Commercially available under the alternate, slightly more generic title of Bloody Movie, Nick Marino’s Terror Night gathers a bunch of D-list has-beens ripe for the dispatching, including Alan Hale Jr., Aldo Ray, Dan Haggerty and Flick Attack Hall of Famer Cameron Mitchell.
But don’t worry — the usual 20-somethings playing teenagers get killed, too.
The murders go down at the abandoned mansion of silent matinee idol Lance Hayward, your rough-and-tumble Douglas Fairbanks type. The star hasn’t been seen in years, so the night before his condemned casa is to be torn down, several young couples sneak onto the property to check the place out. Someone is already there, however, and he dons a different costume from Hayward’s most famous film roles, complete with appropriate prop to kill. Because Hayward played Robin Hood, Zorro, pirates and other swashbucklers, you can expect death by arrow, sword, hook and whatnot.
This is a great gimmick for a slasher movie, making it more original than most — and apparently legally problematic, because with each murder, Marino splices in a few frames from the appropriate old film of Hayward’s. However, since Hayward doesn’t actually exist, the movies tend to be actual Fairbanks flicks, like The Thief of Bagdad.
Word on the street is this is why the 1987 film went unreleased until oh-so-quietly hitting 21st-century DVD. Word on the street also is that Marino, who never directed before or since, had uncredited “help” from one-eyed House of Wax helmer André De Toth and porn director Fred Lincoln (star of Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left).
What we know for sure is this: The kill effects are pretty impressive, and VHS scream queen Michelle Bauer (Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama) ditches her biker leather to run around fully naked. And even if she didn’t, Terror Night deserves to be better-known. Copyright issues aside, it’s the single slasher most likely to be tolerated by your Paw-Paw next time you visit the nursing home. —Rod Lott