One Night Stand

This film starts out as a fairly pedestrian look at youth culture. Interestingly, the film builds on the tension between the two main characters who meet by chance at a bar. As the night wears on, the male protagonist becomes more domineering in some subtle yet manipulative means. The films ending takes the viewer by complete surprise and leaves you wondering how an innocent chance meeting can turn so dark.

My boyfriend and I watched this movie together when it was first aired, and I have never forgotten it, or its impact. I watched for it on TV listings for years, but it seemed to have disappeared from sight.

I would love to see it again, just to see if it carries the same visceral punch that made me shriek so loudly I almost missed my boyfriend's scream. I had nightmares for weeks afterwards, and when I found myself single again, this absolutely terrifying thriller was the warning that made me think twice before even talking to strangers in a bar.

Young at the time this movie was made, I was easily able to identify with the "scene", and was equally beguiled by the dynamics of the two protagonists. There was a delightful chemistry between Daisy, played by Chappelle Jaffe, and Rafe, played by Brent Carver. I secretly wanted a Rafe all for myself. Attractive, charming, and funny, Rafe gets into Daisy's heart and mind, and she is alive in a way that she has never felt alive before. As she blossomed, so did I.

Little by little, as a darker side of Rafe begins to manifest itself, the movie shifts away from comedy, and the tension begins to mount. Like Daisy, this tension makes us uncomfortable, but with a single comment from Rafe, we are all laughing and enjoying ourselves once again, falling more deeply in love, feeling more and more alive.

As their evening together progresses, the ebb and flow of their unfolding relationship becomes unbearable, greater than almost anything I have ever experienced in a movie, let alone a made-for-TV movie. Which way will it go? How will it all end? We (like Daisy) are so skillfully manipulated, that we are as stunned as she is by the outcome.

When I think of psychological thrillers, this movie has alway been the standard against while all others are measured. Although it was decades before I ever saw Jaffe in anything, it was because of this movie that I remembered her name. Carver too, has proved himself an excellent actor over the decades, and I thought he was quite marvellous as Ned in Elizabeth Rex (another underrated movie).

Having no idea what to expect from this long forgotten, out-of-print Canadian TV movie from the late '70s, I gave it a try and was gradually pulled into its weirdness (much like the protagonist played by Jaffe, I suppose). As a non-Canadian who was never even alive during the late-'70s Pre-AIDS urban disco scene (either Canadian or the American one portrayed in "Looking for Mr. Goodbar"), the whole sleazy atmosphere was extremely off-putting to me, but that made it even more unnerving.

A lonely urban professional woman picks up a street musician at a singles bar for a one-night-fling, only to be gradually drawn into his strange fast-talking style and behavior once he's at her apartment. Originally based upon a stage-play (which was no-doubt highly topical at the time), the film does get a bit too stagey for my taste with essentially two characters on a closed set for the majority of the film (and several monologues). But once I got past that, I was impressed by how different this movie was from what I would expect from a similar American film, which would probably have more gratuitous violence and nudity and less real character development.

With all the cheesy '70s disco, clothing, and hairstyles, the theme of the movie is still fairly relevant and can speak to the loneliness, fears, and anxieties of any young person living alone in a city filled with apartments full of strangers. From that angle, this movie is very scary and claustrophobic and gave me some real shocks when I watched it alone late at night. I recommend it for anyone who likes horror with some real substance but can handle a slow build.

One Night Stand (1978) is not the only movie of this name and it was produced for TV viewing so that it "got lost" in the confusion over the other better known movie on general release. This is a shame as this excellent production is without a doubt the best thriller I have ever seen. My wife and I saw it at home and it begins innocently enough but progresses to a terrifying climax which had us locking the doors and drawing the curtains we were so scared. No other film has been able to reduce us to this level of terror, and most of the story is set within a small unit and so is not a big-money production. Unfortunately the video is no longer available but if anyone has one on VHS I would love to buy it.