One Dark Night

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One Dark Night
Directed by	Tom McLoughlin
Written by	Michael Hawes, Tom McLoughlin
Starring	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 Theodore Lehmann Nancy Mott Martin Nosseck Albert Ash Shandor
Distributed by	Comworld Pictures
Release date(s)	United States: February 25, 1983
Running time	94 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
IMDb profile

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One Dark Night is a horror film starring Elizabeth Daily. It was released in theaters in 1983 but was filmed two years earlier.

[edit] Plot

In this spooky horror outing aimed at teen audiences, the innocent new girl in town tries to become friends with a rough but cool crowd. They are all pretty mean, especially the young woman who is mad that the girl stole her boyfriend, and they decide that the girl must survive an ordeal before they let her join their gang. They send her to a funeral home to spend the night by herself. Unfortunately, none of them realize that it is inhabited by a murderous ghost just waiting to suck the life out of all of them.

The movie begins promisingly enough... Police arrive at the apartment of Rhamarevich (AKA "Ramar") to discover not only the body of the psychic, but the lifeless remains of six young women as well. To add an extra element of weirdness to the proceedings, assorted kitchen utensils are mysteriously embedded into the walls and lightning shoots out of the dead psychic's hand. Apparently, this doesn't bother the police enough to perform an autopsy and before you know it, the body of Ramar is being entombed in a mausoleum. Attending the funeral is Ramar's distraught daughter, Olivia (Melissa Newman), who regrets never having known her father. In a brief pre-credit sequence, she is seen suffering from nightmares, and during the funeral, she has more disturbing visions that serve as a grim foreshadowing of events to come. Her behavior seems to cause her husband Allan (Batman's Adam West, in an all-too-brief role) much aggravation, and he can't seem to comprehend why his wife is getting so upset over a relative she barely knew.

Next the action shifts to a nearby high school. Julie (a young Meg Tilly) desperately wants to join the ranks of three girls who wear matching jackets and call themselves The Sisters. (Obviously, these girls have watched Grease one too many times.) The Sisters decide that in order to pass a final act of initiation, Julie must spend the night in a mausoleum, which as luck would have it happens to be the one where Raymar's body has just been interred. All of this is simply an elaborate set-up to frighten Julie, seemingly because she is currently dating the ex-boyfriend of Carol (Robin Evans), the vindictive leader of the group.

Meanwhile, Olivia and Allan are visited by Samuel Dockstader (Donald Hotton), an old associate of her father, who finally lets Olivia know the horrible truth — the reason her father never visited her was because he was a "psychic vampire," a person that drained the energy from hitchhikers, which he then used to perform telepathic feats. Allan is naturally dismissive, but the story seems to confirm what was already implied in Olivia's nightmares. She secretly accepts tapes from Dockstader that will give her further information on her father.

There's a bit more to the story than that, but therein lies the problem... For a low budget shocker, One Dark Night is a bit too heavy on character development, particularly when it all simply culminates in screaming teenagers running around in a mausoleum. As such, the film takes too long establishing the set-up and it's not until the final 20 minutes that Raymar finally breaks out of his tomb. The characterization and acting is of your typical clichéd '80s teen horror variety, which some viewers may be able to appreciate on a purely comic level (and a lot of it is pretty ridiculous... One of the characters walks around for the entire movie with a toothbrush in her mouth, and when exactly was the last time you heard someone being called a "nerdle brain?"), but this still doesn't justify why so much time is spent on it.

That being said, the film also boasts a rather fun premise and some impressive cinematography. The film's psychic vampire explanation is kind of silly, and yet somehow oddly effective. The mausoleum is a great location for the climactic events, and the filmmakers are able to make good use of it. These days, nobody will be fooled by the floating corpses, which are obviously props being pulled on dollies, or the cheesy tesla coil lighting effects from Raymar's eyes. Rather than being a distraction, however, they somehow add to the film's bizarre charm. While One Dark Night is hardly a frightening movie these days (in fact, those who are revisiting it for nostalgia's sake will probably get the most out of it), the film does offer some points of interest for fans of low budget '80s horror. It's just a shame that it takes so long to get going.

[edit] DVD release

Shriek Show has decided to release One Dark Night as a double-disc special edition, and while this may be a dream come true for fans of the film, it's kind of a mixed affair overall. The first disc features the film's theatrical cut. The 1:85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer is serviceable; some print damage is noticeable, especially during the darker night scenes, but it's nothing too distracting. The audio track is fine and I did not detect any noticeable problems. Director Tom McLoughlin and co-writer Michael Hawes offer an informative audio commentary and they never run out of things to say. Both men seem to be having a great time discussing the film's merits and flaws (i.e., the pacing). They also talk about their influences in making the project, citing Hammer films and the stories of Edgar Allan Poe. Rounding out the first disc are trailers for four Shriek Show titles.

The main extra on the second disc is the alternate director's cut, entitled A Night In The Crypt. Presented in fullframe 1:33:1, this version appears to be various scenes cobbled together from a work print and edited onto a videocassette, which makes for rather rough viewing. The soundtrack has been altered in some scenes and is nonexistent in others, and some of the special effects have yet to be added. The image is soft and blurry, but that's to be expected. Truth be told, the changes from the theatrical cut are not really that significant aside from a rather grim alternate ending — they would have done much better to simply compile these changes into a 'deleted scenes' segment. Due to the poor video and audio quality, I can't see many people revisiting this version that often. The other major extra on the second disc is the R.I.P. featurette, which is unfortunately kind of a throwaway. Almost 40 minutes of someone standing off-camera filming the action from a camcorder, with the finished product superimposed on the screen for comparative purposes. There's also some audition footage and we get to see the filmmakers trying to get a few of the special effects to work, but once again there really isn't anything substantial here to merit repeated viewings. Like on the first disc, there are four different trailers for SS releases; clicking on the Fangoria International logo accesses previews for more titles as well. Overall, though, the second disc is a bit of a letdown. Oh yes, also included in the set is a limited edition 35mm film strip featuring a random image from the film, for those of you out there who care for such things.