Slasher Stop Off - Girls Nite Out (1982)

I couldn’t help but think as I was watching “Girls Nite Out” (1982), “How on earth did Holbrook get coerced into being in this film?” I admit, I was really excited about encountering a slasher flick in the early 80s that I had never seen. This was one that might have been buried among shelves of horror titles at my old Downs’ Video (the store with the curtained room I was too young to even dare…) before I was “of age”. That was one store that would press for my age while some of the others weren’t so strict. I probably would have been disappointed if I did drop $2.50 for “Girls Nite Out”.

Victim list: 

Benson (Mathew Dunn), the frisky, cocky mascot who wears the bear costume taken by the killer. He was fooling around with Sheila (Lauren-Marie Taylor; “Friday the 13^th Part 2 (1981)). Bone of contention to Sheila’s temperamental sort-of boyfriend, Mike Pryor (David Holbrook, Hal’s son).

Jane (Laura Summer), a flighty and fun blond who made the mistake of locating the first scavenger hunt clue, encountering the killer without anyone to help her, while her best friend, Kathy (Carrick Glenn; “The Burning” (1981)) awaits her return at a location of their choosing rendezvous point.

Kathy goes to find Jane in the school, encountering the killer. Her death is off-screen after finding Jane in a crucifixion pose on the floor.

Sheila believes Benson is meeting her for sex, but the person in the bear costume doesn’t have naughty intentions. His intentions are quite severe.

Leslie (Lois Robbins), ex-girlfriend of star basketball player, Pete, “The Maniac” (Mart McChesney), dating a frat president, goes into a church attic to look for a scavenger hunt clue, instead locating the killer in the bear costume. Just the four-knife paw coming towards the screen as Leslie screams, “NOOOOOOO!”

Teddy (James Carroll), the basketball team leader, and cheating boyfriend to the beautiful Lynn Connors (Julie Montgomery; “Revenge of the Nerds” (1984)) answers the call from a frightened Dawn Sorenson (Suzanne Barnes), eventually meeting her at the student union kitchen. Dawn is injured by the knife claw but alive, with Teddy not anticipating the lunchlady he often flirts with (Rutanya Alda, of all people) having a long butcher knife. Teddy was kneeling down, a knife in the back was almost a certainty.

Like others I’m sure, when I noticed slasher familiars (Glenn and Taylor) in “Girls Nite Out” and Hal Holbrook (and eventually Alda), I was psyched. On each of our “slasher checklist”, locating another film to mark off, with cast members from some of the most popular of the genre (“The Burning” & “Friday the 13^th Part 2”), gets the blood pumping. But as often can be the case with plenty of the slashers in the 1980s, the letdown should be expected as the norm at this point. I should be used to that comedown off an initial high. It seems to always feel like I’m unwrapping a present only to find a dud inside. 

Holbrook isn’t as bad to me as I had read and heard. Was he as good as he can be? Why should he be? This wasn’t the kind of film that really deserved a five-star performance. He dutifully showed up on set, performed his lines, and cashed that paycheck. And he did get to perform with his son onscreen in one throwaway scene where his security guard, Mac, confronts Mike over his volatile mishandling of a breakup with Sheila. Mac’s daughter was killed by an unstable Dickie Cavanaugh (also played by Alda!), who later hung himself (the opening scene in the sanitarium), because he considered her a whore. The reveal regarding Dickie’s sister, her voice in and out “as him” and the freezer with his body, while Mac is left to try and “talk her down” at the end as the film goes to credits is as flat and frustrating as any slasher you ever come across from this decade. It just doesn’t land clean.

The film is so devoted to the romantic/sexual/comical exploits of the student circle that involves many of the victims I just mentioned, along with two friends who are goofballs talking about beaver while charming all their friends with their many facial and voice expressions, a radio DJ playing goldie oldies and giving Scavenger Hunt clues, and interludes with Mac and the sidestory of his dead daughter that the slasher side is often of less significance. 

And even when the slasher side gets some time, it just isn’t enough, I don’t think, to really speak to the kind of audience who would embrace “Girls Nite Out”. I like the Scavenger Hunt idea as a slasher backdrop, but “Midnight Madness” with a psycho this just doesn’t quite achieve. There just isn’t enough energy behind the direction. 

It’s more about Teddy wanting to fuck Dawn who is involved with the wealthy heir to a business empire (Tony Shultz’ Bud Remington), while Montgomery’s very tolerant, Lynn, just stomachs her boyfriend’s inability to remain faithful. And many of these students just blatantly cheat out in the open: Sheila and Benson just make out, knowing Mike is watching, while Teddy is hitting on Dawn while Lynn is close by. Pete, who you would think might have a far greater role in the film considering he scored the winning hoop during the basketball game championship, is introduced, boozes a bit with Teddy in a homoerotic whisky binge, sees Lindsey at a party the night before the Scavenger Hunt, and has one more interrogation scene. 

But large chunks of the film leave Pete out while Teddy sleeps with two women and gets to do so with little impunity. There is a token nerd with glasses who remains odd, I can only guess, because those who write scripts for slashers just felt that smart kids in college with average looks are nothing but a bunch of weirdoes…he scares Lynn in the dark, later at the party just grabbing at girls during a song. I wish there was more enthusiasm in how the Scavenger Hunt was staged. Night scenes could have been really atmospheric but despite a few moments where women in the cast walk alone through campus, the direction just doesn’t capitalize. And with all the students, there is a sparing amount participating in the hunt. I almost bought this film and I had a sigh of relief once I watched this to completion on YouTube because I was spared eleven bucks and shipping/handling.

The cast, I truly felt, improvised a lot. Especially right before the party, during the party, and some after it…the jokey playfulness of the cast members playing the students just felt produced on the spot, often off-the-cuff. I could be wrong, but they just didn’t restrain from the congenial silly hi-jinks that took up a lot of the early part of the film. That might entertain some slasher fans. I was more or less hoping the film would find that right tempo and kick into gear…it just never quite reached me. I have no reason to think it ever will. A disappointment. 2/5

*I failed to mention Richard Bright as the lead detective, called by Mac once Lynn finds Lindsey dead. Pete and Mike are interviewed because red herrings they are considering their histories with victims. But all of this is left behind once the film concludes at the student union, with a killer that was barely in this much at all