To All a Goodnight (1980) - USA - Horror - Rated RDirected by David Hess
Stars Jennifer Runyon, Judith Bridges, Forrest Swanson, Linda Gentile, Kiva Lawrence
A killer Santa is on the prowl at a girls' finishing school, but the danger Santa poses to the girls is nothing compared to the danger of the viewer falling asleep while watching this.
Two years ago at the Calvin Finishing School for Girls on a Christmas Eve a prank gone out of control causes one of the students to fall to her death. Two years later, the present, the current crop of girls are planning to spend Christmas break at the school with some boys who are flying in for this occasion. But it seems the boys are not the only new guests arriving as someone dressed in a Santa suit has already arrived as is ready to treat some naughty boys and girls to some killing that's not so nice.
It is difficult to fairly rate To All a Goodnight viewing it today rather than when it first came out. It seems littered with slasher movie conventions, yet it originally came out in 1980, before so many of those conventions became standard and is one of the movies that set those in stone. It does borrow from what came before, but what it did not borrow is something to keep any interest going.
Sitting down to watch this movie you had either have had a good night's sleep before this or something like toothpicks or tape to hold your eyes open. Though it starts off well enough, it soon lingers with seemingly nowhere to go but filling time to make it a full length movie. They could have cut the time in half and still kept every moment in the movie.
Although the killer in this movie becomes obvious at a certain point, I won't give any spoilers but someone is not present when the killings take place, I did not see an additional surprise ending coming and it did explain inconsistencies with the identity of the killer. Yes, ultimately it was hokey, like a lot of the 'baited' scripting in this movie, but it was a nice touch.
Recommend: No. What nudity there is in the movie is too little to have to sit through that much boredom. An additional note in that the framing on the new DVD release cuts from the top and bottom, so the scene in the bathroom with a naked Leia does not show her below the waist as it does on the old VHS copy (the screenshots I am using are from a VHS copy).
Two years ago at the Calvin Finishing School for Girls on a Christmas Eve a prank gone out of control causes one of the students to fall to her death. Two years later, the present, the current crop of girls are planning to spend Christmas break at the school with some boys who are flying in for this occasion. But it seems the boys are not the only new guests arriving as someone dressed in a Santa suit has already arrived as is ready to treat some naughty boys and girls to some killing that's not so nice.
It is difficult to fairly rate To All a Goodnight viewing it today rather than when it first came out. It seems littered with slasher movie conventions, yet it originally came out in 1980, before so many of those conventions became standard and is one of the movies that set those in stone. It does borrow from what came before, but what it did not borrow is something to keep any interest going.
Sitting down to watch this movie you had either have had a good night's sleep before this or something like toothpicks or tape to hold your eyes open. Though it starts off well enough, it soon lingers with seemingly nowhere to go but filling time to make it a full length movie. They could have cut the time in half and still kept every moment in the movie.
Although the killer in this movie becomes obvious at a certain point, I won't give any spoilers but someone is not present when the killings take place, I did not see an additional surprise ending coming and it did explain inconsistencies with the identity of the killer. Yes, ultimately it was hokey, like a lot of the 'baited' scripting in this movie, but it was a nice touch.
Recommend: No. What nudity there is in the movie is too little to have to sit through that much boredom. An additional note in that the framing on the new DVD release cuts from the top and bottom, so the scene in the bathroom with a naked Leia does not show her below the waist as it does on the old VHS copy (the screenshots I am using are from a VHS copy).
No comments:
Post a Comment