daleja-dale
I watch "ONE DARK NIGHT" this week for the first times since the 1980's! This is perhaps my favorite horror film from the 1980's, with the exception of John Carpenter's "The Thing"! This was my kind of fright film! Teenage girl gangbangers recruit a girl who want to join their group by having her spend a night in a mausoleum (an in door cemetery)! After the sun goes down, 2 of the girls return to torment the girl in the mausoleum! None of them know that a madman named Raymar, who use to practice magnetic control over distant object, is rested there! The girls are in for an unpleasant surprise in that mausoleum! This is when the fun begins! There're NO zombies in this film! It instead has something better and scarier! Dead bodies floating in mid-air is more frighten to me than people playing zombies in make- up or costumes! There are other things about this film that I like as well! Even though it came out in the 1980's, a time of epidemic moral decay which continues to this day, there was very little vulgarity in at all! No sex or nudity and best of all, no f-words, or s-words, or a- words! There is some pot use in though! Bottom like, this was a very fun movie to watch, too me! Very creepy and very little dirty stuff!
Scott LeBrun
Co-writer / director Tom McLoughlin, who would go on to write and direct "Jason Lives", the sixth entry in the "Friday the 13th" series, began his filmmaking career here with this nicely done, old school, effectively atmospheric low budget horror flick. Granted, it's not terribly slick, but the crudeness of the thing actually helps to make it more endearing.Its teenagers-in-jeopardy plot has a lot more to do with the supernatural than other horror flicks of the early '80s, working in a very intriguing concept: that of a psychically gifted, malicious, telekinetic creep still possessing dangerous powers even after death. He's been entombed in the very mausoleum where nice girl Julie (cute and adorable Meg Tilly, in her first lead role) is forced to spend the night as part of an initiation rite into a small scale high school clique. Before the night is over, our villain, who's nicknamed "Raymar", is giving Julies' tormentors a taste of their own medicine.McLoughlin and company really envelop us in this movies' palpable ambiance, milking the mausoleum setting for everything that it's worth. The cinematography, by Hal Trussell, production design, by Craig Stearns, and music, by Bob Summers, are all excellent. The pacing is efficient, and even the exposition scenes in "One Dark Night" are worth watching, touching upon subjects such as "psychic vampirism" and Kirlian photography. The film gets off to a fine start, and builds up to a cracking finale as Raymar unleashes his abilities on the terrified girls. This is one movie that gets a lot out of its location and sets.Folks who like lots of bloody violence may be disappointed, but that doesn't mean that there isn't some good gross stuff on hand, as Tom Burman, Ellis Burman, and Bob Williams supply some deliciously nasty looking corpses, which never exactly come back to life, but are manipulated by Raymars' mental powers into moving around.The cast is quite easy to watch, especially Tilly. The equally cute Elizabeth Daily, the gorgeous Robin Evans, and the appealing Leslie Speights are an amusing trio as her tormentors. Melissa Newman is good as Olivia, Raymars' daughter who ends up becoming the heroine of the piece, David Mason Daniels is likable as Julies' boyfriend, Donald Hotton is compelling as one of our exposition providers, and Adam "Batman" West is adequate as Olivias' husband. Some performers to watch out for are Leo Gorcey Jr. as the young coroner, Martin Nosseck (a man with a wonderful character face) as the caretaker, Kevin Peter Hall as a basketball player, and Nancy Mott (soon to become Nancy McLoughlin) as the spaced out Lucy.Overall, this is fun stuff, although it definitely may seem lightweight to some viewers, with its lack of emphasis on sex and gore. At the very least, it's got some quirky little details (like Speights' character compulsively sucking on a toothbrush throughout) and priceless dialogue ("You named it, you claimed it.", "You go, Hugo.", and "Nerdle brain") going for it.Eight out of 10.
stumaczter1
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!
fred-558-270682
I saw this film when it was released to theaters. It's definitely one to remember, I had forgotten the title until recently. A friend found it via online search.One Dark Night is rather unusual for the suspense/horror genre of the time in that it contains no blood. It is of the teen fright variety yet the teens are respectable in their own ways. It's a nice, old-school film with props and scenes that reflect the times. Our hero rides a motorcycle with no brain bucket, for example.As has been mentioned by previous reviewers, One Dark Night is currently available on DVD. The original negative was not available for the DVD transition. Some reel changes are a bit rough but this doesn't take away from the story. That being said, the colors are vibrant and the lighting is very good.Adam West plays a rather smallish part in this film as RayMar's son-in-law. His role as an overbearing and indifferent husband is thankfully short.The story builds over the course of the film. Unlike many horror films of the era, One Dark Night is a great suspense story that gives the viewer time to absorb what is happening.The final 20 minutes or so of One Dark Night are what make it so memorable. RayMar's telekinetic abilities are used to open old graves in the mausoleum, pull the coffins out, open them and move the corpses around. Attention was afforded to great detail in the final scenes. The rotting, worm-riddled corpses look quite real.
