I watched this movie years ago and the name always stuck in the back of my mind ,i guess back then i was less discriminate. After buying this movie then waiting patiently for it to arrive i realized just what the term anticlimax means.Other reveiws claim that is slow paced, over all it isn't to bad pacing wise, i've seen a lot worse over the years .This movies major drawbacks when put together are terrrible music score ,corny acting, bad dialoge and the finale with the corpses, they float around like ragdolls asumingly being controlled by one corpse (a living dead) but this character is inanimate as well his only sign of life is miniture lightning comming from his eyes. A good movie will draw you in and make believe the unbelievable or at least accept it. All in all this movie fails terribly ,it just doesnt ring true even for a cheap horror movie.
June 25, 2008 |  | Watching "One Dark Night" will make for one dull night... |  |
One Dark Night (or Mausoleum as I remember it from my VHS video store youth) stars a prepubescent Meg Tilly (sans cleavage) being put up to staying in a "Mausoleum" for "One Dark Night" (nice huh?) where recently deceased master of telekinesis and life-energy vampire (?!) Raymor has just recently been entombed. Okay, so unless you remember this as a kid and are sentimentally attached OR like your Horror on the extremely light side (as in no blood, no guts, no death, no swearing, no nudity, and no scares) this probably won't do much for you... on the other hand, if your Grandparents are throwing a "spooky" Halloween party then this is a fairly safe choice for the old DVD player. Taking place almost entirely in a mausoleum does provide some nice atmosphere but unfortunetely it's wasted with an overlong build up (over an hour before anything really happens) and special effects that make your local seasonal High School haunted house seem frightening and realistic in comparison. I don't have anything against a good "slow-burn" type of film, but after investing in a movie for so long it has to deliver in the end... this one doesn't. For those of you out there that do like the movie, this release from Shriek Show is quite a treat. Although their clean-up and presentation is rarely up to the standards of some of their competition (Anchor Bay, Blue Underground, Dark Sky, etc.), they have more than made up with it in the bonus features provided including a director's cut. If you truly want a good time hanging out in a burial tomb, I'd recommend giving the Phantasm movies a try instead of this (especially Phantasm 2... which unbelievably can't find a region 1 DVD release while One Dark Night gets the 2 disc special treatment... WTF!?).
November 22, 2007This movie is barely watchable. In a nutshell 3 cheerleaders torment a girl, played by Meg Tilly, who wants to be a cheerleader. Actually she is more into proving herself to the head cheerleader, and that cheerleader has about as much brains and tact as a mosquito. Now add a ex-boyfriend to the sick cheerleader which is trying to stop his new girlfriend going through the initiation rights from Hell concocted by the head cheerleader. These rights include staying in a Mausoleum for a night. Then add in two of the cheerleaders don't stop there, but enter the mausoleum to further torment our young cheerleader initiate. The lame special effects would not have impressed me when the movie was made, let alone today. So bottom line is, thank God for Netflix rentals because if I had bought this turkey I would be on the lookout to haunt the good reviewers here with Raymar powers and make them do something stupid. Oh, I guess they already did something stupid with their reviews of this movie that makes Plan 9 from Outer Space look like a brilliant FX masterpiece worthy of an Oscar. I wonder if Raymar is controlling them? If your are a bored female teenager, it's late at night, there is a full moon, the weather is windy, it's around Halloween, you want to be a cheerleader, and you have acne, you may find this movie mildly amusing.
November 1, 2007I remember this one from when it came out because it was PG and we could get in to see it.
To be quick and kind, time hasn't been kind to this super silly ghost story. It works better if you are 12 years old.
August 16, 2007Very nice 80's horror flick starring Meg Tilly and Elisabeth Daily from The devil's rejects, the transfer and quality of this dvd was terrible but then again why am I not surprised shriek show has done this before they usually do a horrible job restoring some of there other films I agree with what another reviewer said it would have been better if another company restored it like Anchor Bay, there were alot of scratches but at least the sound quality was good and there was also a commentary track by the film's director forgot his name. As a final act of initiation into a highschool sorority called the sisters Julie Wells (Meg Tilly) must spend the night locked in the local mausoleum, the other members don't plan on making it easy for her and sneak in they're obviously playing pranks in order to scare her to death and have a bit of a laugh but unfortunately for them and Julie this place also happens to be the last resting place for Karl Raymar a psychic vampire who likes to suck the energy or life force out of people, the film was very good and the fact that it doesn't use any blood and gore and instead relys on a very dark and weird atmosphere and some heightened suspense was a very clever idea this was a very enjoyable low budget 80's horror film that has some cheesy but fun special fx, I highly recommend this film to horror fans enjoy.
July 30, 2007More reviews at Amazon.com ...
Daily Birthdays
(26 reviews)
