Night Screams

DVD Image Entertainment
1987, 85 minutes

review by Lee Peterson

  1987 was an exceptional year for horror. Audiences were treated to the directorial debuts of Clive Barker (Hellraiser), Peter Jackson (Bad Taste) and Jorg Buttgereit (Nekromantik). Dario Argento hit what some consider a high water mark with Opera. Sam Raimi did the same with Evil Dead 2.

   It was a little late in the game for a by-the-numbers slasher flick, and that's probably why this turd is barely remembered (it's not even listed on the Internet Movie Database!).

   Night Screams opens with a TV viewing of another '80's slasher pic (Graduation Day), which, unfortunately, only points out how sub-par a slasher Night Screams is. You know a movie is bad when, ten minutes in, you realize you'd rather be watching slop like Graduation Day! 

   David (Joe Manno) is a high school football hero who has bad headaches and blackouts if he forgets to take his medication. While his parents are out for the night, David decides to throw a party. The "kids" (who look as much like teenagers as John Travolta did in Grease!) break out the booze, jack up the generic-sounding early-'80's tunes, and get picked off one by one. There's an electrocution, a strangulation, a couple of stabbings, and even a credulity-stretching poisoning, but not a whiff of tension or originality to any of the killings.  A subplot involving two escaped convicts who are slowly (and I do mean slowly) working their way toward the party looks like it belongs in another movie altogether.

   The strangest moment occurs when, during the obligitory  "couple sneaks away from the party to have sex" scene, the film cuts back and forth from the (PG-level) sex scene to a scene of '70's porn star Seka taking a shower! 

   What the fuck? 

   Did I just have a blackout?!

   By the time the killer's identity is finally revealed (save yourself the 80 minutes and use the "chapter skip" button to get there!), you will have made a mental list of all the reasons why slasher movies suck. 

   Image Entertainment's full-screen transfer of the "Unrated Director's Cut" (more likely, nobody bothered to submit it for a rating in the first place) looks and sounds okay, but there are absolutely no extras included. Come to think of it, that's probably a good thing--I don't think I could've wasted another minute of my life on this crap.

For the record, Night Screams was edited by Herbert Strock, who directed I Was a Teenage Frankenstein and The Crawling Hand. Allen Plone later directed Phantom of the Ritz (1992). 

   Hmmm...now where did I put my old VHS copy of 
My Bloody Valentine...? 

OFFICIAL WEB SITE:
www.image-entertainment.com

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