Night Screams starts as a couple named Ethan & Beth are watching a cheesy horror film (the very thing I was doing at that point!) when Ethan decides he's hungry & goes outside to cook himself a burger on the barbecue, inside unknown to Ethan back inside Beth is stabbed to death. Finding her body Ethan tries to phone the police but he to is stabbed... Wichita, Kanas & college football star David (Joseph Paul Manno) has won a four year scholarship to a nice posh college in Oaklahoma where all his 'dreams' will become a reality, nice. Before he heads off David is throwing a big party at his house for his friends. Meanwhile it has emerged that two convicts have escaped from prison & in a desperate search for shelter come across David's large, isolated country house. As David's friends gather it seems that they are far from alone as one-by-one they meet grisly ends at the hands of an unknown killer, are the convicts responsible? Or maybe it's someone else with even more sinister motives...
Directed by Allen Plone I thought Night Screams was an OK slasher at best & a tired clichéd rehash at worst. The script by Mitch Brian & producer Dillis L. Hart II has all the usual slasher ingredients, the isolated location, the disposable cast of annoying teens including the obligatory comic relief character, the hero, the bad guys & a steady stream of murders so if all you want is a slasher film then you could do worse than Night Screams although having said that you could do a lot better as it does nothing particularly original or outstanding to distinguish itself in an overcrowded & limited sub-genre. There are a few sub-plots that I imagine were supposed to add to the mystery but are underdeveloped & feel almost like afterthoughts, the medication that David is on that is so important to him is occasionally mentioned but never in any great detail, one of the escaped convicts talks a load of religious psycho babble but for no apparent reason, the opening murder of Beth & Ethan seem almost to be from a completely different film & the stupid way everyone falls out with each other over girls & jealously might have made for some good red-herrings but again it seems the filmmakers merely wanted to pad the film out & weren't that interested in connecting these various ideas & plot threads together to make a better film. When the killers identity is eventually revealed in a supposed twist ending their motives are slim to say the least & as a whole has little impact.
Director Plone does an OK job, it's reasonably well made throughout although the scares are minimal, there isn't much build up to the killings & as a result Night Screams lacks tension during it's most important scenes. While at the party David's friends seem intent on watching porn & every so often Plone cuts to showing random clips of porn which is strange when the film is going along nicely then all of a sudden it cuts to a naked woman in a shower washing herself & paying close attention to her breasts! The murders are OK, they're not the goriest but they're not too badly done, there are various stabbings, a poker impalement, an axe in someones head, electrocution, strangulation, death by pool cue, someone has their face grilled on a cooker, someone is suffocated with a plastic bag, someone is squashed by a car & there are some gory gunshot wounds.
Technically Night Screams is pretty good, it has 80's written all over it from the hair styles & clothes to the cars & furniture but that's not really a criticism as it's a product of it's time. The cinematography, music, special effects & general production values are all decent enough. The acting is average at best but not bad enough to spoil things to any great degree.
Night Screams is an OK slasher, if your a die hard slasher fan than you may like this as it's not too bad. If you just want to see the 'highlights' of Night Screams then fast-forward straight to the end credits as for some bizarre reason it replays short clips from the film between the names, including all the murders...
Directed by Allen Plone I thought Night Screams was an OK slasher at best & a tired clichéd rehash at worst. The script by Mitch Brian & producer Dillis L. Hart II has all the usual slasher ingredients, the isolated location, the disposable cast of annoying teens including the obligatory comic relief character, the hero, the bad guys & a steady stream of murders so if all you want is a slasher film then you could do worse than Night Screams although having said that you could do a lot better as it does nothing particularly original or outstanding to distinguish itself in an overcrowded & limited sub-genre. There are a few sub-plots that I imagine were supposed to add to the mystery but are underdeveloped & feel almost like afterthoughts, the medication that David is on that is so important to him is occasionally mentioned but never in any great detail, one of the escaped convicts talks a load of religious psycho babble but for no apparent reason, the opening murder of Beth & Ethan seem almost to be from a completely different film & the stupid way everyone falls out with each other over girls & jealously might have made for some good red-herrings but again it seems the filmmakers merely wanted to pad the film out & weren't that interested in connecting these various ideas & plot threads together to make a better film. When the killers identity is eventually revealed in a supposed twist ending their motives are slim to say the least & as a whole has little impact.
Director Plone does an OK job, it's reasonably well made throughout although the scares are minimal, there isn't much build up to the killings & as a result Night Screams lacks tension during it's most important scenes. While at the party David's friends seem intent on watching porn & every so often Plone cuts to showing random clips of porn which is strange when the film is going along nicely then all of a sudden it cuts to a naked woman in a shower washing herself & paying close attention to her breasts! The murders are OK, they're not the goriest but they're not too badly done, there are various stabbings, a poker impalement, an axe in someones head, electrocution, strangulation, death by pool cue, someone has their face grilled on a cooker, someone is suffocated with a plastic bag, someone is squashed by a car & there are some gory gunshot wounds.
Technically Night Screams is pretty good, it has 80's written all over it from the hair styles & clothes to the cars & furniture but that's not really a criticism as it's a product of it's time. The cinematography, music, special effects & general production values are all decent enough. The acting is average at best but not bad enough to spoil things to any great degree.
Night Screams is an OK slasher, if your a die hard slasher fan than you may like this as it's not too bad. If you just want to see the 'highlights' of Night Screams then fast-forward straight to the end credits as for some bizarre reason it replays short clips from the film between the names, including all the murders...