Saturday, August 8

To All a Good Night (1980)

photocopy with silly magic marker fill-in...OF DOOM.

Directed by David Hess
90 Minutes / Media Home Entertainment / Cropped from 1.85:1 to full screen

It's Christmas vacation at the regal Calvin Finishing School for Girls and the nubile student body are planning a night of debauchery, but first they must drug their housemother to sleep. With their bothersome overseer in bed, the girls start bringing the sexy back with their flown-in boytoys, and soon a figure dressed as Santa is making them prey by axe and crossbow.

The morning after the spooky groundskeeper that warned of evil doings afoot just hours prior is found now one with his beloved dirt-bound organics. The girls do some hand ringing as a couple detectives try to quell their fears and then it's back to fucking like the four horsemen of the apocalypse could be seen on the horizon as night falls once more. Go figure, ol' Saint Nick is ready to collect more girl part adornments for the holiday.

This is how I envision Mr. Stillo himself landed is lone directorial effort and even though I love his whore cuttin', folk singin' ass--I'm willing to bet he doesn't have pleasant memories of being in the director chair. Let's face it, this is the draw of this mediocre poorly-lit slasher. Hess's style never flourishes, except for a handful of motorized pans, and 98% of the time the camera seems braced for hurricane winds. The rest doesn't save the picture; with characters you never warm to, blood played safe for the ratings board (or possibly trimmed), and a nothing-new killer reveal. Definitely for slash completists only, which is a pain to say.


VHS Picture: 3/10 (dark meets dark)
VHS Sound: 4/10

2 comments:

Jayson Kennedy said...

I'm glad someone got this! When I usually bring up "piss your pants" in relation to Hess people look at me like I'm nuts.

Tower Farm said...

Yeah...this movie is super cheap and boring. I do enjoy the fact that the killer uses an airplane prop to kill someone...that's creative. And the fact that the sorority girls are completely mean and unpleasant through the whole movie is nice, because it's just that more satisfying when they get killed off.
Anyway, I gave it a "one" at my site...so we're in pretty close agreement!
-Billy

...do you dare tread upon the staircase?

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