What do you get when you combine a teen slasher/comedy/haunted house/college cliche/no-nudity/low body count horror movie with Linda Blair and a tenuous idea? If you said Exorcist II: Heretic, you’d only be partially right. If you said Chopping Mall you’d be totally wrong. But, if by some off chance you said Hell Night (1981), you’d win the imaginary prize of pointless movie knowledge. Slightly ‘off’ in nearly every way, this film manages to totally avoid certain pratfalls and entirely succumb to others. The oft heard Oddball Movies mantra of “they don’t make ‘em like they used to” is particularly true here. Somewhere between a failed slasher franchise and a one-shot screamer of the late teen crowd, Hell Night is probably slightly unlike any horror film you’ve ever seen.
Briefly, the fraternity Alpha Sigma Rho and their sibling sorority celebrate their initiation rite called Hell Night (presumably on Halloween, a point that is hinted at but never overtly stated) by having the pledges spent one night in Garth Manor, a classically creepy house with a past. The previous tenant was a man with a family that was plagued by abnormal births. After trying unsucessfully to have a “normal” child for years, he eventually goes insane and murders himself and everyone else, save the youngest son. The pledges, a motley fellowship comprised of practical/virginal Marti (Linda Blair), nice guy Jeff (Peter Barton), over-sexed Seth (Vincent Van Patten), and the hopeless Denise must endure a mixture of fraternity pranks, atmospheric gitters and genuinely gruesome murders. The fun comes once the characters actually discover what is going on and deal with it in a variety of illogical ways.
For a complete and utter encyclopedia of cliches regarding college, one need only watch the opening montage leading to the loose introduction of the characters. This pinnacle of collegedom manages to stuff in to 3 minutes what whole films can’t find for their entire run-times. For starters the whole campus seems to be participating in gigantic party. The roads and lawns in front of the ASP (as it will hereafter be called) house are choked with merry-makers. People are waving torches, drinking beer and yelling. Guys and girls are making out while a variety of objects ranging from rolls of toilet paper to footballs are thrown nearby. Windows are broken, a kid hot boxes in his car, and insesent shouts of “WOOO!!” appear to roll off the tungs of the revelers. The party begins. Characters guzzle from kegs of beer, girls are willing to flash any and all males, and only our practical Marti has the sense to stay sober and sensible. When it is annouced that the main event must start, one of the wonders of the college age begins. A caravan of drunk kids with torches makes way to the mysterious Garth Manor. People are able to hang out windows and girls sit on every hood. EVERYONE IS DRUNK. Someone is going to die.
The morality plays don’t end here. After being told that they must sleep the night in the possibly haunted manor, Seth and Denise pair up for an evening of sex, drugs, and drinking - you know, a typical night. Marti and Jeff are togather by default, but movie magic kicks in and enables them to hook up by the end. The first scares are thanks to May (sorority queen extraordinaire), Peter (the president of the frat and maestro of the night’s excesses) and Scott, the nerd who takes pride in the lamer parts of frat life and does not come off unlike Wendell from James Frawley’s Fraternity Vacation: they rig up various lite pranks that are mere appetizers for the mealy killings to come. Once they start dropping, so to do hopes of the pledges. The film evolves (devolves?) into a kill or be killed slash-fest with little exposition and less causality.
Almost stylistically directed by Tom DeSimone and partially well-written by Randy Feldman, Hell Night deserves Oddball status by my inability to make sense of it. Not as bloody or violent as slashers like Halloween or Friday the 13th and entirely devoid of the almost requisite toplessness of the teen-aimed exploiter, Hell Night is still of interest precisely because of what its not. Its not the sort of sleezy pseudo-porn that Linda Blair would later dabble in, nor is it the typical franchise-builder a la every other slasher (there is closure): rather, the viewer gets some rather funny dialog, semi-believable characters and some measurable enjoyment. Those who like college movies, mysterious slashers that take a while to get going or classic haunted house fare like The Haunting can find something in Hell Night. Others may be hard pressed but can probably at least gawk at the opening montage, a truly masterful slice of questionable college knowledge.
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