Stevieboy666 I have only previously seen this on Betamax but now it has thankfully been released on blu ray here in Britain. AKA Mausoleum, which is where much of the film takes place. This is a slow but steady burn until the last half an hour which is when all the horror action takes place inside the mausoleum and it's well worth the wait. No sex, blood or even foul language, staple ingredients for so many horror films, but this film works perfectly without them. Phantasm, Carrie & Lucio Fulci are all names that spring to mind. Great casting including a young Meg Tilly, this is a horror movie that needs to be enjoyed late at night with the lights off!

Michael_Elliott One Dark Night (1982) ** (out of 4) Julie (Meg Tilly) isn't the most popular girl at her college but she's willing to do everything to join The Sisters and their gang. What Julie doesn't know is that the leader basically wants her to audition so that they can get revenge on the girl for dating her boyfriend. That night Julie finds herself locked in a mausoleum when the girls decide to try and scare her. The only problem is that a recently deceased psychic decides to bring the dead back to life.Tom McLoughlin's ONE DARK NIGHT is a film that I respected a lot more than I actually liked. You have to give the director and co-writer a lot of credit because a non R-rated horror film in 1982 is something very rare. It's obviously that the director was working on a limited budget and I'm going to guess that instead of trying to add a lot of gore effects he instead wanted to create something scary. This is one of those films that nothing happens for the first portion as the atmosphere grows and the director wants to eventually have all the scares at once.This is a rather interesting movie because for the first hour there's really not too much that happens. We basically get to know all of the characters as we learn about them, learn about their relations and we very slowly get to the point where the three females are inside the mausoleum and the fun begins. The final thirty-minutes is when various things start to happen including the dead returning to life. If you're looking for any sort of gore then you can forget it as there's really not a drop until the very end. In fact, the violence is extremely low as is the body count.That explains the PG-rating to the picture and it's interesting that McLoughlin would go this direction. I personally respect him trying to build up scares more than anything else but the problem is that the first hour drags pretty badly. When the film finally starts to pick up it's a tad bit too late but there's no question that there's some fun to be had during the finale. Tilly turns in a good and believable performance and we get some fun supporting performances from Melissa Newman, Elizabeth Daily and Robin Evans. Adam West also appears in a few scenes.ONE DARK NIGHT isn't a masterpiece or even a good movie but it's an interesting horror film for the era.

Scott LeBrun Co-writer / director Tom McLoughlin, who would go on to write and direct "Jason Lives", the sixth entry in the "Friday the 13th" series, began his filmmaking career here with this nicely done, old school, effectively atmospheric low budget horror flick. Granted, it's not terribly slick, but the crudeness of the thing actually helps to make it more endearing.Its teenagers-in-jeopardy plot has a lot more to do with the supernatural than other horror flicks of the early '80s, working in a very intriguing concept: that of a psychically gifted, malicious, telekinetic creep still possessing dangerous powers even after death. He's been entombed in the very mausoleum where nice girl Julie (cute and adorable Meg Tilly, in her first lead role) is forced to spend the night as part of an initiation rite into a small scale high school clique. Before the night is over, our villain, who's nicknamed "Raymar", is giving Julies' tormentors a taste of their own medicine.McLoughlin and company really envelop us in this movies' palpable ambiance, milking the mausoleum setting for everything that it's worth. The cinematography, by Hal Trussell, production design, by Craig Stearns, and music, by Bob Summers, are all excellent. The pacing is efficient, and even the exposition scenes in "One Dark Night" are worth watching, touching upon subjects such as "psychic vampirism" and Kirlian photography. The film gets off to a fine start, and builds up to a cracking finale as Raymar unleashes his abilities on the terrified girls. This is one movie that gets a lot out of its location and sets.Folks who like lots of bloody violence may be disappointed, but that doesn't mean that there isn't some good gross stuff on hand, as Tom Burman, Ellis Burman, and Bob Williams supply some deliciously nasty looking corpses, which never exactly come back to life, but are manipulated by Raymars' mental powers into moving around.The cast is quite easy to watch, especially Tilly. The equally cute Elizabeth Daily, the gorgeous Robin Evans, and the appealing Leslie Speights are an amusing trio as her tormentors. Melissa Newman is good as Olivia, Raymars' daughter who ends up becoming the heroine of the piece, David Mason Daniels is likable as Julies' boyfriend, Donald Hotton is compelling as one of our exposition providers, and Adam "Batman" West is adequate as Olivias' husband. Some performers to watch out for are Leo Gorcey Jr. as the young coroner, Martin Nosseck (a man with a wonderful character face) as the caretaker, Kevin Peter Hall as a basketball player, and Nancy Mott (soon to become Nancy McLoughlin) as the spaced out Lucy.Overall, this is fun stuff, although it definitely may seem lightweight to some viewers, with its lack of emphasis on sex and gore. At the very least, it's got some quirky little details (like Speights' character compulsively sucking on a toothbrush throughout) and priceless dialogue ("You named it, you claimed it.", "You go, Hugo.", and "Nerdle brain") going for it.Eight out of 10.

fred-558-270682 I saw this film when it was released to theaters. It's definitely one to remember, I had forgotten the title until recently. A friend found it via online search.One Dark Night is rather unusual for the suspense/horror genre of the time in that it contains no blood. It is of the teen fright variety yet the teens are respectable in their own ways. It's a nice, old-school film with props and scenes that reflect the times. Our hero rides a motorcycle with no brain bucket, for example.As has been mentioned by previous reviewers, One Dark Night is currently available on DVD. The original negative was not available for the DVD transition. Some reel changes are a bit rough but this doesn't take away from the story. That being said, the colors are vibrant and the lighting is very good.Adam West plays a rather smallish part in this film as RayMar's son-in-law. His role as an overbearing and indifferent husband is thankfully short.The story builds over the course of the film. Unlike many horror films of the era, One Dark Night is a great suspense story that gives the viewer time to absorb what is happening.The final 20 minutes or so of One Dark Night are what make it so memorable. RayMar's telekinetic abilities are used to open old graves in the mausoleum, pull the coffins out, open them and move the corpses around. Attention was afforded to great detail in the final scenes. The rotting, worm-riddled corpses look quite real.