Night 27 of 31 Nights of Horror

I had never heard of this movie before reading an article on a blog called Longbox of Darkness. The premise sounded interesting. A trio of female reporters find themselves staying overnight in a house occupied by a hostile being lurking in the basement. I really liked that The Howling had reporters as the main characters, and this movie stays Barbara Bach, who I only knew from her role in The Spy Who Loved me. Also in this film are Sydney Lassick, a terrific character actor who’s face is instantly recognizable, even if you don’t remember his name, and Stephen Furst, that most will know as Flounder from Animal House, but as a lifelong Babylon 5 fan, he’ll always be Vir to me.

Even though they share many similarities, this movie fixes a lot of what I didn’t like about The People Under the Stairs. It’s hard to discuss what I really enjoyed without spoiling some things so continue reading only if that doesn’t bother you, or you have a short memory.

*SPOILERS BELOW*

The pacing and structure is great and the movie subverts your expectations at almost every turn. You start off thinking it may be about a stalker ex boyfriend, then maybe about the creepy owner of a museum, then maybe a ghost, or something else. It keeps you guessing, so it keeps you interested.

I also loved that the killer, didn’t turn out to be the actual monster, but another victim of the true villain of the story. The more I sit here thinking about it, the more things I find I liked. The violence isn’t overdone. There are no over the top killings with fountains of blood, everything is realistic and believable, especially once we find that the killer is more of a developmentally stunted man than a monster intentionally setting out to hurt people.

I’m surprised this movie isn’t better known, or better rated. It may be the lack of a high body count or extreme gore factor that prevents it from penetrating the consciousness of fans of this genre, but I find all of that works in it’s favour, in the context of the story.