Hell Night (1981)

Four college pledges are forced to spend the night in a deserted old mansion, where they are stalked by the monstrous survivor of a family massacre years earlier.

Director:

Tom DeSimone (as Tom De Simone)

Writer:

Randy Feldman (as Randolph Feldman)

Stars:

Linda Blair, Vincent Van Patten, Peter Barton

1 win & 1 nomination.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Linda Blair	...	Marti
Vincent Van Patten	...	Seth
Peter Barton	...	Jeff
Kevin Brophy	...	Peter
Jenny Neumann	...	May
Suki Goodwin	...	Denise
Jimmy Sturtevant	...	Scott
Hal Ralston	...	Older Cop
Carey Fox	...	Younger Cop (as Cary Fox)
Ron Gans	...	Driver (as Ronald Gans)
Gloria Heilman	...	Party Girl

Storyline

Before being able to join Alpha Sigma Rho fraternity and its sister sorority, four pledges must spend the night in Garth Manor, twelve years to the day after the previous resident murdered his entire family. Some, however, say that one member of the Garth family survived, and still resides somewhere in the now-deserted mansion.

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Plot Keywords:

night | college | sorority | fraternity | cult film | 

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Taglines:

Pray for day!

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Genres:

Horror | Thriller

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

28 August 1981 (USA)

Also Known As:

Noche infernal

Filming Locations:

Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

BLT Productions, Media Home Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

101 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The filmmakers had a hard time with the owl that was supposed to fly directly at the camera. They couldn't get the bird to do it, so they eventually settled on a shot of the owl flying to the upper right of the camera.

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Goofs

The boom camera can be seen in the VHS version when Vinnie Van Patten is demonstrating his surf moves to Suki Goodwin.

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Quotes

Peter Bennett: [Explaining why they shouldn't try climbing over the high fence] They'd be likely to cut their nuts off.

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Alternate Versions

Although the UK cinema version was uncut, early video versions suffered a brief 1 second edit by the BBFC to remove a closeup of a body being punctured by spikes from an iron fence. The cut was waived in 2002.

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Connections

Referenced in The Big Box: Don't Open the Door (2010)

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Soundtracks

Theme from 'Hell Night'
Sung by Leza Miller
Music by Dan Wyman
Lyrics by Bob Walters (as Bob Walter)

User Reviews

One Hell Of A Night

Basic Plot = four pledges must spend the night in Garth Manor, twelve years to the day after the previous resident murdered his entire family. Two of the pledges, Marti (Linda Blair, The Exorcist) and Jeff (Peter Barton), ignore the rumours that the now-deserted mansion is haunted by a crazed killer, until one-by-one, members of their group mysteriously disappear. Could this be part of the fraternity prank or is it a demented former tenant seeking revenge? When the seemingly innocent rite of passage turns deadly, these college students will do anything to survive Hell Night." Hell Night is a fun way to waste a couple of hours, a definite popcorn flick which isn't a bad thing, the cast are clearly having fun with they're roles, Suki Goodwin, as Denise, is a scream; providing the film's main comedy moments without really grating. She sails through the film on a wave of booze, Quaaludes (whatever happened to those?) and double-ententes. Linda Blair is also as effortlessly likable as you'd imagine, as the slightly tomboyish girl (with the handy mechanic skills).

Hell Night never fails to be entertaining,It's the fun early 80's slasher flick - designed for retro thrills, fun scares and popcorn munching. It takes itself seriously enough to stop from descending into self-parody funny to talk about innocence in a film where a bunch of people get carved up in creative ways, but HELL NIGHT is a perfect twilight genre example of the slasher flick before it descended into self parody and rapidly shrinking budgets.