Mischief Night

MISCHIEF NIGHT is a pretty lacklustre movie that feels entirely derivative of previous, better films in the genre. There are elements of THE STRANGERS here in the presence of masked villains who say very little and creep around houses, alongside throwbacks to the classic 'blind woman' thrillers like WAIT UNTIL DARK. Another blind woman thriller I saw recently was the Michael Keaton-starring PENTHOUSE NORTH, which is about on par with this one.

After a fairly confused and irrelevant opening sequence, we're introduced to the usual type of premise: there's a young blind woman in a house on her own at night, on "mischief night" of all things, which is when houses get egged and the like (it's sort of a tamer version of THE PURGE). Inevitably the bad guys show up with murder in mind, and there's a lot of tiptoeing back and forth and suspense scenes involving broken glass, poor mobile phone signals, and the like.

Sadly this is the type of film where we've seen it all before, and it doesn't help that the lead character is completely unsympathetic so I had no particular desire to see her make it through the night. The filmmakers try very hard to make this frightening and suspenseful, but if I'm honest I was bored by it all.

I might be a little out of touch, but I'm pretty sure "Mischief Night" - if that's even a thing - never involved breaking and entering, stealing car keys and cellphones, disabling cars, cutting landlines, and otherwise shoving large knifes into people's throat.

TIPS for blind people:

Never walk around barefoot - especially if you've dropped glass on the floor.

Keep television volume at low to medium so you can still hear your surroundings.

Don't use headphones to listen to music thereby removing one of your few remaining critical senses.

Keep your cellphone on your person AT ALL TIMES.

Keep your lifesaving asthma inhaler on your person AT ALL TIMES.

There's really no reason to ever keep your blinds open.

Don't go running through an open field at full speed - you're blind!

This is yet another movie where EVERYONE walks around - even when responding to emergencies - with a cell phone that's dead or nearly dead.

Poor Emily is told to "Stay here" literally 4 times (I counted) - once by boyfriend Jimmy and 3 times her Dad. And things still went horribly wrong.

Emily, for what it's worth, has the DUMBEST "smart" phone in the world - because APPARENTLY it can't distinguish the words "home" from "cell" from "Dad" from "911" - arguably the most rudimentary words in its audio file.

And when Jimmy and Emily decide they must leave the house IMMEDIATELY to avoid a potential killer, Jimmy decides he wants to walk down memory lane and paw through sentimental photos. Then he decides it's more urgent to look for bandaids than to get out the house to flee the killer.

And, the idea that after your leg is half amputated by a CHAINSAW, you can simply "hobble around" silently thereafter is quite ludicrous.

All these annoyances aside, the movie was still intriguing and somewhat entertaining to watch. The better of these movies of the genre have the blind girl use her blindness to better clever advantage than here. But it was still a decent thriller.

"Mischief Night" was actually a nice surprise. I hadn't initially expected much from this movie, but still decided to watch it. And it turned out to be a rather good movie actually.

The story is about a teenage girl, Emily (played by Noell Coet), who is rendered blind after a tragic car accident with her mother. Now on October 30th, what is known as Mischief Night, where youngsters play physical pranks on people and houses alike, Emily is about to stay at home all by herself, as her father (played by Daniel Hugh Kelly) is about to head out on a date after 9 years of solitude after his wife died. However, things quickly turn to horror as Emily is terrorized by an unknown assailant, who eventually gets inside the house.

Storywise, then "Mischief Night" was entertaining and thrilling, with just the right amount of thrills and twists of events to keep the movie fresh and interesting. If you are here for a slasher movie, then you will be sorely disappointed.

The acting was quite good, despite the relative small ensemble of cast members. Noell Coet was nicely cast for the lead role, and she carried the movie quite nicely.

The movie cover says "the lucky ones die quickly", well that is sort of misleading as this movie isn't particularly high on body count. So don't get your hopes up on that account.

"Mischief Night" is entertaining and should be on your to-watch-list if you enjoy thrillers.

It's a movie either watch it and like it or don't. Also seems to be lots of use of the word derivative in these reviews, people just discovered it or something?

Further what is it with the endless film critic wannabees posting reviews, I want to see what non overly analytical people think of movies (you know us "normals").

If I want to read boring arty "I work in the profession, can you tell by how I talk about lighting and it being derivative etc" critic reviews then I would (which is why IMDb gives both choices of reviews to read).

Anyway, the film is a bit useless and has been done better before, but if a cheap horror flick is your thing give it a whirl, yes there are worse movies than this!

This movie so much like "The Purge", or otherwise it is pale copy of it.

Also this movie "Mischief Night" does not show the real connection of the first event (the lovers who are killed in the beginning) with the second event (father and daughter who are struggling for their survival) about how come father and daughter in the same house without first being aware what happened before; which is the real reason for doing this intruders, whether for fun, revenge or something else? Are they the same intruders from the beginning? Who are they really? - because you are constantly expecting an epilogue at the end and like many other movies comes to smaller or larger disappointment.