One Dark Night (1982)

Director: Thomas McLoughlin

Starring: Meg Tilly, Melissa Newman, Robin Evans

As part of an initiation into a club called the Sisters, a young girl must spend the night in a mausoleum.

Uhm, ok, so a girl, Julie, wants to join a club called Sisters, but why? They never mention anything about the Sisters or the advantages of becoming a member, and with the leader being Julie’s boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend, I didn’t really care much for her desire to become a member of the club. Why would she want to be in a club headed by the ex girlfriend?

As part of her final initiation, Julie has to stay a night in the mausoleum. It so happens to be the very mausoleum where a mysterious killer with powers, Raymar, was buried that very afternoon. Raymar’s story was far more interesting than the focus at hand, but he was pretty much in the background for most of the movie.

The setting in the mausoleum was creepy and I must admit the film in general was better than expected, and the acting wasn’t too shabby either. There were also some good practical effects, especially during the final act. There’s a lot of promise of something evil happening, though, without anything significant happening at all – apart from pranks and fake scares. Despite this, the film nevertheless remained fairly interesting, and some of these pranks were funny.

Speaking of the final act, unfortunately it’s not all that clear what Raymar was trying to achieve. What does he want? Why is he doing what he does? The finale might be a bit over the top, but ‘One Dark Night’ was still a fun movie to watch.

‘One Dark Night’ was nominated Best Low-Budget Film.

Would I watch it again? I don’t think so.