Sleeve Design : Unknown

Hell Night
 

Tom DeSimone | USA | 1981

Four pledges from the Alpha Sigma Rho fraternity are called upon to spend a ghoulish night at “Garth Manor” (actually Kimberly Crest House in California), an eerily deserted and supposedly haunted old mansion. The spooky legend is enthusiastically fuelled by their frat leader, Peter Bennett (Kevin Brophy) — who has a few tricks planned, to ensure their stay is suitably nightmarish! What Peter and his frat guinea pigs don’t realise is that much of the ‘legend’ hangs true, and a lone survivor of the diabolical, incestuous and hideously deformed Garth family still lurks within the darkened corridors of their ancestral home, setting the infernal scene for murderous mayhem…

This was the final film to be issued through Compass International Pictures, a distribution company that boasted John Carpenter’s Halloween as its first picture. With its cast of enthusiastic young actors, headed by The Exorcist star Linda Blair as Marti, Hell Night had all the ingredients to become a huge success, yet remains something of an underrated gem, lost amidst the tidal wave of similarly themed stalk ‘n’ slash films that swamped theatres around the same time. 

After a modest cinema run, from Miracle Films, this creepy horror from former gay-porn director Tom DeSimone, who would later direct several episodes of the horror series Freddy’s Nightmares, appeared on tape at some point in 1982 from Media, where it was accompanied by four other Compass titles: Halloween, Fyre, Roller Boogie and Blood Beach.

After an aborted promotional release with similar artwork from well-known distributor Videoform, Mo Claridge’s substantial budget label, Apex was next to scoop Hell Night for release on their offshoot Academy label. However, in a move that not only reflected how petty UK censorship had become but also served to highlight the BBFC’s contemptuous attitude toward films in general, the Board required cuts totalling just 1 second — to remove sight of a close-up of a body punctured by spikes from an iron gate, reducing one of only a handful of gory highlights on offer from DeSimone’s otherwise restrained film at the ‘18’ category.

This petty edit was unsurprisingly corrected for its various re-appearances on disc, from such companies as Odyssey in 2002, Prism Leisure in 2003 and again as recently as July 2009 from an obscure budget label called Infinity Limited, but it's Anchor Bay's 2001 release, presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen which  is the superior version.

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cast : Linda Blair, Vincent Van Patten, Peter Barton, Kevin Brophy, Jenny Neumann, Suki Goodwin, Jimmy Sturtevant, Hal Ralston, Cary Fox, Ronald Gans, Gloria Heilman