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I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The Age of Commercialism

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This is a slasher flick (actually banned in Queensland) you don't expect to be as good as if prejudging it by it's cover. Sure, I believe most of the other ratings are too high for it, it still isn't a bad, slice em' and dice em' And there is a thriller concept to it, that works quite well with the story. A high school jock/stud, Billy is being thrown a scholarship party, where two escaped psychos are earlier seen robbing a cafe and shooting down cops. They hold out in the attic of Billy's house where the party is only starting. Soon people start dropping off whether, being knifed, or having their faces fried. Unfortunately too, Billy ran out of his much needed medication to counteract his much violent moodswings, that we see in some chilling one-two second facials, where he reacts sensitively to some out of taste remarks, and Billy too tries his best to control it, where he gets some nasty headaches. And of course Billy's parents are out at dinner that night. He had been released from a psychiatric facility some time back, as we hear from a psychiatrist at the film's start, dictaphone in hand, although we don't see Billy, so there could be another psycho out there, roaming about. Also we see Billy flashing out too, signs of someone coming apart. Some of the characters are so unlikeable in this movie, you wanna see them bumped off. Also among the party, is an estranged young red headed girl, Billy's current love, who has a little bit of a dark side to her, especially when overreacting to a remark by a party clown. There's always one, isn't there. Of course this is B grade, but it's a lot better than most of it's type. The thriller angle is a plus to it, the identity of the killer worth it's watch. The only annoying thing was those bloody dancers in bloody club. What was their purpose? The actress who plays the girlfriend of Billy's best friend, isn't bad either.

By the late eighties, it had pretty much all been done before, hadn't it? The slasher film has always been the most blunt and unoriginal sub genre of horror, and I suppose that's what I like about it. Some slashers did get a little big for their britches and tried to be like the big boys, but that didn't quite work out (FADE TO BLACK being a crowning example of an egomaniacal slasher), but I like the ones that are more humble; more honest with themselves, who are comfortable with the familiar mold of the slasher film. Enter NIGHT SCREAMS. David is the quarterback of his high school football team as well as the class hunk, which angers his steady girl, Joni, since girls are constantly throwing themselves at him. David's parents decide to reward him for getting a four-year athletics scholarship to O.U. by leaving him the house for the weekend, so naturally, David throws a party. However, someone begins bumping off the partygoers one by one. Is it the two escaped convicts hiding out in the basement? Or is it David, who needs medication to control his violent outbursts? Or is it a third-party?NIGHT SCREAMS may be very straight-forward, but it does have a lot of good ideas in mind that don't fully fill themselves out. For one thing, the thought of two criminals hiding out in the basement wile partygoers are being killed upstairs is a nifty idea, but the two don't really DO anything besides serve as the red herrings. I also sort of liked the preposterous "twist" (it's really, really obvious who the killer is),which featured a nice bit of role reversal, as well as a downbeat ending similar to THE DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD (1982).Really, there are two things you should be going into this to see: the deaths and the beloved cheese. Gorehounds will be more than satisfied with NIGHT SCREAMS, as it features more than twenty kills, and most of them have their fair share of bloodshed. There's a bit of variety with the kills as well, and we get an axe to the head, an electrocution in a hot tub, impalement with a fire poker, suffocation with a plastic bag, and, my personal favorite, one poor sap getting his head shoved on a burger he's grilling then getting neck surgery via fork! There's definitely a LOT of cheesy moments in NIGHT SCREAMS, and it's fantastic! First off, we have what I like to call, "The Most 80's Opening To Any Slasher Movie", in which a couple (the male sporting amulet and a mustache; the female with huge hair) watching the 1981 slasher GRADUATION DAY and getting killed, followed by the killer playing "Chopsticks" on the piano, then cutting to the credits and very, very cheesy synth-music! We also get a love scene spliced with scenes from some seventies porno, a live band playing crappy music, the "nationally famous" Sweetheart Dancers, the comic-relief fat guy, and more.The script, however is very weak, even though they did manage to craft some likable characters. I would say the acting is slightly better than average, but it's understandable why not a lot of the cast won any awards. Some of the scenes are fairly dark, but that's a very minor complaint.I guess the best way to sum up NIGHT SCREAMS is that it could have been a whole lot worse than it ended up being. Like SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROCK (1988), NIGHT SCREAMS is a cheesy classic that gets beat up for little-to-no reason. Yes, it is lacking in plot. Yes, nearly no suspense is generated (there were a couple moments that I could see were at least trying to be suspenseful). But I can see that Allen Plone put his all into it despite lack of budget, and it's fairly obvious Dillis L. Hart II had faith in it (count how many times his name appears in the credits), and I can see that. It's a humble, unabashed body count flick that exists for the sole purpose of entertainment. It moves at a brisk pace and is nearly never boring, which is more than I can say for some other films I've seen. Did I mention this was made in Wichita, Kansas?Highly recommended.

The plot = David (Joe Manno) is the captain of the football team and is also the most popular guy in school but he has a problem he's on medication to control his violent fits, so what does he do he throws a party for all his friends at his house while his parents are away. But while the party starts going two convicts escapes from a nearby prison and hides out in his basement ready to terrorise the party guests.The opening scene we get a stereotypical 80's couple snuggling up watching "Graduation Day" and then surprise surprise they both gets killed and the credits come on and the movie starts. After seeing this part I thought that this movie was gonna be quite good but sadly I was wrong.This movie has very little going for it although there is a big body count and a few fun kill sequences, but when it comes to everything else this movie just simply falls apart and becomes very boring, the acting for one is awful, even for an 80's slasher and the directing is strictly amateur. The last 20 minutes perk up a bit- but considering the unrelieved tedium of what's gone before it'd be a miracle if it didn't. The ending as well was predictable (I figured it out long before) and it well and truly shows that by the late 1980's that slasher movies just became tame and rubbish.All in all this is a bad slasher with only a few redeeming qualities.

David seems to have such a bright future. He is the star running back on his high school football team, offered a scholarship to play for Oklahoma. He's got plenty of girls wanting to jump his bones if he so desires. Yet, we can see that without his pills(for "hyperactivity"), David isn't easy to be around, prone, as his mother says, to violent outbursts, rubbing his head as if a migraine was about to rumble his skull a loose. Two escaped lunatics, led by the sadistic Snake(John Hines), kill police officers, a cook and his wife at a diner, soon finding themselves at the home of David's parents, waiting inside the wine cellar as a prom party commences upstairs. Joni(Megan Wyss)is David's girlfriend, very thin-skinned and sensitive to any negativity offered her way. David's friends aren't that fond of her and Joni can sense that they would prefer him dating someone else. Lisa(Janette Caldwell)is the only high school girl who treats Joni with any class. Meanwhile, a serial killer is picking off David's friends one at a time as the escaped crazies seem idle in the wine cellar until the time for which they could go on the attack.Director Allen Plone drags out the opening in tedious fashion, incorporating a lot of footage from the slasher GRADUATION DAY, this movie a couple is watching intently before being dispatched by a kid who uses a butcher knife, playing a piano tune shortly afterward. He later adds footage from pornos as extra filler. By 1987, the slasher genre was on the decline, and movies like NIGHT SCREAMS were just polluting an already worn premise regarding a psychopath destroying teenagers using various weapons applied in other films before this one. The ax to the head, death using a sauna with a trapped victim inside, electrocution in a hot tub, butcher knife to the back and torso, strangulation, fireplace poker, etc. Even the "escaped loonies" sub plot is old hat and shopworn, and, to tell you the truth, there were times where I almost forgot about them even being in the movie. The best scene, to me anyway, is the gratuitous blood shed of the diner murders as Snake just goes berserk, shooting everything in sight, before finding himself locked away in the wine cellar, just a few other scenes remaining of any worth featuring this character. Hines has this hilarious scene where he's rambling off some dialogue while pouring water over his face that should tickle the funny bone, he's not exactly a Shakespearian actor or anything. Joseph Paul Manno, as David, spends an awful lot of time either sulking or angry. No nudity except for the porno footage, with characters in NIGHT SCREAMS mainly kissing and groping. The identity of the killer will be of no surprise, I think, particularly to those who have seen any number of these kinds of slasher fare.