Night Fright

This cheap and rubbish film is about a NASA test rocket that is sent into space with a cargo of animals. It vanishes for a while then unexpectedly returns, crash landing in a forest, unleashing a vicious mutant creature.

Like many films of this type, Night Fright, features dumb teenagers boogieing on down to 60's surf music before being killed. None of the murders, however, are even remotely memorable, as we don't really see anything. One thing we do see, however, is that one of the teenagers appears to be about 40 years old and sports a quite impressively silly haircut.

For a creature feature to work, it really has to present its monster to the viewer properly. In this film, however, we only get the briefest glimpses of the monster. It seems to sort of resemble the alien from Robot Monster. But I'm not sure; as the photography was so dark I simply couldn't make out what the hell was going on a lot of the time. Although, my gut feeling was that I probably wasn't missing very much.

When the budget doesn't allow for a Cadillac or Packard or Lincoln or Imperial hearse we are talking cheep cheep. That's bird language for cheap cheap.

What is in the hair of the forty year old teen boy? The guy who looks like a cement head who tries a couple of times to run over John Agar and provides the only scare in the movie by how close he comes. His hair looks like a shoe. A patent leather shoe. He is a shoe head.

The nurse woman needs immediate emergency hair washing. She has lacquer in her blond locks that would ignite if the production company had been able to afford lights.

The monster? The music was scarier. I would try to run from the music. The monster probably had better hair than the rest of the cast. Put some lipstick on that monster and you've got Divine's older sister.

The camera work and editing and plot provided a buffer to prepare the audience for the bad music throughout.

Hello Mr. Agar? We're thinking of doing a sequel to Night Fright and... Mr. Agar? Agar? Tom Willett

Okay it is terribly, and I mean terribly, easy to pick apart this film. C'mmon what do you expect with the title, synopsis, and actors in leads such as Carol Gilley, Ralph Baker Jr., Dorothy Davis, Bill Thurman, and, my personal favourite, Roger Ready. Yes, B star John Agar is here as a sheriff out to rid the Texan landscape of a robot-like ape from a NASA experiment gone awry. The movie has dreadful performances, dreadful scenery, dreadful special effects, and dreadful lighting. I really cannot find much good to say about it other than as bad films go you could do a lot worse as far as finding something dreadful to sit through. It is bearably short and has many moments of unintended humor. Missed cues, lighting faux pas, off-screen terror, an unbelievably inane score, and of course John Agar trying his level best to be the core of the film with an earnest performance amidst this muck. The beginning is the hardest part to sit through as it seems like it takes forever for these two teens to get their comeuppance for traveling in the woods down the Texas back roads where great ape soon will reek his vengeance in his own terrible way...Yeah right! Night Fright! Bah!

Why film a movie if you are not going to provide light for the cameras. The film would have been about seven minutes long if it were not for the shots of people walking through the woods. I enjoyed seeing the typical sixties dress and the 60's cars. I couldn't help but ask myself what self respecting kid would drive a Tornado, though they were neat cars. The music was tedious and repetitive. Ten minutes of people dancing in the dark was too much. I've seen worse acting, but the manikin should have had top billing. At least it kept it's mouth closed. I think the motivation for making the movie must have been that someone had a lot of film available that had gone beyond the expiration date and they didn't want to see it go to waste. It went to waste.

An unidentified object crashes -off camera- to Earth, and a hideous creature is unleashed upon an unsuspecting, rural Texas population! When a young couple is found mutilated, Sheriff Clint Crawford (John Agar) is on the case. With help from his deputy and a local reporter, Crawford searches for clues, for what seems like a month. Luckily, monster tracks are found. Then, the exhausting search continues.

Meanwhile, the town "kids", led by troublemaker, Rex Bowers (Frank Jolly) have decided to have a "dance-in" down at the beach, in spite of Crawford's warning! There they go, dancing like the carefree, 30 year old "kids" they are!

Wasn't there supposed to be a monster of some sort in this movie?

More dancing commences.

Finally, the beast attacks in full, obscured sight! As the hairy horror approaches, the kids dance on.

NIGHT FRIGHT is a tedious affair, saving its big, monster-on-a-rampage "thrills" for the dance-free denouement. As usual, for Agar's later projects, he easily outshines the other "actors" involved.

EXTRA POINTS FOR: The very cool cars on display!...