HELL NIGHT (1981) (101 Films Blu-ray Review/Comparison)

HELL NIGHT (1981)

Label: 101 Films
Region Code: B
Rating: Certificate: 15
Duration: 101 Minutes
Audio: English Dual Mono PCM 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Tom DeSimone
Cast: Linda Blair, Vincent Van Patten, Peter Barton, Suki Goodwin, Kevin Brophy, Jimmy Sturtevant, Jenny Neumann 

The Tom DeSimone (Reform School Girls) directed the Gothic-tinged slasher Hell Night (1981), it was one of those horror titles on VHS that beckoned you in with that amazing illustrated artwork of Linda Blair's busty character clutching those iron bars, with a look of utter terror plastered across her face, her mouth agape in a silent scream. It was absolutely the sort of Gothic image that gave you goosebumps by day and nightmares by night, at least it did for me. The flick received a a DVD release from Anchor Bay back in 2002, it went out of print fairly quickly, and had been fetching steep prices on eBay which kept it out of grasp, that is until Scream Factory released a 2-disc Collector's Edition with a  4K restoration and some sweet extras in 2018. Now in 2021 U.K. distributor 101 Films have licensed the film for distribution in the UK for the first time ever, with the same 4K scan and duplicate set of extras, with a deluxe slipcover edition and collectible booklet. 

The movie has a very simple and not all that original storyline, we have Peter, the president of the Alpha Sigma Rho fraternity, who every year initiates new pledges by having them stay the night at the eerie Garth Manor, where they must stay locked away behind the iron gates until daybreak. The creepy estate has been vacant for the past twelve years, ever since the former owner Raymond Garth murdered his wife and three deformed kids before hanging himself. The four pledges this year are the slightly uptight Marti (Linda Blair, Chained Heat), nice guy Jeff (Peter Barton, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter), party girl Denise (Suki Goodwin), and California surfer dude Seth (Vincent Van Patten, Rock 'N' Roll High School). The foursome are escorted to the mansion with some collegiate fanfare before being locked in for the night, then the couples pair off quickly with Seth and Denise almost immediately heading to a bedroom for a quick hook-up while Marti and Seth get friendly in a decidedly more chaste manner in front of a fireplace' which couldn't have been easy for young Seth, that bussomy bodice worn by Marti is the perfect showcase for Linda Blair's top-shelf assets, but he plays nice, and the  pair definitely have chemistry.

Under the cover of darkness Alpha Sigma Rho president Peter (Kevin Brophy, The Seduction) and his girlfriend May (Jenny Neumann, Stage Fright), along with frat-brother Scott (Jimmy Sturtevan) show up to put some fright into the pledges night, having rigged the creaky mansion with pranks and pre-recorded screams. The pledges and their dates end up seeing the spooky projected image of the ghost of the murderous patriarch Raymond Garth, and Seth is startled by some canned-screams.

The three roof-top pranksters are killed off in fairly short order by an unseen killer who doesn't seem too pleased to have visitors on the sprawling estate, soon enough we have someone's head twisted all the way around by the neck-snapping brute, while poor May is decapitated with an ax after being dragged into a tunnel. When Peter discovers his dead friend he makes a good run for it but is cut-down with a scythe in the mansions hedge maze - all good stuff, maybe not particularly gore-heavy but certainly heavy on the Gothic atmosphere and well-staged kills.

Pretty soon our four formerly oblivious pledges get in on the murder-fun when one of them is discovered decapitated and a panic ensues as they fret over what to do next, with one of them attempting to climb over the high iron gates that surround the mansion, which is tipped with razor sharp points. The rest of the group come under attack and discover a series of tunnels beneath the mansion, which they unwisely descend into (bad idea) while contending with a deformed hulk of a killer.

Hell Night came out at the height of the slasher cycle, 1981 was a heck of year for the genre giving us The Burning, Friday the 13th Pt. 2, My Bloody Valentine, Happy Birthday To Me and The Prowler just to name a few choice cuts. However, this one doesn't go for the grisly over-the-top bloodletting, instead we get some fun characters who are actually cool people, even the frat guys aren't evil douche bags, everyone tries to do the sensible thing for the most part - though there are exceptions, going down that tunnel was just a bad idea, and while I commend one of them who managed to escape to find help, he chose to do the right thing and returns by himself when the local police fail to believe his story is anything but a fraternity prank, but I would not have returned myself, sorry friends you're shit-out-of-luck tonight! The film has some great Gothic atmosphere throughout, on the mansion grounds, down in the tunnels and main house are a great set-pieces, the fact that all the characters have just come from a frat costume party means they're in period costumes, highlighted by Blair's choice bosom-blossoming bodice, further pushing the Gothic tones. The premise is very simple, and it works great, while some would say this is slow I say it's a slow-boiler, leading to a frenzied final terror-spree that has always worked for me. Something else that works for me is the playful sexuality of Suki Goodwin as party-girl Denise, who was just gone too soon for my taste! Another winner of an idea is the killer, a hulking simpleton, a remnant of the doomed Garth family, a bit along the lines of the island-shocker Humongous (1982) with just a twist of the backwoods-slasher Just Before Dawn (1981). Hell Night is a top-tier Gothic-tinged slasher, oozing atmosphere and spilling over with ample charms of Linda Blair, essential stuff, this is a top 20 slasher for me.


Audio/Video: Hell Night (1981) arrives on Blu-ray from UK distributor 101 Films as part of their Black Label series, presented in 1080p HD framed in 1.85:1 widescreen. As 101 Films are using the same 4K master as the U.S. release from Scream Factory in regard to their 4K restoration, so I will include the disc disclaimer that accompanies that release. 

"A Note About Our New 4K Scan: We did an extensive search for the original film elements, but were unable to locate them. Therefore, this new transfer comes from a 4K scan of the best surviving archival 35mm film print of Hell Night. We did extensive color correction and film restoration to clean up any film damage. Because the print was missing some minor footage, so we have inserted a small amount of standard definition footage to deliver the complete film. We hope you enjoy this new restoration of this ‘80s horror classic."

So with that knowledge go into this with some tempered expectations about the picture quality and I think you will be quite happy with the end result. It's my understanding that there's only so much you can do as far as color correction from an actual print, so there's gonna be a lot less fine detail than one would hope for from a modern HD presentation, but I am assuming the Scream initially did their due diligence and looked for a better source, but this is what they found, and what they have to offer - like it or lump it. So what happened to the original vault elements for the movie? Legend has it that the rights owners defaulted on payment to the facility that housed the original negative, the facility sold the elements at auction and they have not been heard from since, if you know different please let me know, I'd be keen to know what the real story is. You should also know that the theatrical print they found was incomplete and they had to resort to adding in standard definition inserts to make this as complete as possible.

So now that we have that out of the way, how's the damn thing look? With those tempered expectation I was pleased with what I saw, it has debris, there's print damage by way of specks and emulsion scratches and a prevailing softness/darkness about it, but the colors are decent, but it's not crisp by usual standards, a deficit perhaps bolstered by the 80's soft focus cinematography. Some scenes are fairly grainy while others looks like perhaps a bit too much DNR had been applied to specific scenes, but it's not across-the-board digitally scrubbed by any means. The worst offenses would be some emulsion scratches that mar a few scenes, and when the standard definition inserts show up they do not blend well, not so much that the color correction is off (it is) or that the quality dips (it does), but that the frames do not align seamlessly, the transitions from HD to SD are jarring, but not so much so that it was ruinous for me, but annoying. Overall I think this is a decent upgrade, and as I have the Scream Factory Blu-ray to compare it to it's worth noting that 101 Films transfer is definitely the same HD master with the same framing and emulsion marks, but it is a tad brighter which allows you to see a tony bit more in the darker scenes. The difference is marginal but it appreciable, and I sort of wavered back and forth which version I liked more, as I enjoyed the brighter image which gives the illusion of it being sharper, but it also thins the reds a tony bit, so I will call it a draw, 

The sole audio option is an English English Dual Mono PCM 2.0 with optional English subtitles, and I was hard-pressed to discern any difference between the Scream Factory DTS-HD mono. Dialogue, the Dan Wyman (Without Warning) score and effects are well-mixed and free of distortion and pops.

101 Films have licensed all the on-disc extras that previous accompanies the Scream Factory release from 2018, and that's good new because they were fantastic then and the're fantastic now! We get a 35-minute interview with Linda Blair, a 27-minute interview Director Tom DeSimon, 21-minutes with Peter Barton, 14-minute with Producer Bruce Cohn Curtis26-minutes with Writer Randolph Feldman, plus a 27-minute conversation with actors Vincent Van Patten and Suki Goodwin, another 23-minute conversation with actors Kevin Brophy and Jenny Neumann, and the 22-minute Anatomy Of The Death Scenes with Tom DeSimone, Randolph Feldman, Make-up Artist Pam Peitzman, Art Director Steven G. Legler, And Special Effects Artist John Eggett. The last of the interviews is a 7-minute On Location At The Kimberly Crest House With Tom DeSimone, and a 21-minute interview with production designer Steven G. Legler. 

The disc is buttoned-up with a 3-minute Theatrical Trailer, 1-munute of TV Spots and a 1-minute Original Radio Spot, plus we get 9-minutes of Photo Gallery Featuring Rare, Never-before-seen Stills. We were only send an early "check disc" without packaging of any kind for the sake of review so no comment on the packaging and artwork, but you can check it out in the promo pic below and in the special features listing below that: 

Special Features:
- 4K Scan Of The Film Taken From The Best Surviving Archival Print

- Limited edition booklet: Includes The Scare Blair Bunch: Hell Night, Linda Blair and the Rise of the American Sorority Slasher by Andrew Graves and Haunted Houses on Film by Barry Forshaw
- Interview with Linda Blair: The Beauty of Horror (35 min) HD
- Interview With Director Tom DeSimone: Hell Nights With Tom De Simone (27 min) HD
- Interview with Peter Barton: Facing Fear (21 min) HD
- Interview With Producer Bruce Cohn Curtis: Producing Hell With Bruce Cohn Curtis (14 min) HD
- Interview With Writer Randolph Feldman: Writing Hell (26 min) HD
- Vincent Van Patten and Suki Goodwin In Conversation (27 min) HD
- Kevin Brophy and Jenny Neumann In Conversation (23 min) HD
- NEW – Anatomy Of The Death Scenes With Tom DeSimone, Randolph Feldman, Make-up Artist Pam Peitzman, Art Director Steven G. Legler, And Special Effects Artist John Eggett (22 min) HD
- On Location At The Kimberly Crest House With Tom DeSimone (7 min) HD
- Gothic Design In Hell Night With Steven G. Legler (21 min) HD
- Original Theatrical Trailer (3 min) HD
- TV Spots (1 min)
- Original Radio Spot (1 min) HD
- Photo Gallery Featuring Rare, Never-before-seen Stills (9 min) HD

What's not to love about Hell Night (1981)? It's an atmospheric Gothic-tinged slasher starring Linda Blair in her sweet-sweet prime, we get a fun frat-prank set-up, some good kills and an electrifying-frightful finale, but sadly no nudity. The new U.K. Blu-ray from 101 Films is top-notch and highly recommended. 

Screenshot Comparison:

Top: Scream Factory Blu-ray (2018)

Bottom: 101 Films Blu-ray (2021) 

Extras: