Watch One Dark Night For Free

Simply Perfect

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

If you are a history nut--or you have some curious obsession with Adam West--then you are invited to this cheesy bit of nostalgia. If, on the other hand, you have any taste at all, then avoid this at all costs. It is paced at an unbelievable rate, the acting is 2nd rate, the production quality looks like a 1980s home movie, and the scares-- tho they do finally arrive--are simply not worth the wait.First: the pace is unbelievably slow. There are two plot threads that inter-twine, which may be part of the problem. One is about the daughter of a dead "energy vampire," while the other has a three girl "club" wanting to harass a "newbie." Why this takes so long to work out is beyond my understanding. So unless you have a night of insomnia, don't bother with this flick.Second: the acting is just plain bad. Adam West doesn't even ham it enough for some chuckles. The dead magician's wife has only one look: frightened confusion. Meg Tilly--whom I enjoyed in 1983's "The Big Chill"--is simply flat. And the rest of the cast--from the basketball loving boyfriend to the head of "The Sisters" club are just amateurish (e.g. the leader of the club says at one point, "You named it; you claimed it".)The cinematography/directing is just poor quality. Lighting is bad. The color seems washed out (which I believe is NOT intentional). A run through a graveyard is worst then Romero's 1968, "Night of the Living Dead" (which we can understand. considering it was 1968). And the interior shots of the mausoleum are tedious. Again, don't waste your time.I recalled that "Poltergeist" also came to theaters in 1982. Hard to believe these two films shared the same historical space because the scares are so fundamentally different. Perhaps it was the direction. Perhaps the production quality. Perhaps the acting (JoBeth Williams and Craig Nelson head the cast) is just light years better. I can't say for sure, but the scares are simply not worth your time here.I have to confess, this one was recommended because of other films I had been watching, so I checked it out. Please don't make the same mistake and waste your time. At least I penned this cautionary tale for you while I was watching!

One Dark Night (1982) ** (out of 4) Julie (Meg Tilly) isn't the most popular girl at her college but she's willing to do everything to join The Sisters and their gang. What Julie doesn't know is that the leader basically wants her to audition so that they can get revenge on the girl for dating her boyfriend. That night Julie finds herself locked in a mausoleum when the girls decide to try and scare her. The only problem is that a recently deceased psychic decides to bring the dead back to life.Tom McLoughlin's ONE DARK NIGHT is a film that I respected a lot more than I actually liked. You have to give the director and co-writer a lot of credit because a non R-rated horror film in 1982 is something very rare. It's obviously that the director was working on a limited budget and I'm going to guess that instead of trying to add a lot of gore effects he instead wanted to create something scary. This is one of those films that nothing happens for the first portion as the atmosphere grows and the director wants to eventually have all the scares at once.This is a rather interesting movie because for the first hour there's really not too much that happens. We basically get to know all of the characters as we learn about them, learn about their relations and we very slowly get to the point where the three females are inside the mausoleum and the fun begins. The final thirty-minutes is when various things start to happen including the dead returning to life. If you're looking for any sort of gore then you can forget it as there's really not a drop until the very end. In fact, the violence is extremely low as is the body count.That explains the PG-rating to the picture and it's interesting that McLoughlin would go this direction. I personally respect him trying to build up scares more than anything else but the problem is that the first hour drags pretty badly. When the film finally starts to pick up it's a tad bit too late but there's no question that there's some fun to be had during the finale. Tilly turns in a good and believable performance and we get some fun supporting performances from Melissa Newman, Elizabeth Daily and Robin Evans. Adam West also appears in a few scenes.ONE DARK NIGHT isn't a masterpiece or even a good movie but it's an interesting horror film for the era.

Let me start by saying I was only 2 when this movie came out but I loooove a good low budget 80's horror flick especially early & mid 80's(cheesy or not!)...a few good ones that I can think of off the bat are "Demons"..."Demons 2"..."Happy Birthday To Me"..."April Fools Day"..."Slumber Party Massacre"..."Witchboard"..."Chopping Mall"..."The Evil Dead" etc. BUT this movie is TOTAL garbage the special effects are crap (even for a low budget film),the storyline is whack & does'nt hold your interest...the acting is bad & not in a "so bad it's good" way...the killings are lame & ridiculous...& the finale was really poor! I kept waiting for it to get better but sadly the movie never lifts off,I can't believe people said this scared them when they 1st saw it cause this movie IS NOT scary! I watched this with my girlfriend on Friday (she also loves 80's horror) & when it was over we just watched each other & rolled our eyes then she buried her face in the pillow shaking her head & laughing in disbelief. Anyway enough of me slandering this doo doo pile of a "movie"...I actually feel awkward as I'm blasting this movie so much cause I'm not really a negative guy & I always try to find something good about movies I watch but I had to make an exception here because this film is that terrible! Those people that gave this movie a good rating & said it scared them must've been on acid when they watched it!

Since Jason and his ilk took over horror films circa 1980 most every horror film has involved a group of hormonally charged teenagers being chopped to bits with the focus on the chopping and not the suspense.This little film is different. Made in the early 80's it does what every good horror film should do - bring your worst fears to life while you sit around just knowing that these horrors are just around the corner. Then, you make those horrors simmer, just don't turn it into a lesson on the biology of butchering.The story features Meg Tilly right before she had a short-lived turn with fame starting with "The Big Chill" and then slipped back into obscurity in the early 90's. Meg plays an outcast teenager who is just dying to get into the good graces of some classic mean girls. They tell her she can be part of their little group if she spends the night in a crypt. The mean girls intend to scare her and cause her to leave the crypt thus giving them a double reward - further tormenting the outcast girl and having an excuse to reject her.Meanwhile famed occultist Karl Rhamarevich has died a bizarre death shortly after having claimed to have discovered a way to return from the grave and upon his return command great magical powers. His daughter doesn't believe this at first, but she listens to a tape about her father's experiments which included his successful animation of small dead animals and of his plans to emerge from the grave with the power to animate bigger game and draw further power from these animations. She also learns that she may have inherited her father's power and may be the only person who can stop him should he actually rise from the dead. I think you know where this story is headed, so I'll stop here. Did I mention the magician was entombed in the same crypt in which Meg Tilly's character is spending the night?I will mention that the commercial DVD containing this film does look somewhat degraded compared to what you would expect from a film that was made so recently. I saw it on TV in the mid 1980's and I remember it looking better than this. The problem is that the original negative of the film was never located so the DVD had to be created from a print. This means it comes complete with dirt and scratches.This is worth checking out for any horror fan. It was an independently made film and an example of the kind of unusual stuff that you could commonly find on late night TV until the infomercial turned that time slot into a vast wasteland circa 1986. Only TCM Underground airs this kind of film anymore.