Protraph Lack of good storyline.

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Anonymous Andy (Minus_The_Beer) Four college kids are sent to an abandoned mansion to fend for themselves during a hazing ritual gone wrong in "Hell Night." During their stay at Garth Manor, the group deal with pesky pranks from their peers and face off against a "gork" dubbed Andrew. We never find out what a gork is exactly, but it sounds relatively un-PC. At any rate, Andrew "Gork" Garth is a deformed child who has been left alone to his own devices. Now that he's all grown up, he's hellbent on murdering anyone who steps foot onto his property. That's unfortunate for Linda Blair and company, who lack the benefit of something like TripAdvisor. One thing's for sure, though; if they live through the night, this place is getting a dismal one-star review."Hell Night" came out in 1981, just as the slasher genre was gaining traction. It is at times derivative, and at others, it surprisingly deviates from the beaten path. The initial set up of four characters who alternate between horny, funny, smart and sympathetic is one we've seen countless times in the genre, but "Hell Night" puts a refreshing spin on things. For starters, its cast has a chemistry and a shared likability rarely seen in the slasher subset. An all-grown-up Linda Blair leads the cast with her charming girl-next-door presence, while pretty-boy Peter Barton ("Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter") plays her good-guy boyfriend. In the next room are the Spicoli-esque surfer dude and his hilariously charming and sexy girlfriend, played by Vincent Van Patten (son of Dick) and Suki Goodwin respectively. Goodwin in particular is a real firecracker, an endless ball of charm. It's a shame she quit acting shortly after this film came out. Her comedic chemistry with Van Patten jumps off the screen and nearly steals the show. That being said, all four actors are quite solid and work together to keep the film going, even through it's duller moments.Speaking of dull moments, there's more than a few of those here. Since the film is about 15-20 minutes longer than the average slasher, it's only natural this would happen. The atmosphere is pretty well established early on, and while the characters are never a chore to visit, the often-protracted stalking sequences can sometimes feel endless or even pointless. Having said that, when the jump scares hit, they hit hard. The film is a bit of a workhorse in that regard, as by the end, we are treated to a big jump seemingly every other minute. Tim DeSimone, who had previously worked in the adult film industry under the impossibly awesome psuedonym of Lancer Brooks, apes the likes of "Friday the 13th" and "Halloween" quite competently here. There are moments midway through the film that feel like someone traced over John Carpenter's work, right down to the sparse, synth-led score. Yet, for all that it borrows, it never feels entirely redundant. One digression in particular, where a lead character escapes the mansion and goes off to find help, is a welcome curveball. It's little moments like this that give the film its own unique flavor. While one could probably spend the bulk of its running length nit-picking it to death, there's just something undeniably charming about the way "Hell Night" plays out. It feels familiar, but at the same time, keeps us on our toes. With characters that you actually want to see survive and a killer who is not wearing a mask or wielding a chainsaw, "Hell Night" at least offers something you won't always find in '80s slashers. It's not a classic by any stretch of the imagination, but necessary viewing for any fan of the genre. "Hell Night" is, like the ritual itself: a rite of passage everyone should go through at least once.

Michael_Elliott Hell Night (1981) ** (out of 4)Early entry into the 80's slasher craze has four college students being locked up inside an old mansion. The gate is locked so that they can't get out and on their way into the mansion they are told about the legend of a family massacre and the one person who was never found. Sure enough, before long they are being stalked and killed by a maniac.Tom DeSimone's HELL HOUSE is a rather well-made film for the genre and it was released rather early on so there are some original moments here, which is something that was missing from a lot of what would follow. The film appears to have been influenced by various Gothic horror films of the 1980s as the director is clearly going for some atmosphere and not just a bunch of cheap thrills and gory deaths. With that said, for me HELL NIGHT just doesn't work because it's just too routine in way too many ways.The biggest problem I had with the film is the fact that there really weren't any interesting people in it. The four college students are extremely boring and there's not a bit of energy or life in any of them. Usually these slashers at least give you characters that you like and could hang out with but these four are just boring and everything dealing with them just doesn't have much fun. I'd argue that the killer himself is rather routine and he just doesn't stick out in an overly crowded field of killers.For the most part I thought Linda Blair and Vincent Van Patten were good in their roles. The death scenes aren't the most graphic that you're going to see but there is a little blood for fans of that. The final chase lasts way too long and at 101-minutes the film also drags in spots. There are a lot of scenes with the characters just sitting around talking and it takes way too long for this train to get moving and by the time it does there's still just not enough going on.

Leofwine_draca HELL NIGHT is a run-of-the-mill slasher flick from the early 1980s, notable only for the casting of THE EXORCIST's Linda Blair as a college student who decides to spend the night in a haunted mansion along with some of her equally unaware companions. Of course, what starts out as a night of fun and hijinks soon turns into something a lot darker.To be frank, HELL NIGHT has little to make it stand out with other slashers from the era, except that it focuses more on building the usual creepy stalk-and-slash atmosphere rather than providing more gruesome thrills (the bloodshed is limited this time around). The characters are the usual archetypes, and nobody can go into this expecting Blair to deliver a good performance; she's here to show off her cleavage, and that's about it.The eventual unmasking of the villains makes for an effective spook-show scare, however, and I admit to liking the last half hour or so, where things really start to kick off with some great chase material. The presence of British actress Suki Goodwin in the cast was a nice surprise for me, even if the male actors deliver completely undistinguished performances. In the end, HELL NIGHT is one of those ghost train rides captured on film; good fun at the time but completely forgettable afterwards.

mdarmocida I didn't expect much from this film. I figured it would be a campy 1980s horror flick. Let's face it, if you've seen Linda Blair act before, then you know this movie can't be all that good. The only time she did a convincing performance was in the Exorcist and even then the makeup and effects pretty much did all the acting for her.I watched this movie anyway so I could see the "exciting" and "clever" ending, of which many of the other reviewer have spoken. Are they kidding? "Exciting," "clever"? All she did was drive the car into a fence and the guy got impaled. So what? It wasn't even that good and certainly not worth sitting through the rest of the movie. There wasn't even nudity to give this movie at least some value. Even when they came close to nudity it was the most lame sex scene that I'd ever seen in my life. Basically it was two kids in their underwear rolling on the bed and laughing and talking, the scene of which was peppered nearly throughout the entire movie.Sorry other reviewers, this movie isn't worth the time to watch it.