectly fits right in and does a lot for those tense moments. Although the slickly decorated production has some bumps, mainly found in the pacing, where at times it can become ponderous and probably being 10 minutes too long. The death toll is little, and the violence comes across swift and to the point, but still maintaining a cruel edge to it. The story can get predictable and some developments seemed all a bit to easy for the overall plot progression, but I found it too enjoyable to really care a great deal. And so for me..Hell Night is Linda Blair's second best horror flick. Okay, it's a far cry from The Exorcist, but it's still a solid horror outing. It's one of the best of the fraternity/slasher sub-genre. The story centers around fraternity and sorority hopefuls who must spend the night in a dark and spooky mansion. Once locked inside, the pledges (and a few other pranksters) are then picked off one by one by the remaining mongoloid family members who live there. The story reminds me a bit of Castle Freak and the execution mirrors Halloween. It may feel a bit cliched today, buy you must remember that this is one of the films that made those cliches.