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The Stay Awake
The ghost of a serial killer, executed for murdering students at a Catholic girls' school, returns to the school to take revenge on the current student body.
Release : | 1987 |
Rating : | 2.6 |
Studio : | Heyns Films, Fevertree Productions, |
Crew : | Hairstylist, Makeup Artist, |
Cast : | Bart Fouche |
Genre : | Horror |
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Reviews
Sorry, this movie sucks
I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.
A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.
Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
An executed serial killer returns from the dead to continue his murder spree as an indestructible spiritual entity. Hmm, where have we seen that highly imaginative concept before? Oh yeah, I remember now, in about a dozen of other contemporary horror movies like "Shocker", "The Chair", "Prison" and "House 3". All these movies may be slightly more famous, but "The Stay Awake" got released a little bit sooner so I can't really claim it's a rip-off or something. What I can righteously claim, however, is that this is a dull and utterly senseless turkey that deserves to be unknown and remain that way. The killer, John Brown, died in an American gas chamber in 1967 but inexplicably returns in 1987 and takes possession of a European girls' school during a night when a teacher organizes a stay-awake (some kind of charity pajamas-party in the gym) with eight of her students. That sick bastard chose his time and location to reincarnate suspiciously well, it seems Early in the film there's a scene where the girls play a prank on their teacher and all pretend to be dead. I wish that were true and the film would then be over and done with, specifically since only sheer boredom, ineptitude and horrible acting performances ensue further after that. The presence of the supernatural killer is indicated through unsteady camera movements and cheesy wannabe ominous music, but nothing really interesting happens for a very, very long time. In fact, this might easily be the tamest and most frustratingly uneventful of ALL 80's slashers. The obligatory group shower sequence doesn't show any of the good stuff and the whole damn thing is virtually gore-free. Seriously, how is it possible that, by the year 1987, filmmakers still hadn't figured out that making a stalk & slash movie without gore and/or nudity is completely pointless? Nobody likes movies with invisible killers and it's even more irritating when the culprit eventually turns out to be a tacky demon-like monster with flashy red eyeballs and laughable horns. What the hell were they thinking?!?
Nauseatingly awful film that begins with a serial girl killer being executed in 1969 somewhere in America. As he is being primed for the gas chamber, he rants over and over again that he is the prince of darkness and cannot die. The film then forwards to 19 years later somewhere in Europe at an all girl's school. From here we see a bunch of pretty yet untalented girls and their teacher do aerobics, watch a movie and eat potato crisps, smoke cigarettes, and play scary games on each other. All the while the spirit of the killer seen in the exposition piece comes to this place 19 years later and for some weird, inexplicable reason to Europe of all places. This movie sucks bad and in a big way. Why does this spirit come here and 19 years later? Why is he back as a real cheap looking demon costume - like he just lost the lead for a baby Godzilla commercial or something? And perhaps my biggest question: how do you make money holding a stay awake? Anyway, you can guess....well, not really but you get the general idea, what happens. People die and there is a fight of the teacher(wearing a crucifix) against the rubber menace. In one scene, knowing she is only being protected by the crucifix, she lays it on a table. Why would she do that? Nothing later shows it to be a good move. Ultimately, The Stay Awake is a very tiring, boring movie with almost no merit at all. Nothing exciting happens. The script is riddled with question marks and bad scenes. The direction is trite. The acting very poor. The setting of the school is impressive at the very...and I mean very...least. All the girls are quite fetching, but you don't get to see anything so the movie doesn't deliver at any level. there is absolutely no way I can believe this had any theatrical release of any kind. It must be one of those direct-to-video movies so popular in the 1980s.
I didn't find this to be nearly as bad as others have, but it isn't very good either, and certainly needn't be sought out to be watched.It starts well. Somewhere in America, a killer is being walked down a very white hallway, down a red carpet, to an execution chamber. This is intercut with the crime scenes of the various women he has killed. This prologue was nicely done, I thought. The killer makes threats to return to kill more women, to kill these people's children, and he claims to be the angel of darkness and speaks in a demonic voice.Nineteen years later, inexplicably somewhere in Europe, a group of young women are staying overnight at a girl's school doing a "stay awake" to raise funds. The killer shows up, first apparently as a poltergeist. We see shots from his POV, drifting into the school, through the hallways, as chairs move around, a picture falls from a wall, etc. This is intercut with the women doing aerobics in the gym. This scene goes on for some time. Some young men show up at the school to try to scare the women, and to hook up with them.It's quite a while before the killer strikes, about fifty minutes, I think. He appears both as a sort of cross between Gozilla and a giant rat with glowing red eyes and a whip-like tongue, and as himself with glowing red eyes. As the former, it's pretty silly-looking; as the latter, he's fairly creepy looking.There were some scenes I liked. One I recall: the women are scared by a gorilla mask which is thrown in front of them. They laugh at their fears, but when one of them picks it up she finds it to be heavier than it should be....The voices do seem to be strangely dubbed. As far as I could tell, the actresses were speaking English, but at least a few of the voices don't seem like they would belong to the actresses. The young women's characters aren't well differentiated from each other, nor are the young men. Frankly, it's hard to tell most of them apart even visually.
I rented this one in one of my many B movie hunts. And now I wish I never saw it! This movie is easily summed up in one word... Boring! The first hour or so of the movie is just a bunch of girls talking and goofing around. And I won't even go into what the killer turns out to be. No Nudity, No Gore, No horror, just flat out boredom. I highly advise for the sake of your entertainment. Stay away! Far far away! But should you not heed this warning... At least Fast Forward to the end of the movie... It is the only time some real action takes place.