Box Art Review #10
One Dark Night (1983)
Directed by Tom McLoughlin
Starring Meg Tilly, E.G. Daily, Adam West
You know what rules about this movie? Fucking Adam West is
in it.
I first heard about One Dark Night from the documentary Nightmares
in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Film (check it out
on Netflix) and I was immediately sold by the footage of skeletal corpses
rising from the grave while dumb teens were locked in a mausoleum.
Right away, One Dark Night seems to be a culmination of
several other, more successful, horror films. The setting seems to borrow from
Phantasm, the telekinesis element is reminiscent of Carrie and Scanners, and
maybe it’s just me but the incredibly eerie film score sounds like it was
lifted wholesale from Creepshow. I fucking love the score; it’s the same style
of dreary synth music used in Creepshow (as previously mentioned) and Tales from
the Darkside. Another element in One Dark Night that seems to pop up in a lot
of pre-90s horror films is the Charles Manson style cult leader. I wasn’t
around for all that, but at times it seems like the Manson family was that
generation’s Columbine, like people were genuinely afraid that shit was gonna
happen again and again, so much so that it became sort of stock plotline.
So the main chick in this wants nothing more than to belong
to a group of girls who call themselves The Sisters and wear pink jackets with
that shit embroidered on the back. This is just unspeakably retarded. Maybe if
there were a whole bunch of girls who were running around with these jackets
I’d buy this premise, but it’s just these three (only three!) really bitchy
broads, and who cares what three people think? Even her boyfriend thinks
they’re jerks and can’t understand why she needs to be a part of their group so
bad. These “Sisters” bitches drop her off at a mausoleum and give her drugs
(y’know, just in case she can’t sleep) and she actually fucking takes them,
even after everybody in the movie keeps reminding her of how terrible these
girls are.
Unfortunately, One Dark Night never quite lives up to its
premise. The problem with this movie is that nothing scary happens ‘til the
last half hour, and then all hell breaks loose and it’s pretty awesome. Caskets
slide out of their wall drawer things and pop open to reveal bodies with oozing
faces and skin that won’t stay on, it’s really great. It never reaches the gore
levels of Scanners or the sheer insanity of Phantasm though, and without the
final scenes it’s really just the same old stupid crap you always see in bad
teen horror movies. They wasted a lot of
potential here, they could’ve had a memorable villain on their hands, but he’s
got no lines and almost no backstory, like we’re just supposed to believe he’s
pretty scary.
The Cover
No, no, no, this is all
wrong man. First of all, look at that bullshit font choice. You gotta have
some real balls to try and pull that off. The tagline couldn’t be more generic,
“A shocking tale of horror that takes you beyond fear” tells you nothing at all
about the actual plot of the movie and was clearly written by some bored ad
copy guy. Worst of all, there’s no pun. Here are some way better taglines I
just farted out: “They’re dying to get out!” “The only way out of the mausoleum
is…DEATH!” “Will they live to see morning?!” “The dead are awake…and dead!” “Julie wanted to belong…instead
she got ZOMBIES!!!”
The most tragic part of this mess is that you really got
squint it up to even see them corpses. This picture might have actually been
pretty effective if it was more vivid.
Let’s look instead at the British box art which showcases a
decent illustration of mummified hands reaching up suggestively up a white
girl’s dress while the mausoleum chills in the background next to some spindly
leafless trees. Still, even here, that font is utter garbage (worse than the US
font) and that tagline is equally lame.
The Movie: 2/5
The Cover: 1/5
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