Girls Nite Out

Of all the slasher movies made to cash in on the craze in the early 80’s, this is one of them. There’s really not much to say about it. If you can think of a criticism of an early 80’s D-level slasher movie, this movie suffers from it: wooden acting, bad writing, muddy direction, terrible lighting, and poor pacing are all on display here. But then it doubles down on failure with more unforced errors. It has an overly large cast that neuters any attempt at growth or establishing characters. It leans into the usually false cliche of slashers focusing on female victims by centering the killing spree on a girls-only scavenger hunt at a college. One of the primary male leads is a cheating prick and his girlfriend’s attitude towards it is actually “if you’re gonna do it, don’t do it in front of me”. WOW MOVIE. There’s a dozen subplots, most of them romantic, and almost none of them matter. There’s a ton of wasted time with police interviewing suspects that we know are innocent. Every male actor playing the role of a college student looks old enough to teach college instead, compared to the women, who are all young and look straight outta high school, giving every pairing a May/December of the following year feeling. The killer wears a bear costume, which is not only a silly visual, but his homemade bear claw weapon (four steak knives taped together) is constantly obscured by the bulky outfit, so the kills have no impact. And when you find out who the killer is, it feels like a last minute twist because the movie was too obvious. The only redeeming factors are Julia Montgomery (Betty from Revenge Of The Nerds) and Lauren-Marie Taylor (Vickie from Friday The 13th Part 2), who are trying to do something with what little they’re given. And I guess Hal Holbrook as the campus security guard? He’s fine, but he also seems to know he’s in a steaming pile of a movie, so there’s a self-installed ceiling on his performance. And I don’t blame him one bit.