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.

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!

I am a fan of bad horror films of the 1950s and 60s--films so ridiculous and silly that they are good for a laugh. So, because of this it's natural that I'd choose this film--especially because with John Agar in it, it was practically guaranteed to be bad. Sadly, while it was a bad film, it was the worst type of bad film--dull beyond belief and unfunny. At least with stupid and over-the-top bad films, you can laugh at the atrocious monsters and terrible direction and acting. Here, you never really see that much of the monster (mostly due to the darkness of the print) and the acting, while bad, is more low energy bad...listless and dull.

The film begins with some young adults going to Satan's Hollow to neck. Well, considering the name of the place, it's not surprising when they are later found chewed to pieces! Duh...don't go necking at Satan's Hollow!! Well, there are reports of some sort of crashing object from the sky, so what do the teens go? Yep, throw a dance party--a very, very, very slow dance party where the kids almost dance in slow motion. So it's up to the Sheriff (Agar) and his men to ensure that the teens can dance in peace without fear of mastication.

As for the monster, it's some guy in a gorilla suit with a silly mask--a bit like the monster in ROBOT MONSTER. Not exactly original and not exactly high tech. To make it worse, it makes snorting noises and moves very, very slowly--so slow that even the most corpulent teen could easily outrun it! How it manages to kill repeatedly is beyond me.

Overall, too dull to like--even if you are a fan of lousy cinema.

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!...

NIGHT FRIGHT shares an eerie half-world with a handful of similarly modest but entertaining teen horror/sci-fi entries like GIANT GILA MONSTER, HORROR OF PARTY BEACH and DEATH CURSE OF TARTU. These are an uneasy mix of happily gyrating teens and skulking horror that are a guilty weakness of mine.

The storyline is standard stuff: a spaceship sent into the icy depths of Out There by dedicated scientists runs into unchecked radiation, and the test animals aboard are mutated. The largest and nastiest promptly goes on an eating binge. The film appears for be a rehash of themes already used in the obscure DEMON FROM DEVIL'S LAKE.

Granted, Texas isn't known for astounding advances in cinema. Larry Buchannan, the fevered brow at the helm of THE EYE CREATURES, IT'S ALIVE! and ZONTAR, THE THING FROM VENUS, hailed from Texas. THE GIANT GILA MONSTER was filmed in and around Cielo. Still...

John Agar, in one of his last "earnest man with a job to do" roles is a somewhat peeved lawman charged with finding out what exactly is killing the locals. He does well in the limited role, providing the film's one strong performance. The other characters are broadly written and almost painfully bland. The bizarrely named Roger Ready woodenly plays a scientist who knows more than he admits (and who is largely qualified as being a researcher by way of smoking a pipe). There's also a nerdy newshound, police resenting kids, and an extremely lackluster love interest.

That said, the overall film is actually fairly enjoyable. The monster, a hulking gorilla with facial spines and a Klingon head ridge, is reasonably impressive for a regional production. The isolated locales and dim photography add a certain appeal, though the latter occasionally flashes almost starkly bright (particularly during the climax where half the hunters seem to be waiting in the dead of night and the rest in some distant land where it's high noon). The government cover-up angle is expected, and should neatly justify the suspicions of any borderline paranoids in the audience.

Not a great film but, taken as a simple "googly fiend run amok" picture, it's more than passable.