Rish Outfield's reviews
I've never much cared for Linda Blair. As a kid, I was forbidden to see The Exorcist, and I haven't really seen any of her other works. But I liked her a lot in Hell Night, enough to wonder why tyranist kept pointing out how fat she was.
This film was produced by Irwin (say his last name out loud, it's fun) Yablans, and had a lot of dialogue and character development, at least for a while. The cast was good, with fresh, handsome '80s faces, this time each in a distinctive costume (which I appreciated, since I could always call them by their costume name instead of being forced to say, "you know, the brown-haired guy who isn't getting any"). I liked when the guy got his head turned all the way around, but hey, I always like that. Oh, and one character is impaled on the sharp points of a gate–also cool. The blonde English chick was real attractive too.
I liked the story of this film. It has been done to death, but I don't care. To me, a group of people trying to spend a single night in a haunted house is right up there with the all-time classic stories. I especially enjoy the hazing and fraternity elements of this version. Having gone to a parochial school where the men wore veils and the women wore burlap sacks, I feel I missed out of some of these great college hijinks, so I got a thrill out of seeing the bad frat folks setting up fake bodies and taped screams.
The ending was the only part I found lacking. There seem to be three stock endings in horror films: Good triumphs and all is well, Good triumphs but Evil may/shall return, and Evil triumphs. But here was a fourth: Good triumphs, then spends the rest of its life screaming and tormented due to the experience. Carrie ended that way, as did Texas Chainsaw, to a certain extent. In the case of Hell Night, the ending came either a minute too late, or came a second to early, freezing on the survivor's face as the credits rolled. I really can't explain it, can I? A good thing I'm not getting paid for this.
Best Scare: There was a cool part where the killer rose up from under the carpet. It wasn't really scary, but it looked great. There was your standard guy-stands-right-beside-a-doorway-and-is-suddenly-grabbed-by-the-killer moment that, oddly enough, DID scare.
I'd Recommend It To: '80s slasher fans.

The tyranist's thoughts
Mid-way through the Holiday 2000 Horror Film Festival, I realized that we were renting a lot of movies that were firmly entrenched in the second tier of popular horror flicks. Movies that had recognizable names, but that nobody had ever declared good enough that they became canon. It's a funny thing to realize. Especially when you're staring down a Linda Blair who has lost all innocence for you years earlier in a little film that is in the top tier of horror.
Really not a bad movie at all, this one follows the formulas pretty well. It is a (for lack of a better term) Greek horror flick focusing on that act now considered evil above all other acts, hazing. In this case, the pledges must spend a night in the supposedly haunted mansion. Not a bad little task. Of course, pranks are planned to scare the pledges but then the mansion turns out to really have mysterious occupants.
A few inexplicable details in this one, but it is really pretty fun. My favourite detail was that there were hundreds of kids at the pledge party and only four pledging that night. Hmmm. I guess it simplifies the plot a ton. There are some nice death effects though and a couple of really creepy moments even though things are pretty predictable.
Linda Blair isn't half as bad as I make her our to be, but there is something lacking in her performance. Maybe one too many horror films too early in her career. Still, check it out if you are into this kind of horror movie, it deserves its position on the second tier and is really much better than most movies of its kind.