• Wide Release
• Director: Tom McLoughlin
• Written by: Tom McLoughlin, Michael Hawes
• Running Time: 94 minutes
• Language: English
• MPAA Rating: R - Restricted
• Cast: Meg Tilly, Melissa Newman, Robin Evans, Leslie Speights, Donald Hotton, Elizabeth Daily, David Mason Daniels, Adam West, Leo Gorcey Jr., Rhio H. Blair, Larry Carroll, Katee McClure, Kevin Peter Hall, Nancy Mott, Theodore Lehmann, Albert Ash, Martin Nosseck, Shandor

Review

“One Dark Night” is one of those films that generally derives nothing but praise from online critics, and is often cited as a genuine cult classic that needs to be sought out at all costs, but, personally, I don’t get it. For me, this film was not the cheesy soiree my peers on the net fashioned it up to be, but rather, I found it to be a tedious bore that left me feeling more sleepy than inspired. Sorry but I don’t find entertainment value in watching a group of odious protagonists doing things we’ve seen done many times before in much better films. Set in the 1980’s, with all of its quirks, big hair and high waist bands, the era seems to become a character unto itself.

Desperate to prove herself to a trio of trendy girls called ‘the Sisters’, a dough-eyed pledge named Julie (Meg Tilly) consents to one final act of humiliation, spending the night alone in an old mausoleum. ‘The Sisters’, who are, ‘like, so cool’ consist of three not too bright, average looking girls, including the self-appointed leader, the haughty Carol (Robin Evans), the obedient Kitty (Leslie Speights) -- whose only notable character trait is chewing on a toothbrush -- and the friendly but passive, Leslie (Elizabeth Daily), an adorable young lady who spends nearly all of her screen time smiling even when she probably shouldn’t be. Right away we learn that Carol has no intention of letting Julie become a ‘Sister’ because, well, Julie has been making time with her ex, a celebrated basketball player named Steve (David Mason Daniels). Sensing that something is amiss, Steve tries to warn Julie that maybe indulging this final initiation stunt might be a bad idea. Regardless, Julie has grown to despise her good girl image, and sees the initiation-stunt as a means of reinventing herself, insisting to Steve that it’s not about them, it’s about her.

Later in the day, after getting dropped off, Julie sneaks into the old mausoleum just minutes before the clueless old caretaker locks the place down. With endless corridors of tombs stretched out in front of her, Julie has only a sleeping bag, a flashlight and something that the girls insisted was a Quaalude (something to help her sleep, if you believe that) to shelter her from those spooky noises that seem to be coming, almost immediately, from somewhere inside the building. Sadly, what Julie doesn’t know is that those strange noises aren’t at all natural, nope, it’s not the foundation settling or whatever. See, Julie just happens to be bunking up with a world famous psychic/serial killer named Raymar, who, only day’s prior was found dead in his ravaged apartment, along with a closet full of female corpses. As we come to learn through a separate but linear storyline involving his daughter Olivia (Melissa Newman), Raymar was at one time a brilliant clairvoyant/telekinetic who somehow harnessed the ability to snatch souls from another. As his closet full of dead lasses would later attest, old Raymar became consumed by his unique ability. Despite the fact that he was presumed dead by the coroner, and was entombed inside the mausoleum, a common thing for people who have died, Raymar apparently still has enough juice left in the old tank to wreak havoc on Julie from beyond the grave. Blessed with her father’s psychic and telekinetic abilities, Olivia is able to mentally access the mausoleum just as Pop makes his big entrance (or re-entrance, I guess) and, without thinking, she high-tails it down there to put an end to her father’s madness once and for all, and maybe save a few people too.

Spending so much time with Tilly’s character early on, defining her and giving her layers, seems almost pointless the minute the film rears into the third act, and she is all but forgotten in favour of two totally one-dimensional unsavoury genetic twins, Kitty and Carol, who wander around the mausoleum playing ‘boo’. I’m clueless as to why the filmmakers chose to go in the direction they did – giving the Sisters so much screen time while punting Tilly’s doped up and totally hysterical character off to an out of the way room so she can get fetal with a blanket and a small candle. To make matters worse, the central villain, Raymar, is hardly the terror-inducing psychological heavy he’s pumped up to be, not even after his various crimes and abilities have been laid out before us, he’s still yawn inducing. Late in the film, when he finally erupts from his tomb in a very cinematic fashion, complete with a light spectacle, fans turned up to high, electrical discharge emanating from his eyes and lots of spooky music, it’s so over-the-top ridiculous that it kills whatever effect the producer’s were shooting for. It was clearly an attempt to derive some level of suspense by not revealing Raymar’s face until the final moments, but, hey, it barely worked because, like his meagrely attended funeral early on, nobody cared for him and neither do we.

Probably the only worthwhile element of the film that I could find involved the eventual arrival of the walking dead -- actually they are telepathically animated corpses freed from their tombs by Raymar, who float rather walk, but lest I be accused of getting all-nit picky, I’ll just say, they looked cool. Tom Burman, the special effects technician on the film, works wonders using mannequins rather than real people. Note the decaying little girl still clutching her teddy bear.

Somehow, out of this mess, Meg Tilly comes through looking pretty good. Although she’s confident enough to date a school jock, she still manages to come across as quite shy and unsure of herself – something that helps to ingratiate the audience to her. When everything starts to go to hell and the drugs start to kick in late in the film, Tilly seems believable as a delirious mess, who’s tipping towards pure madness as she attempts to, hastily, make sense out of lunacy going on around. In her altered state of mind, the audience can’t help but sympathize with her fear and panic, more so than the other two girls who dominate the screen for the last twenty or so minutes. Melissa Newman is also good in her strand of the story, trying to piece things together at the same time indulging her unsympathetic husband, Adam West, in a small and thankless role. Suddenly accessing her own telekinetic powers, she seems to be both empowered and hampered – by the sheer knowledge that she is apart of the evil that was her father and, by that turn, she’s the only one who can stop him. Her decision to intervene is a heroic one, and something that runs counter to her father, who used his powers for egocentric reasons.

“One Dark Night” is not a great film by any means, and not one I would recommend. Reserve your dark night’s for something better.