One Dark Night

One Dark Night
Directed by	Tom McLoughlin
Produced by	Michael Schroeder
Written by	Michael Hawes Tom McLoughlin
Starring	Meg Tilly E.G. Daily Melissa Newman Robin Evans Leslie Speights Donald Hotton
Music by	Bob Summers
Cinematography	Hal Trussell
Editing by	Michael Spence Charles Tetoni
Distributed by	Comworld Pictures
Release date(s)	February 25, 1983
Running time	94 min.
Country	United States
Language	English

For the 1939 film of the same name, see One Dark Night (1939 film).

One Dark Night is an American horror film starring Meg Tilly and E.G. Daily. It was released in theaters in 1983 but was filmed two years earlier. It was released by Comworld Pictures.

Plot

Six girls have been found murdered in the apartment of famed Russian occultist, Karl Raymarseivich Raymar, and police cannot explain it. All six girls were stuffed into a closet, there were plates and silverware embedded in the walls. When Raymar's body was lifted onto a stretcher, bolts of electricity shot out from his fingers. Not even his estranged daughter Olivia McKenna (Melissa Newman) or her down-to-earth husband Allan (Adam West) knows what went on. That is, until they meet Samuel Dockstader (Donald Hotton), a feature writer for "The World of the Occult". Dockstader, once a friend to Raymar, explains that Raymar was a psychic vampire who gained great powers of telekinesis by kidnapping young girls, terrorizing them, and feeding off the bioenergy they produced. Allan does not buy a word of it, but Dockstader shows Olivia a set of Kirlian photographs to demonstrate how bioenergy works and gives her an audiotape that outlines his findings from "the Raymar telekinesis experiment." Olivia believes him.

High school student Julie Wells (Meg Tilly) wants nothing more than to be one of "The Sisters," an exclusive club of three snobby high school girls—Carol (Robin Evans), Leslie (E.G. Daily), and Kitty (Leslie Speights) -- who saunter around in their purple jackets with a red "Sisters" logo on the back. Unfortunately, Carol Mason is the ex-girlfriend of Julie's new boyfriend Steve (David Mason Daniels), and Carol is jealous as all get out and intends to get back at Steve and Julie by making Julie spend a night alone in a mausoleum, not knowing that Raymar's body was just entombed there that afternoon. That evening, just before the mausoleum closes, Julie is dropped off by "The Sisters." They have given her a flashlight (with no batteries) and a couple of Demerols in case she cannot fall asleep. After exploring the mausoleum, Julie takes one of the Demerols and sets up her sleeping bag on the shower room floor. She does not see the cracks that are beginning to appear around Raymar's vault.

Carol and Kitty, hoping to scare Julie, sneak back into the mausoleum along with some Halloween masks and props. First, they wake Julie up by shattering a vase on the floor. Then they toss around some red slime that looks like blood. While Kitty pulls a rubber "severed" hand by a string down the hall, Carol dons a ghostly costume and frightens Julie, who locks herself in the chapel. While Julie hides under a pew and prays, Carol and Kitty smoke a joint under Raymar's vault. They fail to see the chairs and vases begin to tremble. Suddenly, the mausoleum walls begin to shake, windows explode, and doors slam shut. Furniture is whipped around, and the cracks near Raymar's vault split open, revealing a reddish glow inside. Thinking this is the result of Julie being scared crazy, Carol and Kitty decide to get out of the mausoleum. When vaults begin to open, coffins to slide out, and the dead rise and surround them; Kitty and Carol are buried under a mound of corpses and suffocate.

Meanwhile, Steve has gone over to Julie's house and found her missing. He catches up with Leslie, who was ejected from Carol's car when she refused to accompany them to the mausoleum. Leslie reluctantly tells Steve about Julie's initiation, and Steve angrily heads over to stop it. At the same time, Olivia dashes over to the mausoleum after listening to the tape and learning about her father's powers and the possibility that she might also possess them. Back at the mausoleum, Raymar has broken out of his coffin and is controlling the doors and cadavers with his psychic powers. Steve climbs in an open window and finds a hysterical Julie. Steve has just about convinced her that it was all a prank when they notice that they are surrounded by cadavers... all moving closer.

Steve tries to fight the cadavers, but they knock him out. Raymar pulls a dazed Julie closer to him just as Olivia arrives. Olivia tries out her powers on her father, but he is obviously stronger. As a last ditch effort, Olivia takes her compact from her purse and reflects the bolts from Raymar's eyes back on him. Raymar disintegrates, the cadavers crumble to the floor, and Julie and Steve are saved.

Like Scanners, this is one of very few American horror releases that deals with the dangers of telekinesis.

The final fifteen minutes of the film are the most gruesome, giving this work its claim to 1980s horror movie fame. Unlike many genre films of the era, One Dark Night displays no blood.

Also known as

• Entity Force (UK video title)
• Mausoleum (original script title, 1980)
• Night in the Crypt (work print title)
• Nuit Noire (Dark Night) (France)
• Rest in Peace (shooting title during 1981)
• Zombies - Yön Paholaiset (Finland)

DVD release

Shriek Show has decided to release One Dark Night as a double-disc special edition. The first disc features the film's theatrical cut; the 1:85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer is serviceable; some print damage is noticeable, especially during the darker night scenes. Director Tom McLoughlin and co-writer Michael Hawes offer an audio commentary. The main extra on the second disc is the alternate director's cut, entitled A Night In The Crypt. Presented in fullframe 1:33:1, this version was a work print only aired on Bahamian TV in 1981 as a tax shelter for the producers.

External links

• One Dark Night - from concept to screen
• One Dark Night at the Internet Movie Database
• One Dark Night at AllRovi
• Guest review of One Dark Night
• - Complete Retrospective Website from Co-writer Michael Hawes