One Dark Night (1983)/Old Negative Review

 

These user comments are from April 2009. I wanted to include this because I felt differently tonight than I did in 2009. I think some hype and this significant interest at the time built up too much anticipation.

I had never even heard of ONE DARK NIGHT until someone mentioned it on a horror message board here recently, and reading into it, I gained interest due to Meg Tilly's involvement and recognizing that it was an early gig for Friday THE 13TH VI:JASON LIVES director Tom McLoughlin . Unfortunately, sad to say, it's nothing special. The premise has a familiarity to it:a college girl must survive the night in an old mausoleum until morning in order to join a sorority. That girl is a young Meg Tilly, as Julie, who wishes to prove to her loving, caring boyfriend, Steve(David Mason Daniels)that she can make his cruel, conniving ex-girlfriend, Carol's(Robin Evans)sorority regardless of the tactics she pulls in order to see her fail. Along with Carol's gang is Kitty(Leslie Speights), always with a toothbrush in her mouth, and Leslie(Elizabeth Daily)who doesn't really wish to cause Julie such trouble. While Leslie insists on leaving Julie alone as she remains in the mausoleum, Carol and Kitty plan to torment the poor girl. Meanwhile Steve searches for her while Julie, Carol and Kitty encounter an evil they couldn't possibly imagine..the corpse of a recently diseased "psychic vampire", whose telekinesis was of a dangerously powerful degree, will seek to drain them of their very lifeforce. The only one who can help these girls is the dead man's daughter, Olivia(Melissa Newman)who is equipped with the same psychic power he has.

I think what many will find exciting is the unusual evil that threatens the girls in the mausoleum, it's certainly different than what you normally see in the slashers that were out at this time. Like Adam West's character(..he was the cynical husband of Olivia who found the idea of her father's power ridiculous), I had a really hard time adjusting to the tacky plot, and I personally never found anything within the film to get excited about. The mausoleum to me never really was that spooky(..it doesn't really achieve the same kind of eerie quality PHANTASM captured) and the corpses which are used to attack the girls are laughably unconvincing(..there is one great scene where a corpse's face melts away). I have a soft spot for low budget films from this period of time, but I just never really could find a reason to get involved when you have this unsatisfying undead corpse shooting electric bolts from it's eyes causing other bodies to break free from their crypts to obey their master. It's just too silly to take seriously. Carol is your typical blond bitch wishing to punish a nice girl who is dating a former flame. Steve is your typical, squeaky clean all-American boyfriend, handsome and tender, who becomes the hero seeking to save his girl from whatever sinister forces are at play. To make up for the small budget director McLoughlin tries every trick in the book to thrill the audience, using a series of ooga-booga effects such as corpses which pursue young girls, chairs which shake and tremble, doors that slam shut, and objects levitating by themselves. The film obviously has it's fans, and I am glad I had a chance to see it, but I was a bit disappointed that ONE DARK NIGHT wasn't the horror sleeper I hoped for. Adam West has a very small role as the concerned husband hoping his wife will snap out of her depressed state regarding a father who had nothing to do with her. Melissa Newman is the troubled Olivia, recognizing that she must stop her father once and for all or else he'd continue to prey on the living. Donald Hotton is Dockstader, an associate of Olivia's father's who informs her of what he was. I wasn't particularly blown away by Tilly's performance here(..she was basically scared most of the time), but she'd get a chance to prove herself to a greater degree from this point onward. This will undoubtedly be of some value to those who watched it back at that time, for nostalgia purposes it might seduce fans of movies from this era.