Terror Night (1989)

TERROR NIGHT is a film that was made in 1987 but wasn't released until recently under an alternate moniker, BLOODY MOVIE. Both titles are correct, but I would have to say it's more bloody than it is terrifying.Lance Hayward is a 1920's film star who disappeared a long time ago and is long believed to be dead. A group of teenagers decide to head up to his old estate before it gets torn down. They run across a biker couple who broke in as well, and soon, all of them are stalked and killed in gruesome ways by someone wearing Haywood's old costumes.This film is filled to the brim with old stars making cameos, with most getting dispatched in gruesome ways. Among them includes Dan Haggerty (Grizzly Adams!), Alan Hale, Aldo Ray, Cameron Mitchell, and John Ireland. I felt their presence was fitting, considering the movie was about an old star no one remembers, so the whole thing felt like an homage to the films of yesteryear. In fact, it even incorporates clips from some old, sepia flicks to help the movie flow, and I think the cost it took to get the rights to these films was the reason it was never released theatrically or on video (until a few years ago).The gore quotient is reasonably high, with people getting ripped apart, impaled on a spear, decapitated, chopped up, and more. This flick has a supernatural killer who likes to change costumes, like in FADE TO BLACK or TERROR TRAIN, but I feel it's done very, very well here with a pirate, a mobster, a knight, and more offing the teens in inventive ways.The performances ranged from pretty good to really bad, with a lot of overacting taking place during some scenes.The film was going along great with a good sense of humor, outstanding grue, a cool killer, and a zippy pace until the last couple of minutes. It makes zero sense, and worst of all, it's really, really boring. So close, yet so far. I love the opening and closing songs, though.I would say that this film is most certainly worth checking out for fans of cheesy, oddball eighties slashers.

Three couples decide to party the night away at the abandoned estate of film star Lance Hayward. Hayward was a Fairbanks and Flynn type in the 1920s, but has been missing for the past 20 years so his place is scheduled to be demolished. The kids encounter an unruly biker couple (the female half being Michelle Bauer) just before Hayward starts killing them in methods patterned after his top films. This is another one of those "how did this get made" films, but is an easy way to pass 90 minutes. There is plenty of graphic gore and some nudity (from Bauer, naturally). The old Hollywood star angle could have worked better had they put more thought into it and the production benefits from use of several Fairbanks productions. It is never explained why he is still so agile in 1987 or how he can survive a huge fire with no problem. Top billed John Ireland (who is the last incarnation of Hayward) and Cameron Mitchell get rough 5 minutes of screen time. Also top billed Alan Hale, Aldo Ray and Dan Haggerty get roughly 3 minutes of screen time each.

1920s film star Lance Hayward is missing to the world at large, but people begin mysteriously dying around his abandoned estate. Three teen couples (including a woman who is a huge fan of the presumably deceased actor) end up going there on an otherwise boring weekend and rummaging through the place. They find old movie props, a locked vault, nitrate movie cans (that come in handy during the fiery finale) and some other interesting things until they start disappearing one by one. There are also a few barely-seen Zoot Suit-wearing phantoms who lurk around the woods and use two cars to pull a guy in half. Director Nick Marino's contribution to the 80s slasher cycle does not fully overcome the familiarity of the premise, but stylistically he is trying something a little bit different, beginning with mock silent screen credits and a great song by Ian Whitcomb which is also an effective evocation of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Before each murder, we get a flurry of movie clips from anonymous films and comic-book like shots of movie stills and lobby cards, all edited with quick precision and all tinted monochrome, so it doesn't look as sloppy as it otherwise would have. The clips may also explain why this film did not find a wide release until about fifteen years after it was made (the filmmaker may have come across some copyright problems when using this footage). The special effects are certainly bloody enough and there are a variety of murders here. A man is pulled apart by two cars, a hand is chopped off, someone is impaled on a picket fence and there's a pretty good decapitation (followed by a bloody head on a platter gag). Other deaths involve everything from a bow and arrow to fencing sword. The sets are minimal, but effective. But the screenplay could have definitely used another polish; the stereotyped characters are thrown into the mix with a killer who is not only wholesale boogie-man material but whose motivations and reason for existing are so hopelessly muddled that you never know for sure just what he is or why he is doing what he's doing. The clarity is almost non-existent, but I assumed the man is a ghost since he pops up all over the place and appears in both youthful and elderly forms. But, hell, by the time it's all over with, you can't totally hate this one. After all, somehow it ends up letting the cultured heavy and lone female survivor do some passionate Shakespearian stage work somewhere in limbo!Now get ready for some major name dropping. The credits on this film read like a who's-who of exploitation of the 1980s. As with most slasher films from the period, the performances are highly variable. The veterans in the cast all have about one scene each and get through BLOODY MOVIE with a bare minimum of embarrassment. Aldo Ray is a wino who gets a hook in the head, Dan Haggerty is impaled, Cameron Mitchell is a detective who is strangled and hung and Alan Hale, Jr. (The Skipper from Gilligan's Island) is a wide-eyed security guard (and the only one without a death scene). John Ireland receives top billing as the killer, but he doesn't even materialize on-screen until the very end (though to his credit, it is still a creepy cameo). Of the younger cast, we have some familiar faces; Bill Butler (LEATHERFACE, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD remake), Ken Abraham (CREEPOZOIDS), Carla Baron and John Stuart Wildman (both from SORORITY BABES IN THE SLIMEBALL BOWL-O-RAMA), and 'Denise Stafford' (that's her head on the platter on the DVD cover; Stafford apparently is a porn actress who goes by the name Jamie Summers). Though leading lady Staci Greason (who played the first victim in Friday THE 13TH, PART VII) is quite good and gives the most professional showing of the younger cast, it is Michelle Bauer who steals this film away from her co-stars with a full blown comedic performance. She carries on quite capably here and nails the most laughs as a drunken punker chick who ends up stumbling her way through the mansion with her annoying biker boyfriend before getting whipped and pushed down a flight of stairs. I appreciate the filmmakers for having the common sense to keep her around until near the end. Though I am sad to report that sleaze great Jay Richardson, who is in just as many of the schlock horror films as Michelle, is barely visible as one of the forest-lurking phantoms.Originally titled TERROR NIGHT, this was worked on by a lot of prolific and familiar Z-movie production people. It was co-scripted by Kenneth J. Hall (who also helped cast the film), was co-produced by Nancy Paloian (producer of DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR?, hence the misleading packaging) and shot by Howard Wexler. The special effects are by Cleve Hall (who was also the 2nd unit director, along with porn purveyor Fred J. Lincoln) and John Vulich helped shoot and edit it. Given special thanks in the end credits are Andre de Toth (the director of the original version of HOUSE OF WAX; he lent directorial assist to Marino and is actually listed on here as being the co-director), David DeCoteau and Fred Olen Ray.

Every once in a while, someone decides that there needs to be another movie about horny teens going somewhere to get butchered. Still, "Terror Night" (also called "Bloody Movie") does put an interesting spin on that motif. In this case, the house of 1920s movie star Lance Hayward is getting repossessed by the city; Hayward disappeared from the public eye many years earlier. Anyway, some typical '80s teens opt to go there for the night, and...well, you can probably guess what happens to them, especially since two of them are fiddling around in the bathtub when they first appear in the movie.What makes this slasher movie a little different is the fact that a number of old B-actors appear in it. John Ireland plays Lance Hayward, but Aldo Ray plays a homeless man and Alan Hale plays a security guard. Personally, I wish that Alan Hale could have gotten more screen time, so that he could have maybe assumed his Skipper persona. Maybe they could have brought in the other Castaways to irk him. Oh well.Also, when the murders happen, they use scenes from Lance Hayward's movies to show the murders. Considering that horror veteran Andre De Toth (House of Wax) was involved in this movie, it makes sense that it would be a little different.