TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT (1980)
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To All A Good Night is another Christmas set horror that’s only distinction is that it was written by Alex Rebar, who starred as The Incredible Melting Man in that 1977 flick, is directed by The Last House On The Left‘s David Hess and stars Jennifer Runyon, who would gain attention a few years later as the pretty co-ed being ‘tested’ by Bill Murray in Ghostbusters.
The film opens with a Christmas party prank at a sorority going awry and a girl falls to her death. Two years later the same girls are throwing another holiday party and soon someone in a Santa Claus outfit is stalking and murdering them and their boyfriends. Who is this demented killer and why have they targeted the girls of The Calvin Finishing School?
As written by Rebar and directed by Hess, this holiday slasher is a fairly pedestrian and dull affair. It follows the early 80s slasher formula to the letter with being set on an important date and featuring a killer getting payback for a past misdeed. There is little or no suspense and the film moves at a funeral’s pace and has equally little atmosphere. The characters, including Runyon’s final girl Nancy, are all cliché, dull and evoke no sympathy when they are offed. The film is bloody but, none of the kills are all that impressive and the film looks and feels like a TV movie, if not for the bloody murders. That’s kinda it.
There’s really little to say or recommend about this flick. It’s a dull and routine slasher that really doesn’t take advantage of it’s setting and once we get our big reveal, we realize there was absolutely no reason for the killer to wear the Santa suit accept for exacting their revenge on Christmas. A forgettable 80s slasher only made a bit noteworthy because, it has been rightfully forgotten and is rarely mentioned when discussing this era and genre.
2 Christmas trees.
Proof of how obscure this flick is, I couldn’t find a decent trailer. But, I did find the whole movie…
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