- Hell Night
Infobox Film
name = Hell Night
caption = "Hell Night" DVD cover
director =Tom DeSimone
writer =Randy Feldman
starring =Linda Blair Vincent Van Patten
Peter Barton
music =Dan Wyman
cinematography =Mac Ahlberg
editing =Anthony DiMarco
producer =Irwin Yablans Bruce Cohn Curtis
distributor =Compass International Pictures
released =August 28 ,1981
runtime = 101 min.
awards =
country = United States
language = English
budget =
amg_id = 1:22059
imdb_id = 0082511"Hell Night" is a
1981 American independenthorror film (with elements ofCreature Features ).Tom DeSimone directed the film, which was written byRandy Feldman and starsLinda Blair . The film depicts a night of fraternityhazing ("hell night") set in an old manor, during which a deformed maniac (that turns out to be a duo ofsiblings ) terrorizes and murders many of the college students.Future film director
Chuck Russell , who would helm the remake of "The Blob" in 1988 and 2002's "The Scorpion King ", served here as an executive producer.Tagline
Pray for day!
Plot
Peter Bennett (
Kevin Brophy ), the president of the Alpha Sigma Rho fraternity, is making four pledges - Marti (Linda Blair ), Jeff (Peter Barton), Seth (Vincent Van Patten ), and Denise (Suki Goodwin ) - stay at Garth Manor until dawn on hell night. Twelve years ago to the day, Raymond Garth strangled his wife Lillian to death in the house and then proceeded to murder all of his children (as they each had deformities)... after which he hung himself. However, police never found the body of the youngest Garth child, Andrew (or for that matter his brother, Morris). Local legend states that Andrew witnessed the murder of his entire family and may still be living within the manor. Scott (Jimmy Sturtevant ) and May (Jenny Neumann ) assist Peter in attempting to scare the pledges until an unknown prowler begins killing the teens.Production
Filming "Hell Night" took only 40 days. The majority of the movie was shot in three locations: The outside of Garth Manor was shot at a mansion in Redlands, California. (
The Kimberly Crest mansion was converted from a private residence to amuseum shortly after filming was completed.) The hedge maze was brought in as there was no actual garden maze on the mansion property. The inside of Garth Manor was filmed in a residential home in Pasadena, California. The frat party was filmed in an apartment lobby in Los Angeles, California. The many underground tunnels filmed in the movie were actually no more than two corridors in which the director had the actors running repeatedly through from different angles.For the scene where Jeff is thrown down a flight of stairs and hurt his leg, there wasn't a lot of acting involved. In reality, actor Peter Barton had really hurt himself and most of his limping was due to being in real physical pain.
Reception
Linda Blair was nominated for a 1981 Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress.
External links
* [http://www.horrordvds.com/modules.php?name=Reviews&file=viewarticle&id=439 Review of the film and 1999 DVD release] at Horrordvds.com.
* [http://www.kimberlycrest.org/gardens.htm The mansion/museum used for exteriors]
*imdb title|id=0082511
* [http://www.popcornpictures.co.uk/hfilms/hellnight.shtml Review at Popcorn Pictures]
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