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Hookers! Devil worshippers! A naughty teenage voyeur! A deadly knife, a lethal sedan and a chainsaw-wielding psychopath! Nasal Spray! CineSavant breaks with the disc-reviewing norm and abandons journalistic integrity. Well, not really, but it is a heck of a lot of fun to finally review a film I edited 32 years ago, on a happy moviemaking money-losing vacation from Cannon Films’ advertising department.

Night Visitor

Blu-ray

Scorpion Releasing

1989 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 93 min. / Street Date June (?), 2020 / available through Ronin Flix and Diabolik DVD / 22.99

Starring: Allen Garfield, Elliott Gould, Derek Rydall, Michael J. Pollard, Shannon Tweed, Richard Roundtree, Teresa Van der Woude, Teri Weigel, Scott Fults, Brooke Bundy, Henry Gibson, Kathryn Kimler, Kathleen Bailey.

Cinematography: Peter Jenson

Film Editor: Glenn Erickson

Original Music: Parmer Fuller

Art Direction: Gyongyver Sovago

Still Photographer: Elizabeth Ward

Unit Production Manager, Associate Producer: Richard J. Abramitis

Written by Randal Viscovich

Produced by Alain Silver

Directed by Rupert Hitzig...

Starting this week, John Carpenter's Halloween, Halloween 4, and Halloween 5 will be screening at select drive-in theaters. As reported by HalloweenMovies.com, the following drive-in theaters will be playing Halloween this week:

"Locations showing John Carpenter’s Halloween this week include include Hummel’s Drive-In in Winchester, Indiana, as well as Evo Entertainment locations in both San Antonio and Austin, Texas on 7/31. Additional drive-ins also showing Halloween include ones in Nashville, Tennessee (Montana Drive-in), Buffalo, New York (Kane Family Drive-in), Hartford and New Haven, Connecticut (Pleasant Valley Drive-in) and Westtown, New York (Warwick Drive-in)."

Similar to what we saw with Evil Dead, it's likely we'll see these screenings expand to additional theaters in the coming weeks. Drive-in theaters can request the films via CineLife:

"CineLife Entertainment® has partnered with Trancas International Films and Compass International Pictures to bring Halloween, Halloween 4 & Halloween 5 back to theatres and drive-ins worldwide.

The middle years of the Halloween movies were a weird period for the franchise. Though the original was a perfectly-pitched serial killer slasher and Blumhouse has recently restored the series to its factory settings to much success, Halloweens 4-6 took things in a surprisingly supernatural direction. For instance, H4 and H5 explore a psychic connection between Michael Myers and his niece, Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris).

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers reveals that Laurie Strode has died in a car crash and her young daughter, Jamie, is being raised by an adoptive family. As you’d expect, Michael returns and causes much murder and mayhem, but at the film’s climax, a strange event occurs: when he’s cornered by the police, Jamie runs over to the Shape and touches his hand. The distracted Michael is then caught in a hail of gunfire.

The chilling final twist of the...

It seems that a surprise character may be making an unlikely return in Halloween Kills. We are going to say right up top that those who wish to avoid anything that might be considered a spoiler for the movie should turn back now. That having been said, an incredibly important character from the history of the franchise is said to be in the upcoming sequel, which raises questions about what exactly is going to go down.

Again, those who want to avoid spoilers should turn back now. According to a new report, none other than Dr. Loomis will be making an appearance in Halloween Kills. No details regarding how the character fits into the plot were revealed, but the most likely option would be a flashback. It was also rumored that Loomis would make his return following a test screening that reportedly took place in Los Angeles.

Director David Gordon Green,...

Halloween Kills is set to be even more of an homage to the 1978 slasher classic than its precursor by bringing back other original characters and stars alongside Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode. Kyle Richards, Nancy Stephens and Charles Cyphers are all returning to reprise their roles as Lindsey Wallace, Marion Chambers and former Sheriff Brackett, for instance. Not to mention Anthony Michael Hall is stepping into the part of Tommy Doyle. But there could be an even bigger return on the way, too.

Dark Universe is reporting that their sources, who saw a test screening of Kills back in February, are informing them that none other than Dr. Sam Loomis will feature in the much-anticipated sequel. The site notes that this surprising cameo will occur in a flashback to the events of 1978, when Michael Myers first unleashed terror on Haddonfield, Illinois. They’re unable to say how the filmmakers resurrected...

The Loomis family isn't through with Michael Myers just yet, as Dr. Loomis' grandson looks to finish what his grandfather started in an all-new 60-minute Halloween fan film. Called Halloween Night, the movie comes to us after a successful crowdfunding campaign to raise its budget. Zach Salazar wrote the screenplay, and in addition to directing the movie, Jp DeStefano also stars as John Loomis, the grandson of Donald Pleasence's Sam Loomis from the first six Halloween movies. Ainura DeStefano also stars as Samantha Loomis with John Schilling under the mask as Michael Myers.

Like the theatrical Halloween movie series, Halloween Night takes place on, well, Halloween night in the town of Haddonfield, Illinois. According to the synopsis, the "infamous Halloween Night of 1978 is all but a memory for the people of Haddonfield as the new generation of townspeople look to put the town's marred legacy behind them." And, also...

Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) is showing October 4 – November 2, 2019 on Mubi in several countries as part of the double feature Original Vs. Remake.Perhaps appropriately, Psycho is a schizophrenic film.That statement refers to its form, not only the narrative form that divides it in two and changes the focus of interest from an emotionally beleaguered secretary fleeing with stolen money to the aftermath of her murder and the troubled motel keeper who is seen to be covering up his mother’s crimes, but more profoundly to the specific way this narrative is constructed and the reasons behind it. For though it is a movie intended for commercial success (like any Alfred Hitchcock work), Psycho is also, daringly, an experimental film and is best appreciated that way. The question is whether this experiment works—and the answer to that is complex. For this, we need to look to both the formal...

The cameos just keep coming for Halloween Kills, as yet another star from the original movie from 1978 has been reported for a return. Actress Nancy Stephens, who played young Nurse Marion Chambers in the first installment, is set to reprise the role once again for next year's sequel. As Stephens has reprised the role in two other sequels in the series, this will be the fourth Halloween movie for the actress. This is noteworthy as the only other stars in the series to appear in four or more installments of the franchise are Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, and Danielle Harris.

In the original movie, Nurse Marion and Dr. Sam Loomis (Pleasence) arrive at the mental hospital near Haddonfield shortly after Michael Myers has escaped. With other patients roaming the grounds outside, Loomis steps out to investigate, leading to Michael attacking Marion in her car. Fortunately, Marion was able to...

Shooting began this September on Halloween Kills, the sequel to David Gordon Green’s update on the Halloween franchise, and the first of two confirmed follow-up films. We already know that the movies are bringing back most of the cast and characters from the 1978 original, including Jamie Lee Curtis, Nick Castle, and a new actor as Tommy Doyle, and now, it’s been revealed that Nancy Stephens has signed on to reprise her role as Nurse Marion Chambers as well.

Stephens already returned in Halloween II and Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, but Nurse Marion will be retrofitted to the new movies’ continuity, which disregards the sequels to John Carpenter’s first film. Fans of the Halloween franchise will know that Nurse Marion was a key part of the original story though, whereby she accompanied Donald Pleasence’s Sam Loomis to Smith’s Grove Sanitarium on the night Myers breaks free.

The hunt is officially on for the long lost footage from Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers. Many casual horror fans probably haven't even seen this particular entry and, even amongst the franchise's most die-hard appreciators, it's not often listed as a beloved entry. Still, there has always been a fascination with the famed footage that was cut from the movie prior to its release. Now, 30 years later, with some luck, that footage will be revealed to the world.

This information comes directly from Compass International Pictures and Trancas International Films who, through the official Halloween Movies Twitter account, revealed that they're searching for the infamous footage. The tweet was shared with an image of the screenplay, and two more images showing boxes upon boxes of archived footage that is being sorted through as we speak. The photos were shared with the following caption.

"What're we up to? In...

Rob Zombie’s two Halloween films remain among the most divisive entries in the franchise’s eleven-movie run. But regardless of whether or not you feel the filmmaker’s boldly unique approach to the property paid off, it at least looks like the cast had some fun along the way, with the director recently sharing a few behind-the-scenes clips of his wife and regular collaborator Sheri Moon Zombie getting the giggles.

For two movies, Moon played the part of Deborah Myers, the mother of the murderous Michael. Filling the shoes of Donald Pleasence, meanwhile, was Malcolm McDowell in the role of Dr. Sam Loomis, and when he and Moon shared a scene, apparently the latter had some trouble staying in character.

Rob Zombie posted this short blooper reel from the 2007 Halloween to Instagram, explaining in the caption that “Once Malcolm gave Sheri the giggles it was all over.”

View this...

John Carpenter’s immortal 1978 Halloween was never built to have one sequel, let alone eight (plus two movies in a remake series). Though it left us with Michael Myers still on the loose, an omnipresent, almost metaphysical boogeyman, in a lot of respects, the movie is utterly self-contained. The immediate threat of Myers has been quelled by Dr. Sam Loomis shooting him, point-blank, six times! Laurie Strode has protected her pint-sized babysitting charges, and basically fought Michael to a draw.

The first film’s narrative is not a cog in a grander storytelling machine. The tale is simplicity itself. A faceless, fundamentally unknowable lunatic goes crazy on the titular night in 1963, in the fictitious every-suburb of Haddonfield, Illinois, killing his teen sister. After being locked away for 15 years, he escapes the confines of Smith’s Grove Hospital, steals a nurse’s station wagon, and wreaks havoc on a small group...

Happy Halloween, Trailers From Hell miscreants!

Roughly 14 million folks stateside as of this writing have seen the latest Halloween film (based on its current $132.3 million domestic box office take divided by the average ticket price), which premiered to stellar reviews and brisk business. Upon leaving their local theater, I’m sure a lot of those 14 million folks had questions. Some people inevitably asked themselves, “Wait — I thought Laurie Strode was Michael Myers’ sister? And that she died in a car accident, orphaning a daughter named Jamie (Danielle Harris) to fend off her evil uncle?” Still others, I expect, asked themselves, “Wait — I thought Laurie Strode was Michael Myers’ sister? And that she faked her death in a car accident, and she and her son John (Josh Hartnett) ably fended off her evil brother?” Well, both those realities are true. As is the universe where Michael and Laurie share powerful psychic...

Michael Myers. The Shape. Whatever you call him, the one thing everyone agrees on is that he's pure evil. As Sam Loomis told us in the original film, "I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up, because I realized that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... evil." The young boy Loomis first met is long gone. Myers has grown old and wrinkled, but the evil remains. But are there limits to his villainy? There just might be. In the new Halloween sequel -- a …...

For the new Halloween, writer-director David Gordon Green and his team gave themselves something of a clean slate when they chose to erase every previous sequel from the slasher series timeline. As well undoing the famous sibling twist from 1981’s Halloween II, this measure also erased any further brushes with Michael Myers that the characters experienced, be it in Laurie Strode’s various subsequent flicks, or in Paul Rudd’s eventual outing as Tommy Doyle.

Another character who had significant screen time in the sequels was Dr. Sam Loomis, played by the late Donald Pleasence. Though the character doesn’t feature in the new Blumhouse pic, the writers were initially considering killing off the fan favorite shortly after the events of the 1978 film, and it took the legendary John Carpenter to talk them out of it.

“Originally they were going to have Donald Pleasence’s character get killed. And I thought,...

It's the perfect slasher movie. Often imitated, never duplicated, John Carpenter's Halloween is a masterpiece of suspense and terror, giving the horror movie world one of its best-known masked villains: The Shape, aka, Michael Myers. Reboots, remakes, endless sequels, love 'em or hate 'em, there's no beating the 1978 original. Here we'll take a look at 10 killer facts about John Carpenter's Halloween.

The Babysitter Murders

John Carpenter nearly called this movie The Babysitter Murders. The director and his longtime producing partner, the late Debra Hill, co-wrote the script in just ten days. The production itself was remarkably short, too. Preproduction, principal photography, and postproduction took place over a combined 12 weeks. Carpenter composed the almost instantly iconic Halloween score in just three days.

Location, location, location

Haddonfield and Smith's Grove aren't real towns in Illinois, but they do exist elsewhere. Haddonfield, New Jersey was Debra Hill's hometown. Smith's Grove is actually in Kentucky,...

It’s hard to believe that 40 years have gone by since the release of John Carpenter’s Halloween, a seminal work not just in the slasher subgenre but for the horror genre as a whole. After four decades, people still hold the original film in their hearts, and for good reason, as it’s both a master class in streamlined, suspenseful storytelling and a wall-to-wall wealth of iconic material, from Carpenter’s fantastic theme to its unforgettable characters who have long since been etched in the halls of horror greatness, whether it be Donald Pleasence’s determined Dr. Sam Loomis, Jamie Lee Curtis’ endearing Laurie Strode, or, of course, The Shape himself, Michael Myers.

The film went on to spawn a franchise that has seen all sorts of highs and lows through the years across a number of sequels, Rob Zombie’s attempt to reboot the franchise just under a decade ago,...

John Carpenter’s original “Halloween” is returning to theaters beginning on Sept. 27 on more than 1,000 screens — three weeks before the reboot arrives.

The announcement was made Wednesday by CineLife Entertainment, the event cinema division of Spotlight Cinema Networks, which has teamed up with Compass International Pictures and Trancas International Films.

In the film, villain Michael Myers (played by Nick Castle) has spent the last 15 years locked away inside a sanitarium under the care of child psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis. On the night before Halloween, Myers escapes and makes his way back home to Haddonfield, Ill., where he stalks high-school student Laurie Strode, memorably played by Jamie Lee Curtis in her film debut.

The original film has been restored and remastered digitally, created under the supervision of original cinematographer Dean Cundey.

“I’m thrilled to have the original make its way back into theaters, as we prepare for the release of the sequel,...

Halloween fans have a lot to be thankful for this October. Not only are we getting a new movie, a 40th anniversary convention, and haunted attractions, but we'll also be getting theatrical screenings of John Carpenter's original masterpiece starting later this month:

For a list of participating theaters, visit:

http://www.cinelifeentertainment.com/event/halloween-40th-anniversary/

From the Press Release: Los Angeles, CA - CineLife Entertainment, the event cinema division of Spotlight Cinema Networks, has teamed up with Compass International Pictures and Trancas International Films to bring John Carpenter's seminal 1978 classic back to select theatres worldwide beginning September 27, 2018.

In the film, the villain, Michael Myers, has spent the last 15 years locked away inside a sanitarium under the care of child psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis. On October 30, 1978, Myers escapes and makes his way back home to Haddonfield, turning a night of tricks and treats into something much more sinister for three young women,...

Having only just gotten into collecting Blu-rays within the last couple of years, I’ve become interested in the different ways some of these releases catch our attention as horror fans. Sometimes we get those movies that we’ve always loved and jump on immediately. Other times, we get the obscure films that might wind up being a hidden gem. And then there are those releases that remind us to revisit the movies we haven’t seen in years. Such was the case for me and the 2006 meta-slasher Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. I remember seeing the movie within a year or so of its release, enjoying it, but never really feeling the need for a rewatch until Scream Factory announced their Collector’s Edition.

Blending elements of meta-horror, mockumentary, and straight slasher, Behind the Mask follows journalist Taylor Gentry (Angela Goethals) and her camera crew Doug...

Actor who played in Psycho and Spartacus – and almost became the next Bond

It must have been galling for the actor John Gavin, who has died aged 86, to have often been called “the poor man’s Rock Hudson”, but comparisons between the two actors were inevitable. Both were tall, dark, well built and handsome romantic leads. Both starred in glossy Ross Hunter productions during the 1950s and 60s, at the peaks of their careers. Moreover, both actors were favourites of the director Douglas Sirk, who gave them some of their finest roles. But Gavin could also claim to have worked with Alfred Hitchcock (in Psycho) and Stanley Kubrick (in Spartacus), which Hudson never did.

Both these films came out in 1960, when Gavin was at the height of his fame. In Spartacus, he played a muscular, youthful Julius Caesar, wary of opposition. In Psycho, he was Sam Loomis, boyfriend of Marion Crane...

"Psycho" star John Gavin -- who appeared in several other classics such as "Midnight Lace" and was the Us Ambassador to Mexico under Ronald Reagan -- has died.  John -- who played Sam Loomis in the classic horror flick -- died Friday morning ... TMZ has learned. We're told he succumbed to complications from pneumonia and had battled leukemia for a long time. John was first hospitalized just before Christmas and died just before 6 Am Friday at his Beverly Hills home,...

“I didn’t have an inkling they would be classics. Had I realized that, perhaps I would have paid more attention,” John Gavin once reflected on his two most iconic roles, which saw him play Sam Loomis, Marion Crane’s boyfriend, in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and Julius Caesar in Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus. Today we’re sad to report […]...

Sad news as The Exorcist director William Friedkin has announced via Twitter the passing of John Gavin, who not only acted for over two decades but was also Ronald Reagan’s first ambassador to Mexico. Gavin is known to horror fans for his portrayal of Sam Loomis from Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film Psycho. Loomis was the […]

The post Rest in Peace: John Gavin appeared first on Dread Central.

Here’s a story that should be prefaced by Dr. Sam Loomis running in and making a dramatic speech about how pure evil can never truly be killed, so we must always be prepared to stab it in the eye, shoot it, and shove it off a balcony whenever possible. That’s still never enough, though, which is probably why original…

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Ryan Lambie Oct 25, 2019

To celebrate Halloween, we look back at how John Carpenter created a low-budget horror classic...

It's the spring of 1978, and John Carpenter is in the midst of a risky decision. He's reached the 20th and final day of shooting on Halloween, and has a final few hours to compose what will become the movie's opening sequence: a point-of-view shot where we're introduced to the young Michael Myers, aged six. But rather than make things easy on himself by shooting the scene as simply as possible, he's decided to film it as one, unbroken sequence, with as few edits as he can get away with - an atmosphere-building bit of camera trickery inspired by Orson Welles' Touch Of Evil.

The shot requires camera operator Ray Stella to creep around the old house (hurriedly redecorated by cast and crew alike earlier that day) with a 70lb Panaglide camera...

Ryan Lambie Oct 18, 2018

To celebrate Halloween, we look back at how John Carpenter created a low-budget horror classic...

It's the spring of 1978, and John Carpenter is in the midst of a risky decision. He's reached the 20th and final day of shooting on Halloween, and has a final few hours to compose what will become the movie's opening sequence: a point-of-view shot where we're introduced to the young Michael Myers, aged six. But rather than make things easy on himself by shooting the scene as simply as possible, he's decided to film it as one, unbroken sequence, with as few edits as he can get away with - an atmosphere-building bit of camera trickery inspired by Orson Welles' Touch Of Evil.

The shot requires camera operator Ray Stella to creep around the old house (hurriedly redecorated by cast and crew alike earlier that day) with a 70lb Panaglide camera...

Gavin Jasper Oct 14, 2018

Like many horror icons, the dead-eyed Michael Myers of Halloween fame has also dabbled in stabbing people on the comic book page.

Michael Myers is the understated horror icon, for better or worse. He’s the architect of the whole slasher genre and while John Carpenter's Halloween is an undisputed classic, he doesn’t stand out as much as his fellow supernatural murderers. He’s the less-exciting Jason Voorhees, even if he came first and had his shit figured out by the first movie (as opposed to Jason’s three).

I guess Michael stands out less because he was never part of anything excessively dumb. Oh yeah, he had a bunch of lesser sequels that culminated in being beat up by Busta Rhymes and there’s that Halloween III fiasco, but he never fell into the pop culture trap of other '80s and '90s boogeymen.