Hell Night (1981)
Odyssey DVD / Prism Leisure Corp. DVD (region 2)
d. Tom DeSimone; pr. Irwin Yablans, Bruce Cohn Curtis; scr. Randy Feldman; ph. Mac Ahlberg; m. Dan Wyman; ed. Tony Di Marco; cast. Linda Blair, Vincent Van Patten, Peter Barton, Kevin Brophy, Jenny Newman, Suki Goodwin (101 mins)
Following the enormous success of the low-budget independent movie Halloween, there was a virtual boom in the so-called “slasher” genre.
Detested by critics, but frequented in great numbers by adolescent cinemagoers, these films were generally cheaply made and featured a group of usually teenagers or young adults beset over the course of one night by a mysterious killer. Deaths were usually gruesome and preceded by some nudity and minor titillation with the virginal female character usually being the one to finally end the evening of mass slaughter. As these films proliferated, so did they seem indistinguishable from one another. Yet the profit margins made them appealing to a number of independent producers, some of whom had enough experience to work with proficient directors. One such director was Tom DeSimone. DeSimone had segued from hardcore pornography into exploitation cinema with considerable style. For Hell Night, he was teamed with Halloween producer Irwin Yablans and worked with cult actress Linda Blair, who since The Exorcist had been unable to find mainstream roles and was slowly seguing into exploitation, finally going topless for the women in prison flick Chained Heat. Although DeSimone would turn to genre parody and eventually forsake exploitation altogether to work in episodic television, his works remain notable highlights within the disreputable field.
Hell Night takes place during a college fraternity pledge night. In order to initiate several new fraternity and sorority members, they are requested to spend the night in an abandoned mansion long rumoured to be haunted.
The pledges are told that they must remain in the mansion over the entire night. Two couples are escorted in and then the front gate locked again behind them. They make their way into the house, by candlelight, and begin to explore: one couple are playful and adjourn to continue their courtship whilst the more responsible couple (to whom Blair belongs) talk. Meanwhile, the fraternity leaders soon sneak onto the property in order to play a number of tricks on the pledges. However, they are soon killed when it transpires that the supposedly tall tale of a cursed and murderous family formerly inhabiting and now haunting the place turns out to be true. The killer then goes after the intruders. When his playful girlfriend is murdered, one pledge (Vincent Van Patten) alerts the others and then runs to the gate. It is a high gate and he manages to climb it, swearing that he will go to town and get help. In the meantime, Blair and her friend must return to the house where the deformed killer is waiting for them. Van Patten does get to the town police station but the authorities are aware that it is pledge night and so dismiss his story as yet another college prank.
On a plot level, there is nothing particularly extraordinary about Hell Night. Although from a hardcore background, DeSimone even eschews any nudity, unusual in a genre where there is at least a topless scene.
Indeed, DeSimone uses the premise to present something of a cross section of teenage attitudes. The two couples have vastly different attitudes to life, fun and love and there is a clever contrast between their respective means of communication at an interpersonal level – the one physical and the other more cerebral. Thus, when the killer sets upon them, the film has the opportunity to almost allegorically examine the reactions of those who live by energy and those who remain resolutely proper react when their lives are threatened. Fear then is the impetus which crashes through propriety and significantly it is Van Patten, the playfully sensual man, on whom the others must first depend. Van Patten correspondingly has an energetic assurance that in the end Blair must aspire to if she is to free herself from the killer. It is not that Blair has discovered her sexuality in fear, rather that as a dependent figure she must find the physical means to fight back when threatened, and to do so requires what the film considers a passionate re-assessment of her own fear. This then leads to her realization that she can rely on no-one but herself. In that sense, Blair’s move to self-reliance is the point of the film.
But what remains most interesting about Hell Night is that its premise of college comedy, haunted house movie and horror film combine for an unusually self-conscious treatise on the nature of manufactured fright within the slasher genre.
Hence, the clowning between the frat boys intent to scare their pledges gives way to the genuine menace of impending homicide and so too the pledges’ expectations of fear are confounded when they realize that the threat they face is real. Cleverly thus beginning with the difference between a fake fright and a real fright, Hell Night manages to remain stylish and unnerving enough in its execution to carry its conceit over and above the rut. With an impressive colour sense and some truly remarkable cinematography for the genre, Hell Night emerges a curious enterprise, genuinely concerned for the fate of its characters and thus almost humanistic in a genre where the gory deaths of equally disposable characters proliferated. This humanism shows in the characterizations and establishes its villain as not only inhumane in his monstrousness but also thus inhuman because of it. Thus, he is deformed. Indeed, the film somewhat undercuts its humanism in its treatment of deformity as an inherent physical and psychological “other” whose primary abomination is to destroy the interpersonal contact that has begun to emerge between these nice young people.
DVD DETAILS:
Vision
Sound
The sound transfer may be available in Dolby Digital mono only but is clear and crisp within those limitations. The anarchic, cacophonic hedonism of American college fraternity culture is energetically conveyed in the opening scenes and the score is cleverly cued to the first appearance of the monster (the real shock artificially enhanced for a further comment on the film’s idea of manufactured fear). Much is made also of the difference between real and fake screams. The lulls in scoring work well to create both tension and character intimacy within the mansion. The judicious score is otherwise deployed conventionally but knowingly. Voices are effective and there is a sad sense of horror to the way the laughter segues into screaming as the horror mounts. Diegetic effects – the rustling of leaves and the compulsory ominous footsteps – are convincing. As the characters’ fear mounts and the film is slowly drained of colour, so too is there a mounting wind audible in the background, signifying the oncoming emotional desolation. Likewise, DeSimone cleverly has the dialogue progress from fun, quick and communicative exchanges into almost mono-syllabic exchanges and guttural noises from the killer: such is the collapse in communication brought out in the film. Although the aesthetic cleverness ultimately gives way to more conventional horror towards the end, the thematic journey here is carried intact.
In the way of special features are a widescreen trailer, two fullscreen television spots and biographies of Blair, DeSimone, Yablans and co-producer Bruce Cohn Curtis.
Of paramount fan interest is the commentary track by the same four people. It relates technical data about the filming process, production logistics, the use of elaborate steadicam movements (in the opening credits sequence) and features much discussion of the locations. It is a rather fond reminiscence of a commentary track, chatty but rather stop-start in nature. There is much discussion of the lighting and colour effects deployed to achieve the film’s distinctive look, described as “vibrant”. The specifics of using mood, texture and timing in place of gore and violence is raised as is the theme of Blair’s innocence and how the surfer-dude role was tailored for Van Patten. The participants mention their favourite movements and praise the film for its unusual emphasis on characterization. Reference is made to gore scenes that were filmed but considered too gruesome and so cut out of the film. Blair admits that she dislikes slasher films because they ruin the imagination with their explicitness. They talk of the deliberately timeless quality to the film through the costuming choices. There is a little flirtatious interplay over Blair’s running scenes and heaving bosom, contributing to the tone of playful, conversational recollection.
