TITLE: Night Fright

RELEASE DATE
: 1968

REVIEWED BY
The DarkSider - 9/12/08
THE PLOT:  Quickly we join up with a few love birds making out in a convertible.  During their interlude of forced acting, we hear an announcement on the radio about a mysterious occurrence in they sky miles away.  Apparently it was some kind of UFO sighting. By the way, if you�re a young couple in a horror movie and you hear that report get the f*ck out of the area.  These idiots stay and get taken out by an unknown assailant. 

Quickly we join up with the local sorority where a young lady named Judy is awaiting the arrival of her man, Chris.  Chris arrives and in a non gentleman manner, flirts away with a one of Judy�s sorority sisters named Annie.  Judy chastises him for a bit about his former relationship with Annie but through his school boy charm he convinces her otherwise.  What a guy. 

Anyhow, the two end up in the countryside where Chris changes gears from horny college student to major philosopher when Judy asks him about the UFO.  He thinks some thoughts not worth mentioning here and minutes later they are joined by several of their college friends.  How did they know they were there in the middle of nowhere?  I�m assuming they read the script like in the Muppet Movie.  They ask Judy and Chris to a happening down at the beach however the two decline and go on a nature walk.  We get treated to what seems like several hours of annoying banter, a drawn out woodland frolic of sorts and a whole bunch of other crap before Judy sees something and screams. 

Ok so here we are, over 10 minutes into this wreck, and just now they decide to run the title screen and opening credits.  I do wonder if the closing credits will be the same  While the credits roll we follow a police car�s siren a la The Naked Gun movies minus the cool factor.  I honestly developed a migraine while watching listening to it.  We immediately join up with Sheriff Clint Crawford who is talking with his deputy Ben Whitfield about something.  They are quickly joined by a Professor Alan Clayton.  After some back plot exposing banter, the �government boys� arrive to investigate UFO on goings.  However Crawford and Clayton head off to investigate the murder scene Judy freaked about one paragraph ago. 

The guys arrive just in time to see the coroner taking away the body.  This quick body removal and the lack of police tape make me think that crime scene investigations simply don�t exist in this movie.  We find out that the guy from the beginning is still alive but the girl is pretty much chop liver.  A press fellow, who ironically reminded me of Clark Kent, named Wes shows up to talk to the  law.  The three guys decide to search the area in an unnecessarily slow sweep.  Clint hears a noise but it ends up being some pigs roaming around.  I guess pigs in their town take strolls in forests from time to time. 

All this nonsense gets interrupted when Wes finds some odd looking tracks in the brush.  Clint sends his buddies back for some plaster  and proceeds to wander about some more. He finds a clump of hair, gets followed by a shadow and does a few other things in a screen time killing manner.  Eventually Clint ends up on a road where he almost gets run down by a greaser looker fellow named Rex.  Clint tells them to go back to the dorm.  The girl in the car, Darlene, asks why they can�t continue.  Meanwhile Rex goes into prick mode and tells off the �fuzz�.  Clint lays down the law and scares the annoying kids back to the campus.  Clint eventually meets up with Alan and they agree the trail has gone cold.  They also find out that the kid from the beginning didn�t make it either to boot.
"Yes I've been drinking but I figured road rules don't apply in the wilderness officers....."
We join up a bit with Darlene and her buddies who are in a diner talking about how their whole weekend was ruined due to the cops.  Bunch of spoiled little sh*ts.  Back to Clint who stops off at the local hospital to say hi to his main squeeze/Darlene�s sister Joan.  By the way the hospital oddly looks like someone�s kitchen.   In a forced acting scene, Joan laments and Clint listens.  She feels Darlene hanging out with Rex is a bad thing and Clint agrees.  Blah blah blah, more time wasting. 

Fast forward to later that evening, Clint is blowing his top on someone over the phone.  For reasons I won�t dare try to figure out, Wes was still hanging with him.  Perhaps the small town press are part of their department�s special forces wing.   He implores Wes to sit on the story for a bit until all the facts are in.  What a great sheriff, f*ck the safety of the public and hooray for more useless investigation.  Clint takes a phone call from Professor Clayton to end the scene. 


Later that night at Judy�s dorm, Chris arrives to pick her up.  She is visibly shaken because of the body discovery..  Chris suggests  food is the best thing to calm her down because he�s an idiot.   They head to the diner and are told by the waitress everyone is out at the  party.  Chris and Judy decide it is best they head out to the party.  Speaking of which, the scene switches over to the big event where everyone is dancing in a most groovy way.  Well maybe not groovy, rather kind of �whitey�.  These scenes go on for what seems like a century by the way. 

Cut back to Clint is having a chit chat with Clayton about the tracks they�ve found.  Clayton thinks the tracks are odd but he can�t identify them.   Glad the professionals had such a thorough opinion.  Meanwhile, Joan arrives home to find a note from Darlene about her trip to the party.   Joan plays phone tag for a bit looking for Clint but ends up missing him. So she decides to head on out in search of her sister. 

Meanwhile, Whitfield is perusing a dark road for no apparent reason.  He comes face to face with�um�I guess it�s the monster.  The copy I had was so f*cking dark it could have been Rip Taylor for all I know.  Anyhow after getting his car stuck, the idiot decides running for his life or drawing his weapon is too overrated.  He tries to franticly call in for backup to headquarters to where an on duty officer is on a coffee break.  Glad to know in case of emergency the town law enforcement is there at all times. 

The monster makes quick work of Whitfield and this switches back to the party�again.  People are still dancing badly when Chris and Judy arrive.  Chris tells them they should split but Rex thinks otherwise.  In a brawl filled with onlooker�s reaction shots, Chris proceeds to beat the snot out of Rex.  Chris gives a last warning to split and most people agree.  Rex and Darlene decides its best to become fodder and stay for a bit.  The scene from the beginning gets repeated and this leads to a drawn out chase of Darlene by the monster.
"Cool dadio...hey I have to split before The Fonz gets here and kicks  the ever living sh*t out of me....
Darlene stumbles upon Joan and Clint who somehow hooked up in the land of plot convenience-ville.  Clint draws the monster away from the ladies with a few blasts.  He runs through the woods and we finally get a good look at the creature.  All I could think of is it looked like a yeti with it�s face sandblasted off.    Well anyhow, Clint runs like a sissy from the monster into the woods.  This goes on for a bit until he tries to poke at the monster with a log.  The alien bitch slaps him and Clint takes off again. 

Quickly we join up with Chris and Judy who are driving along talking about nothing of interest.  At this point I assumed that people in this town had nothing to do but drive around in wooded areas.  They end up stumbling upon Ben Whitfield�s body. Low and behold Clint who stumbles out of the woods.  Pure idiocy but I�ll buy anything at this point.  They head back to police headquarters where Clint is radioing for help to the state police.  Joan tells him how Darlene was like a mannequin all the way home.  A light bulb goes off in Clint�s normally empty head and he phones Wes. 

After the call they are joined by Clayton.  Clayton tells of a spaceship they sent out from earth to find creatures of all kind in the universe.  The ship recently came back the earth containing the creature.  Clint gives Chris, whos father apparently owns a construction company, a list of stuff he needs. Clint, with an apparent ridiculous over the top Scooby Doo monster catching idea, heads out with everyone to set the plan in motion.  What is this plan?  Well Clint sets up a mannequin over a few sticks of dynamite.  That�s about it.  The plan gets screwed up when the monster starts chasing Chris and Judy.  However, Clint eventually diverts it to the dynamite and proceeds to blow it up thus ending this wreck. 

Night Fright is one of those films that is bad but not even in a good way.  Hence there is little to no entertainment value due to endless time killing sequences and god awful dialog.  The film seems to try to be a skin fest but with a PG tone.  Hence  a lot of attractive young ladies either dancing or hanging out looking good.  Too bad their beauty won�t even come close to covering up the idiocy of the film.  That and how awful their attempt at acting turned out to be.

With very few points of action other than the forest, Night Fright almost seems to repeat itself frequently. The other main stop, the sorority house, was my main basis for picking this film for the back to school roundtable.  Granted there isn�t a lot of action at the actual school but still, its mostly college kids getting eaten up anyhow while doing college things.  (Aka trying to get laid)  Speaking of which, the monster is horribly laughable and almost makes Robot Monster look like Godzilla.  It doesn�t do much of anything until the end of the film.  Most things leading up to it�s rather blah first appearance is a mix of first person camera monster views and conversations about what it could be by the bland cast.   

So needless to say, Night Fright ending up like school assignment I felt like putting off until the last minute.  Don�t pack up your backpack yet though kids.  A few other lessons in classroom horror await you by clicking the banner below.
YOU'RE A GRAND OLD A-HOLE (the A-Holes of the film get their moment)
1.) The Monster - Not only is he the Hairclub For Yeti's President, he's also a rather pissed off client.
2.) Rex - Casey Kasem look alikes rejoice, you have found your leader.
OVERALL GRADE
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