Does Hell Night live up to the hype that has been brewing over the last few years or is it a film that deserves its own hell night?
Linda Blair: The Beauty of Horror (35m 21s, HD)
Hell Nights with Tom De Simone (26m 57s, HD)
Peter Barton: Facing Fear (20m 50s, HD)
Producing Hell with Bruce Cohn Curtis (14m 10s, HD)
Writing Hell (25m 51s, HD)
Interview with screenwriter Randy Feldman
Vincent Van Patter and Suki Goodman in Conversation (26m 53s, HD)
Kevin Brophy and Jenny Neumann in Conversation (23m 1s, HD)
Gothic Design in Hell Night (22m 50s, HD)
Interview with Art Designer Steven Legler
Anatomy of the Death Scenes (21m 43s, HD)
Interviews with Ram Peiztman (make-up) and John Eggert (Effects)
On Location at Kimberly Crest (6m 48s, HD)
Theatrical Trailer (2m 56s, HD)
TV Spots (1m 5s, SD, 1.33:1)
2 TV Spots
Radio Spot (32s, HD)
Photo Gallery (8m 31s, HD)
Audio Commentary with Actress Linda Blair, Director Tom De Simone, and Producers Irwin Yablans and Bruce Cohn Curtis
As you can tell, this disc is packed with special features, most of which are interviews with almost every major player in front of, and behind the camera. The interviews with the actors all go into their backgrounds and eventually talk about how great it was to work on the set and how they got along with everyone. The interview with the director and producer gives us a more technical look at the film and the screenwriter’s interview gives us a look at how a script can be changed and not always to the writer’s content.
All of these special features are newly recorded except for the commentary track, which was included on the Anchor Bay dvd releases. If you are a fan of the film, then these features will be worth your time.
The blu-ray disc is REGION A (locked) and the dvd is REGION ONE.
Hell Night has been a sought-after film since the blu-ray format was introduced about ten years ago. Everyone said that it couldn’t be released for various reasons, but Scream Factory has made it happen: with a major caveat. As you can see from the statement above, Hell Night’s camera negative could not be found so Scream Factory had to rely on a 35mm film print of the film. This means that it is a copy and thus does not have the same virtues of a negative. Due to this, Hell Night does not look all that great on blu-ray, no matter what resolution it was scanned in at. There is very little in the way of fine detail. We do get an uptick in detail above the dvd, but it never looks like a 4K scan. Colors can look really good, but a lot of the time they look a bit off. Skin tones are pretty good, though. Blacks are crushed, but the picture doesn’t look as murky as the dvd did. The picture doesn't seem to have been remastered either. There are scratches all over the place and a green line of differing thickness rears its ugly head throughout the entire film. I don't have a big problem with this as it feels like I watching the film in the theaters after it has played for a long time. I know that there are many out there that will swear off of this release because of all these problems, but you have to remember that Scream Factory found the best print out there to work with and they should be applauded for what they were able to do with it: They were able to release Hell Night on blu-ray. Now that is something.
Here we have an English Mono DTS-HD Master Audio track and it sounds good. Dialogue is crisp and clear, but the track never rises above being flat. The effects show their age although there are a few times where the effects do shine but it is not that much. The track isn’t awful. It is completely listenable, but it pales in comparison with some other tracks from the same time period.
Before being able to join Alpha Sigma Rho fraternity and its sister sorority, four pledges must spend the night in Garth Manor, twelve years to the day after the previous resident murdered his entire family. Some, however, say that one member of the Garth family survived, and still resides somewhere in the now-deserted mansion.
Everyone loves Hell Night. When this blu-ray was announced, everyone lost their shit. Scream Factory has been on a roll lately and this was one that fans had been waiting for. I even jumped on the bandwagon because it is a slasher film that I haven’t seen and that makes me happy.
I am sorry to say that the film does not live up to the hype set by the fans. While I liked certain aspects of the film, there were many that I didn’t like.
I loved that the film took its time in setting up the legend of the house that our main characters were going to be spending the night in. The monologue is one of the best ever in a slasher film and should be commended for that. In the special features, we learn that this monologue was done in one take which makes that scene all the more special.
I also liked the time given to each of the main cast to develop their characters with. Rarely do we get to know the characters of a slasher film before they are killed off? When we do get to know the characters they are usually douchebags who deserve to get whats coming to them. There was not one character in the film that I thought should have died and that is a good thing. It allows the audience to have sympathy for the recently deceased.
Linda Blair is really good as the final girl. Early in the film, she has a sweetness to her, but by the end, after all of her friends have been killed, she is a husk of her former self. I think that Blair was the right choice for the role even if she didn’t want to do the film in the first place.
With this being a slasher film, you would think that there would be copious amounts of blood, but you would be wrong. There are plenty of kills in the film, but most of them happen off screen and the ones that do happen on screen are ok at best. I was disappointed in the aspect and wished that the filmmakers had thought up some better ways to kill off your cast. In fact, one of the characters gets shot off screen. That is an easy effect that wouldn’t have cost that much to apply and shoot.
In the end, I liked most of Hell Night, but I was expecting so much more out of the film. The film came out during the slasher boom and yet is one of the tamest of the genre. This would be a perfect film to remake and fix all of the mistakes in the film. The film could have been so much better, but it isn’t.
OVERALL
Hell Night does not live up to its reputation. While there are aspects of the film that I did like (the acting, focus on characters), there were plenty I did not like. I wish that the villain was set up better and the second villain was just a cheat by the filmmakers who needed more to this film. The film is also very dark making it hard to tell what is going on at some points. Basically, they had a really good idea and a bit of clever writing, but not enough to make this film special.The blu-ray, from Scream Factory, is nice. The picture could have been better, but there are reasons for that. The sound suffers a similar fate. The special features package is loaded with interviews with just about everyone who worked on the film and lots of good stories are told. All in all, Scream Factory gave us more than we could ever have wished for with Hell Night. Sure, there are a few flaws with the presentation, but these flaws could not be avoided. This is a stellar package that deserves a place in any horror fans collection.
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