Night of Horror

A downcast member of a rock band sits in a self-service bar, recalling to an acquaintance the bewildering details of a road trip he took the year prior with a group of friends, one of whom was touched with extrasensory perception. Their relaxing getaway was interrupted by spirits of Confederate soldiers in desperate need of human help to free their tormented souls.

NIGHT OF HORROR is a cataclysmically poor film on every level imaginable, and the mind boggles as to how this minutiae of provisions could possibly have received even scant video distribution. Unappealing people doing nothing to speak of...that is the whole of this Godforsaken nonmovie. Just to hint at what a slop-job of amateur immersion it is, understand that a lengthy duration is prominently accented by a dust-bunny sticking to the camera lens. The sound and lighting appear to have been supervised by Helen Keller, the sets are a pathetic scramble of whatever fundamentals happened to be on-hand, and most importantly.... WHERE IS THE "HORROR"? A couple of immobile Southern Graybacks in the blaze of a floodlight who mumble indiscernably, and a single plaster skull? There's absolutely nothing...no bloodshed, no atmosphere, not even a single boob to breathe life into this rudderless tabula-rasa. All you get with this nothing-burger is a long stretch of coarse home movie footage showing some southern-fried Civil War battle reenactment, set to the tune of a nerve-raking folk ballad. It's so apocalyptically awful that it nearly qualifies as an act of aesthetic terrorism.

My rating? "The Finger".

"The film you​ are about to see, ( sic ) is a depiction of an actual event​, well documented in the annals of the paranormal" - I should have gone with my instinct, and immediately​ switched off the film when I read that statement.

This " film " (and​ I use that word in the loosest sense) begins with a three minutes-long title scene, accompanied by a horrendous piano ballad by the filmmakers' own real life band, leading into an eight minutes-long conversation. Eight minutes of stationary, over-the- shoulder photography, meandering, nearly stream-of- consciousness conversation, barely audible in the crummy audio, with these two men babbling, name-dropping their band, eventually about a bizarre, boring experience one of them, Steve, had, as he obviously stutters his lines a couple of times. The audio is so garbled that much of it is unintelligible, but we do know they used lighting equipment, because it is clearly visible on the right centre of the frame, largely blowing out the shot. After so very slowly setting up the paper- thin plot in this over-the-shoulder prologue, the film lapses into flashback for some reason, as we're told the story of Steve, his half brother and his wife, and their friend driving. When asked what did he use for money, Steve responds, " Chocolate milk, and batteries. " What?

From 16 minutes on, they drive. We see them driving underneath a bridge, looking out the window at passing landscapes, passing ships on the river, one girl reads an Edgar Allan Poe story in its entirety, while literary critic Steve criticises it, then critiques their food and beer. Breathtaking.

From 23 minutes to 29 minutes, a triangular blotch appears at the bottom centre of the frame.

At 26 minutes, the quartet get out and argue, and it's difficult to take them seriously when Steve is obviously smiling and trying not to laugh. Characters interrupt each other, frames abruptly cut out, probably to avoid the awful dialogue. Back in the camper, for more driving.

At 29 minutes, they allegedly hit someone, off camera. If they couldn't get an actor to play the character they hit, why didn't they just take this scene out? It doesn't go anywhere, or lead to anything, so why is this scene even here?

At 30 minutes, back in the van for more driving, and awful piano balladry.

At 33 minutes, the camper breaks down. Good! No more driving. Day changes to night, and back and forth, many times, as they try to figure what to do. A real exchange of dialogue in this scene: Chris" " Don't tell me you're taking a coffee break? " to which Steve responds: " Nope, a beer break, and not even a beer break. " Again, what?

At 38 minutes, one girl begins having a one-sided conversation with a spirit ( I think. ) Footage here is so dark, I'm not sure even what the bloody hell we're looking at here. Tree limbs? Why don't we see, or more importantly hear, who she is speaking to? She convinced two of her three friends ( Steve was likely too drunk or too disinterested to show up to film this scene, so he is represented in voice over narration ) to hold a seance to speak to the spirits. Unfortunately, the spirits answer them.

At 40 minutes, the seance begins. We then catch a glimpse of the rare and elusive * flashback-within-a- flashback * , as the Civil War reenactment footage begins, and the piano balladry begins yet again. The actors' real life band performs seemingly endlessly ( " How manyyy mooooore? " ) Were they trying for an anti-war message here? I lost track of how long this putridity goes on for, but the seance, and Civil War reenactment footage, continues until 63 minutes.

Apparently, a Civil War captain lost his head, and needs their help to get it back, and bury it with his body, so he can at last rest in peace. The three of them ( again, Steve isn't in this scene, except for his voice over narration) dig up his skull, which is obviously plastic, and bury it with the rest of his plastic body.

I wish I could say I'm making that up, but I'm not. That's your plot right there.

Film concludes with an epilogue, and the stationary, over-the-shoulder photography, meandering, nearly stream-of- consciousness conversation, barely audible in the crummy audio, with these two men babbling, and the visible lighting equipment blowing out a lot of the frame return, before the piano muzak, again performed by the filmmakers' own real life band, returns yet again for the closing credits. This film seems merely an excuse to showcase their music, and name drop their no-name band.

Every single scene is just filler material. Nothing that happens sets up anything that happens later, and there isn't even any sex or nudity, no violence, there's not even a single bit of profanity, but yet this is supposedly " Rated R ". The cinematography is so faint and blurry, the " actors " ( again, used only in the loosest sense of the word ) look like spectral holograms drifting in the breeze. Speaking​ of breeze, the flickering, slightly wavy image looks like this entire film is being projected onto a sheet hung on the wall, and then filmed by someone else, using the lowest quality camera equipment possible, and microphone which sounds like it was in the cellar, while the actors were upstairs, and edited using child- proof scissors and duct tape. Furthermore, this was obviously filmed sometime in the 70s, judging by their hair, and clothing, and not released until quite some time later.Although, I must admit, a documentary about the making of this movie might be funny

Night of Horror (1981)

BOMB (out of 4)

Ridiculous horror movie has four people traveling to a cabin, which just so happens to be on a Civil War battlefield. After reading a story from the one and only Poe, soon the four are haunted by the ghosts of some dead soldiers.

NIGHT OF HORROR really should be a better known movie. Not because it's good or contains some great death scene. No, this film should be better known because of how downright horrible it is. There's really not a single good thing that I can say about this movie, which was apparently made for four thousands dollars. Even at that low of a budget I'm questioning whether someone was stealing money.

I'm really not sure if this thing actually played in a movie theater but I can't imagine how the people felt watching it if it did. As I said, there's really nothing good that can be said about this movie and it's really hard to sit through even with a short 72-minute running time. The majority of that time is devoted to character sitting around talking or else having some bad dialogue from the ghosts being whispered to them.

The film has some Civil War footage towards the end of the movie and I'm going to guess that the director just filmed this at a re-enactment battle. I guess you could say this footage was the best thing about the picture but even this gets dragged out and eventually gets boring. Normally I can recommend movies like NIGHT OF HORROR to bad movie lovers but this one here is so bad that it's hard to even do that.

Evil has many dimensions. It can make you angry, it can make you quiver with fear, it can make you doubt the existence of a kind and loving Supreme Being. For years I've sought Ultimate Evil, ever since I discovered that Plan 9 not only isn't the worst film ever made, it probably shouldn't make the Bottom 20.

And, while I'm always ready & eager to audition new candidates, "Night of Horror" may be -- IT. This film turns ALL the dials on the Evil Meter to 11. It will make you angry AND afraid AND plunge you into blackest despair.

Picture this. You take three or four of your lumpiest mullet-headed male buddies and dress them in Confederate uniforms. Put a bucket of dry ice in front of a Ford Gran Torino and turn on the headlights. Have your buddies stand in front of the lights and shift from one foot to the other. That's the sum of your horrifying FX.

Picture this. You see some goat-roper in line at Wal-Mart with 1978 REO Speedwagon hair and so skinny, his jeans fit exactly the same with the fly in the front or the back. That's your male lead. Oh - identify him as a "California rock singer" so everybody will know that he's supposed to be terminally hip.

Picture this. You want to establish your female lead as being hopelessly sensitive. So you have her read an Edgar Allen Poe poem to the male lead in the back of an RV. It works too well - his voice-over tells us he's now afraid of losing his cool.

This doesn't give you even a hint of how loathsome Night of Horror is. I've seen it cause even hardened veterans of the Bad Movie Wars to hit the Eject button screaming after the first twenty minutes. Manos at least had the studly cape. Zombie Lake had the naked girls' basketball team treading water. They Saved Hitler's Brain at least had Hitler's head mugging it up in the back seat. But Night of Horror has NOTHING. NOTHING. NOT ONE MOMENT of inspiration, humor, or gratuitous nay-nays. NOT ONE FRAME that doesn't look like it was shot in a koi pond and processed in bongwater.

And this turkey di tutti turkeys ACTUALLY FOUND A DISTRIBUTOR. Do you understand what that means? I have no doubt that all around the world people have worse films sitting in cans in ancient Kelvinators rattling away in mouldering tool sheds, that they just can't make themselves take to the dump. But Night of Horror actually caused money to change hands - somebody screened this excrescence, said, "Yeah, I think I can make a buck off that," and cut Malanowski a check.

We're there. This is it. We've touched bottom. Until Battlefield Earth 2 premieres, The Worst Movie Ever Made.

It took a very strong Long Island Iced Tea and a couple of other cocktails, but I managed to sit through this one from beginning to end. Mostly I stared at the ceiling, listened to the radio, or contemplated the massive pile of laundry that needed to be washed, because looking at the screen while trying to make sense out of the inaudible dialogue and threadbare plot was something I could do only sporadically. I always try to find some words of meager praise for even the worst movies, but staring into the empty void that is "Night of Horror" renders me too anaesthetised to pay compliments. I would not say that this film is actually painful to watch; rather, it is a black hole, a concatenation of nothingnesses, the bewildering cinematic equivalent of formless scribbles on a plain canvas. It induces no reaction in the viewer other than confusion and perplexity... and perhaps wonderment at Mr. Malanowski's ability to find a distributor. A person could make a more incomprehensible excuse for a film, but it would require an active hostility to the audience on his part. In Mr. Malanowski's case, I think this is just a particularly remarkable example of extreme laziness.