Announcement
Collapse
No announcement yet.
Happy Hell Night
Collapse
X
Collapse
-
Happy Hell Night
Released by: Anchor Bay Entertainment
Released on: August 3, 2004.
Directors: Brian Owens
Cast: Nick Gregory, Darren McGavin, Sam Rockwell, Jorja Fox
Year: 1991
Purchase From Amazon
The Movie:
By the early nineties the slasher film was starting to fade, her glory days behind her by roughly a decade or so. They didn't disappear altogether though, and 1991's Happy Hell Night, filmed partially in Canada and partially in Yugoslavia with a very international crew, was one of the better entries from the sub-genre's twilight years.
The film begins twenty five years earlier when a group of frat boys from Winfield College are murdered during a Satanic ritual involving a psychotic Catholic priest named Father Zachary Malius. The local authorities toss Malius into the local insane asylum and his story is considered rather taboo to talk about.
Fast forward to 1991 and the current crop of students at Winfield College are just about to get down and dirty with the hazing, as it's Hell Night time. The Phi Delta Kappa Fraternity have got their work cut out for them, as the competition is tough this year. When the fraternity leader finds out that his younger brother, who desperately wants admission into the fraternity, is nailing his girlfriend, he figures who better to send to the asylum for a Hell Night stunt? Off he goes with another student to find and photograph Malius, but when one of them winds up dead and the door to Malius' cell is left open, Hell Night takes on a whole new meaning and gets about as far away from happy as it can get.
Directed by Brian Owens, the genius behind Edward Furlong's shining moment in Brainscan, Happy Hell Night is not a particularly good movie. There are some glaringly odd edits and scene transitions, plot holes aplenty, piss poor performances, and some truly painful dialogue. These things a bad movie make.
One thing that Happy Hell Night is though, is a good slasher. Taken within the confines of the genre, where things like good acting and tight storytelling honestly don't matter as much, then Happy Hell Night is actually kind of good. It has the required amount of naked girls, it has some creative and gory kill scenes, and it has a creepy and effective villain. It even manages to be suspenseful in a couple of scenes, playing some nice visual tricks with the shadows of the old Fraternity House and the tombs used for sets.
Sure, it borrows a scene or two quite blatantly from Halloween and it would have been much creepier if the villain had just kept his mouth shut instead of forcing him to utter some crappy one liners, but overall it's an entertaining little movie for what it is. Don't go in expecting high art, cause brother, you ain't gonna find it here. But you'll find a movie that accomplishes what it sets out to do and that proves to be entertaining in it's own right. It also features a great mullet guy who makes his own porn. What more can you ask for?
Video/Audio/Extras:
Anchor Bay gives Happy Hell Night a brand new anamorphic 1.85.1 widescreen transfer taken straight from the film's original negative and it looks very nice. There is some mild grain and print damage present throughout and a couple of scenes look just a teensy bit washed out but other than that, the image is highly detailed and stable from start to finish with nice color reproduction and solid black levels.
We're treated to a pretty basic Dolby Digital Mono English language soundtrack that, while not fancy, gets the job done just fine. Dialogue is perfectly clear and the levels are well balanced. Background music and sound effects never overshadow the speaking parts and the track is free of hiss and distortion.
The only extra on the DVD is the films theatrical trailer. There is also an insert with chapter stops on one side and a reproduction of the theatrical poster on the other side.
The Final Word:
Happy Hell Night is a decent later era slasher film with a great protagonist and some very nicely executed kill scenes (pun intended). The DVD looks and sounds just fine, though some more extras would have been nice. Overall, this one is worth checking out for slasher fans.
Posting comments is disabled.
Categories
Collapse
article_tags
Collapse
- album review (218)
- album reviews (274)
- arrow video (271)
- blu-ray (3225)
- blu-ray review (4140)
- comic books (1392)
- comic reviews (872)
- comics (988)
- dark horse comics (484)
- dvd and blu-ray reviews a-f (1969)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews G-M (1711)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews N-S (1757)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews T-Z (878)
- dvd review (2512)
- idw publishing (216)
- image comics (207)
- kino lorber (385)
- movie news (260)
- review (318)
- scream factory (279)
- severin films (295)
- shout! factory (537)
- twilight time (269)
- twilight time releasing (231)
- vinegar syndrome (496)
Latest Articles
Collapse
-
Released by: Severin Films
Released on: April 30th, 2024.
Director: Lee Frost
Cast: Joseph Mascolo, Virginia Goodman, John Alderman
Year: 1969
Purchase From Amazon
Hot Spur – Movie Review:
Director Lee Frost and Producer Bob Cresse's film, Hot Spur, opens in Texas in 1869 with a scene where a pair of cowboys wanders into a bar where they call over a pretty Mexican waitress and coerce her into dancing for them. She obliges, but...-
Channel: Movies
03-22-2024, 11:53 AM -
-
Released by: Mondo Macabro
Released on: April 9th, 2024.
Director: Max Pecas
Cast: Thierry de Carbonnières, Jean-Marc Maurel, Denis Karvil, Lillemour Jonsson
Year: 1985
Purchase From Amazon
Death Squad – Movie Review:
Also known as Brigade Of Death, French sleaze auteur Max Pecas’ 1985 film, Death Squad, opens with a night time scene outside of Paris in the Bois de Boulogne Forest where cars pass by a small gang of transsexual...-
Channel: Movies
03-22-2024, 11:46 AM -
-
Released by: Quality X
Released on: February 28th, 2024.
Director: Chuck Vincent
Cast: Samantha Fox, Vernoica Hart, Kelly Nichols, Jerry Butler, Jamie Gillis
Year: 1982
Purchase From Amazon
Roommates – Movie Review:
Directed by Chuck Vincent and released in 1982, Roommates opens with a scene where a young woman named Joan Harmon (Veronica Hart) gets a hotel room with an older man named Ken (Don Peterson, credited as Phil Smith),...-
Channel: Movies
03-15-2024, 01:10 PM -
-
Released by: Blue Underground
Released on: March 26th, 2024.
Director: Jess Franco
Cast: Christopher Lee, Maria Rohm, Dennis Price
Year: 1970
Purchase From Amazon
Night Of The Blood Monster – Movie Review:
Directed by Jess Franco, The Bloody Judge (or, Night Of The Blood Monster, as it is going by on this new release from Blue Underground) isn't quite the salacious exercise in Eurotrash you might expect it to be, and while it...-
Channel: Movies
03-15-2024, 01:07 PM -
-
Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
Released on: March 26th, 2024.
Director: Saul Bass
Cast: Nigel Davenport, Michael Murphy, Lynne Frederick, Alan Gifford, Robert Henderson, Helen Horton
Year: 1974
Purchase From Amazon
Phase IV – Movie Review:
Saul Bass’ 1974 sci-fi/thriller Phase IV is an interesting blend of nature run amuck stereotypes and Natural Geographic style nature footage mixed into one delicious cocktail of suspense and...-
Channel: Movies
03-15-2024, 01:02 PM -
-
Released by: Radiance Films
Released on: March 26th, 2024.
Director: Shigehiro Ozawa, Eiichi Kudo
Cast: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Minoru Ôki, Arashi Kanjuro, Bin Amatsu, Chiezo Kataoka
Year: 1969-1972
Purchase From Amazon
The Bounty Hunter Trilogy – Movie Review:
Radiance Films gathers together the three films in Toie Studios’ Bounty Hunter Trilogy, starring the inimitable Tomisaburo Wakayama. Here’s how the three movies in this...-
Channel: Movies
03-13-2024, 11:30 AM -