Hell Night
Hell Night is a 1981 American supernatural slasher film directed by Tom DeSimone, and starring Linda Blair, Vincent Van Patten, Kevin Brophy, and Peter Barton. The film depicts a night of fraternity hazing set in an old manor—the site of a familial mass murder—during which a deformed killer terrorizes and murders many of the college students. The plot blends elements of slasher films and Gothic haunted house films. Filmmaker Chuck Russell served as an executive producer, while his long-time collaborator Frank Darabont served as a production assistant.
Hell Night was written by Randy Feldman, then a recent college graduate who shopped the spec script to several film studios, among them Irwin Yablans's Compass International Pictures. Producer Bruce Cohn Curtis subsequently became involved with the project and secured the lead role for Blair, with whom he had collaborated on several films, among them Roller Boogie, another Compass International release. It marked the first horror film role for Blair in several years, following her performances in The Exorcist and Exorcist II: The Heretic. Principal location photography of Hell Night took place in Redlands, California at the Kimberly Crest mansion in late 1980, with interior photography subsequently occurring in Los Angeles. The film was shot by Swedish cinematographer Mac Ahlberg. The production's shooting schedule was considerably tight, and required the cast and crew to shoot throughout the holiday season.
The film opened theatrically in August 1981 and was the final film released by Compass International Pictures, grossing $2.3 million against a $1.4 million budget. It received mixed reviews from critics, who praised its art direction and some praising Blair's performance, but criticized its similarity to other slasher films. In the years since its release, the film has gone on to develop a cult following. Some critics and film scholars have noted the film for its subtext regarding social class, as well as for its depiction of Blair's character Marti Gaines as a resourceful and intelligent final girl.
Plot
During “Hell Night,” four college pledges—Marti, Jeff, Seth, and Denise—are locked inside the abandoned Garth Manor as part of their fraternity and sorority initiation. Legend says the mansion’s owner, Raymond Garth, murdered his family twelve years earlier, leaving only his youngest, Andrew, unaccounted for. The students are told the gates won’t reopen until dawn.While the pledges settle in, fraternity president Peter and two friends—Scott and May—sneak back to the property to scare them. Their prank goes wrong when May is dragged into an underground tunnel and killed by a deformed man believed to be Andrew Garth. The others assume she’s still pranking them.
Inside, more staged scares occur, but the group soon realizes someone else is in the house. Scott is murdered on the roof, and Peter is chased into the hedge maze and killed. Denise is taken next, leaving Seth to discover her disappearance and May’s severed head. Panicked, he escapes over the gate and runs for help.
Jeff and Marti search the manor, finding Scott’s body and signs of a real killer. Jeff arms himself with a pitchfork and discovers Peter’s corpse in the maze, unaware the gate keys are still in Peter’s hand. Meanwhile, Seth fails to convince the police—who are overwhelmed with Hell Night pranks—but steals a rifle and a car to return.
Back at the manor, Jeff and Marti are attacked by a deformed man hiding under a rug. They chase him through a trap door into the tunnels, where they find Denise’s body arranged at a grotesque dining table. The killer pursues them up a stairwell, injuring Jeff, but they manage to barricade themselves.
Seth arrives and confronts the killer near the garden, shooting him and knocking him into a pond. Believing he has killed Andrew Garth, Seth rushes inside—only to be dragged away by a second surviving Garth brother. A gunshot rings out, and Seth’s rifle is thrown into the hall.
Marti retrieves the weapon but is attacked by the second mutant. She escapes, helps Jeff flee to a bedroom, and climbs out onto the roof. The killer throws Jeff to his death, forcing Marti to run. She finds Peter’s body, retrieves the gate keys, and reaches Seth’s stolen car. After getting it started, she crashes backward into the gate to break it down.
The killer jumps onto the car, smashing the windshield, but Marti drives forward into the fallen gate, impaling him on its spikes. As dawn breaks, she walks away—the sole survivor of Hell Night.
Cast
Themes
James Tucker of Rue Morgue magazine notes that Hell Night contains a subtext regarding social class in both the central characters as the working-class Marti Gaines and wealthy Jeff Reed discuss at length the differences between their respective low and high-class backgrounds, as well as the villains of Andrew and Morris Garth, deformed brothers who were neglected by their wealthy father Raymond and concealed in the family's sprawling mansion.Literary critic and film scholar John Kenneth Muir cites the character of Marti as emblematic of the working class, writing: "She's a smart young woman, is resolutely blue collar, in contrast to the other pledges, and shares an interesting conversation regarding capitalism and the division between the rich and poor with the ill-fated Jeff."
Production
Development
Randy Feldman, then a recent graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, wrote the screenplay for Hell Night over an approximate five-week period. Feldman was loosely inspired by the plot of Black Christmas, which centers on a killer preying on sorority sisters in their sorority house. Feldman stated in a 2018 interview that he approached the writing of the screenplay in a literary manner, owing to his background as a college English major, and admitted the original draft was excessively detailed.Feldman shopped the spec script to several film studios, among them Irwin Yablans's Compass International Pictures, who had distributed John Carpenter's Halloween. Producer Bruce Cohn Curtis, a colleague of Yablans, subsequently contacted Feldman and expressed interest in purchasing the film rights. Mark L. Lester had also read the screenplay, but passed on directing the project. Curtis and his brother helped finance the film, which Curtis pitched to director Tom DeSimone, with whom he had worked on Chatterbox. Several of the film's financiers were businesspeople in Washington, D.C., who were friends of Curtis's brother.
Feldman's screenplay was slightly altered after it was purchased by Curtis, mainly in its implementation of an additional villain; the original draft had only featured one of the Garth brothers as a killer instead of two. Chuck Russell, who would later direct A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, served as executive producer on the film.
Casting
Actress Linda Blair was the first to become attached to the project through her working relationship with producer Curtis, who had produced several of her previous films, including Born Innocent and Roller Boogie. The film marked her first horror film in several years, following The Exorcist and Exorcist II: The Heretic.Johanna Ray served as the film's casting director, and it was her first feature film credit. Curtis sought Peter Barton for the role of Jeff. Barton, a model, was hesitant to take the role and was considering abandoning his acting career at the time, but Curtis convinced him to star in the film. Vincent Van Patten was subsequently cast as Seth Davies, while Suki Goodwin, an English actress, was cast in the role of Denise Dunsmore.
Filming
Principal photography for Hell Night took 40 days in the fall and winter of 1980, between November 1980 and January 1981 with Swedish cinematographer Mac Ahlberg. Frank Darabont, a collaborator of the film's executive producer, Chuck Russell, served as a production assistant.The original filming budget for Hell Night was $1 million, but the shoot's duration through the holidays extended the budget an additional $400,000. The film's shooting schedule reportedly consisted of six-day weeks and was described as grueling. Star Linda Blair recalled the daily shoots lasting from 5:00a.m. to 11:00p.m., and that the tight schedule demanded the cast and crew spend Thanksgiving working on the film, with the production renting a double-decker bus used to serve them a Thanksgiving meal.
The majority of the film was shot in three locations: The exterior of Garth Manor was shot at the Kimberly Crest mansion in Redlands, California. The hedge maze was brought in as there was no actual garden maze on the mansion property. The inside of Garth Manor was filmed in a residential home in Pasadena, California. The frat party was filmed in an apartment lobby in Los Angeles, with the exteriors of the party filmed at the University of Redlands. The seemingly many tunnels in the movie were actually only two corridors through which the director had the actors repeatedly running from different angles. Additional interior photography took place at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood.
Director De Simone stated he wanted a "classic Gothic look" for the film: "I don't like these horror films where people are walking around haunted houses wearing jeans and T-shirts. So we threw our heads together and I said I wanted Linda in a Gothic kind of wardrobe. And we came up with the idea to make the hell night party a costume party. And that way we were able to have everyone in those kinds of costumes that suited their personality." During filming, producer Curtis urged DeSimone to implement an extended chase sequence for Linda Blair's character after seeing Jamie Lee Curtis's chase sequence in Terror Train ; this was the basis of the chase sequence that takes place in the tunnels under the mansion.
The two actors who portrayed the Garth killers are not listed anywhere in the credits, although their real names are believed to be Valentino Richardson and Chad Butler. However, on the film's DVD commentary, it was noted that they are both German nationals who spoke little or no English, and that one of them died shortly after the release of the film.