Hell Night has always been one of my favorites, and if you want to know a bunch of reasons why, this post from 2012 (!) should clue you in. I can acknowledge that it's got some flaws and in the same breath tell you with absolute conviction: Hell Night rules! Gimme dat ol' spooky Garth Manor and I'm good, baby.
I long assumed everyone felt this way about it, that everyone's taste is as good as mine, but I've discovered in recent months that this is not true. Hell Night is not universally adored! I guess we really are living in the darkest timeline. Oh well. It still rocks my face off, so I'll just be sitting over here all gorked out on quaaludes and Jack Daniels while everyone else is off watching, I don't know, Insidiou5 or something. That's just fine! Go on, get outta here! It'll just be me and my quaaludes and my JD alone with this boss-ass scene, where Jeff and Marti (Peter Barton and Linda Blair) think they're safe because they've locked themselves in a room, but NO, they are NOT. Andrew Garth rises out of a trap door that was hidden under a rug. It looks lousy in the screencap but it's fucking rad as heck.
Hmm I posted about Hell Night in 2006 and then again in 2012...looks like I'm just about on schedule with today's post. Let's meet back here in, say, late 2025 and I'll tell you how much I love Hell Night again!
Ah yes, the Rising Rug scene! It actually scared the crapping crap outta me the first time I saw it.
ReplyDeleteI wonder where Peter "I'm always prettier than any of my leading ladies" Barton is nowadays?
I just finally saw this in September! It was always unavailable on Netflix as a DVD, most places never had it streaming, or I didn't want to watch it for whatever reason.
ReplyDeleteAnd . . . it didn't grab me. Maybe it is just too late for me to be charmed by a mediocre slasher. Oh well. I do appreciate the weirdly gothic setting for 1980.
I too noticed how often they said "radical," which seems a couple of years too early. I guess they were trendsetters.