The Stay Awake (1987)

In fact, you might as well say it's the exact same film done in about one or two days and on maybe a couple dollars budget at best. I don't like any of the women in this film and most of them probably did it for a good laugh, rather than the art film it was probably intended to try and become. The villain is hardly menacing, even with that big booming voice of his, and even if there should be a crossover film for no apparent reason between him, Freddy, or Jason, he'd be eaten alive in the first couple of minutes. I'm gonna be completely honest with you, that's what needs to be done these days... crossover battles between all forms and kinds of Z-grade (on up) horror villains like this one, to see if any of them even can live to see the light of day.Granted, I think the only interesting thing about this thing was the demonic costume. I could have sworn I was looking at a rejected Barney outfit that had been turned down, and modified just a tinge for purposes of this story. At any rate--- here's what I suggest you do to enjoy this film.Get really, really drunk.Then you'll love this movie.

Nauseatingly awful film that begins with a serial girl killer being executed in 1969 somewhere in America. As he is being primed for the gas chamber, he rants over and over again that he is the prince of darkness and cannot die. The film then forwards to 19 years later somewhere in Europe at an all girl's school. From here we see a bunch of pretty yet untalented girls and their teacher do aerobics, watch a movie and eat potato crisps, smoke cigarettes, and play scary games on each other. All the while the spirit of the killer seen in the exposition piece comes to this place 19 years later and for some weird, inexplicable reason to Europe of all places. This movie sucks bad and in a big way. Why does this spirit come here and 19 years later? Why is he back as a real cheap looking demon costume - like he just lost the lead for a baby Godzilla commercial or something? And perhaps my biggest question: how do you make money holding a stay awake? Anyway, you can guess....well, not really but you get the general idea, what happens. People die and there is a fight of the teacher(wearing a crucifix) against the rubber menace. In one scene, knowing she is only being protected by the crucifix, she lays it on a table. Why would she do that? Nothing later shows it to be a good move. Ultimately, The Stay Awake is a very tiring, boring movie with almost no merit at all. Nothing exciting happens. The script is riddled with question marks and bad scenes. The direction is trite. The acting very poor. The setting of the school is impressive at the very...and I mean very...least. All the girls are quite fetching, but you don't get to see anything so the movie doesn't deliver at any level. there is absolutely no way I can believe this had any theatrical release of any kind. It must be one of those direct-to-video movies so popular in the 1980s.

I hated this movie...it was boring, pointless, and stupid. There is no gore, no nudity, nothing fun...just lots of pointless footage of this messed up "demon killer" or something roaming the halls of a girls school in Europe. The girls are a bunch of annoying chicks with big hair and badly dubbed voices. One of them even sounds like she's a she-male her voice sounds so manly. I hated sitting through this film! Yuck! Do not even waste your money on it. I found it for like two dollars at an old flea market up in Northern Michigan. Good thing I didn't spend for than that. Yes, folks, it is that bad!! Avoid this piece of lard at all costs!

This movie had definite potential: a large group of nubile young girls are stalked in a locked-up Catholic School by an evil, unstoppable force. I'll bet there's even a good movie in that premise. But "The Stay Awake" was not it. Overly European, some of the poorly-dubbed dialogue didn't even sound the right gender. It moved slowly at first, then ground to a screeching halt that continued almost until the end. Who really needs ten minutes of Camera-As-Killer roaming the halls, looking for victims, yet finding nothing? Time after time, the unseen killer would lurk, follow, and approach one of the girls, only to be gone when genuine tension was right around the corner. And when he finally started to kill, it made less sense than "Basic Instinct" on the Superstation. When at last we saw the killer's face, it was some poorly-made body suit with a plastic rat's head with bulbous red eyes. Why? That's not scary. There was never any explanation as to the killer's motives, or why he came back, or why he would be attacking people in Europe (though the supposedly-American prologue took place in no America I've ever seen--obviously the same un-named and nondescript European locale the rest of the film took place in). The only highpoint was how genuinely attractive some of these girls were, sparking hope that we'd get some cool interaction, real character development, or at least a good shower scene. Well, when they hit the showers, the scene immediately cut to what was going on elsewhere, as if this were a made-for-television movie somewhere and nobody told us. Lack of nudity aside, none of these girls (except the one dubbed by a man) ever seemed to be an individual (just "Girl 1," "Girl 3," "Supposedly Fat Girl But Isn't", etc.) and I cared about none of them. All for the best, since the film ended abruptly and unexpectedly, with (SPOILER?) the 'all-powerful' killer easily defeated. I feel I've wasted a lot of words and time describing this dull, not-entertaining failure of a movie. Don't waste yours.