Very disappointed :(

Sadly Over-hyped

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Oh Canada. We've celebrated your movies for an entire week and you continue to deliver pure blasts of polite insanity to our streaming devices and DVD players! Halloween night 1966. A priest named Zachary Malius kills seven frat boys from Winfield College for breaking into his family's crypt and recreating an occult ritual. He's placed into an insane asylum, where the laws in Canada are, well, insane. He's never fed and has been in a catatonic state for years, surviving by eating bugs.Kids have learned nothing in the intervening quarter century as they go right back and do the ritual again. Malius comes back to life and starts doing what slasher villains do best - wipe out people right after they get done having sex. At least he has the excuse of being a priest. One wonders why they decided to make him like Freddy Kruger, yelling things like, "No sex! No TV! No parking!" That said, the fact that the Catholic Church covered up these crimes should come as a shock to no one.Sam Rockwell shows up briefly as the younger version of the character that Darren McGavin plays for the rest of the film. Jorja Fox from TV's CSI also shows up.Director Brian Owens is also behind 80's video fave Brainscan. There is one genuinely unnerving scene where a crucified Christ comes to life and starts screaming, then falls to the floor and breaks into small pieces. Shades of Enter the Devil!There are moments of slow motion flashbacks and hints of art here that are undermined by horrible looking titles. It's like his movie got only so close to being well art directed. It's not the best or worst slasher ever, but it won me over. Maybe I was watching it at 2:30 AM, which always helps matters.

It's Halloween night and hell night at the local frat house. Two pledges have bad luck by having the assignment of going to the insane asylum and taking a picture of a notorious killer named Zachary Maluis (Cragin). 25 years earlier, Malius slaughtered a group of people on Halloween night. Of course these pin heads accidentally let him loose and he follows them straight to the frat house so he can start slaughtering co-eds. The Plot is pretty dull in this one and unfortunately the acting isn't much better. Darrin McGavin is slumming in a few scenes. The gore spilled isn't anything to get excited about, but what does work is the creepy as hell killer Zachary Maluis. With his ghost like appearance and black demonic eyes Maluis will have your attention while on screen and is one creepy image. This is the only thing that lifts this film up a little bit. Unsettling and frightening, this killer deserved to be in a better horror film.

Like probably many others, I picked up the DVD of this due to top-billed Darren McGavin, who must've picked up a nice paycheck for a couple days work; he appears in the pic for a total of about 10 minutes in 3 or 4 scenes. The killer, in this case, is a demon-possessed priest or something. Like with much of the story, such plot points are clumsy and confused. There are many instances, such as at the supposed asylum, where the killer is sort of locked up, that the viewer needs to just let it go without asking too many questions. Is everyone who manages the asylum in on the fact that this is a demon? The door to the demon's room is barred by a cross - is this standard procedure for an asylum? None of this stuff is thought out.The pic is obviously very low budget and it shows in the clumsy direction, editing & actors who are either in their first roles or just amateurs. You do see Sam Rockwell ("Confessions of a Dangerous Mind") in a small early role, playing a younger version of the McGavin character. The strong points to the pic is a sometimes wicked sense of humor to the horror and killings, and the visual appearance of the killer, who is truly creepy to behold. His voice is also well done, as if beyond the grave.

Happy Hell Night missed their decade by a few years. I believe that's why the movie is so obscure and not very well received. It had a lot of bad characters, choppy editing, and a wasted Darrin McGavin. There also seemed to be some missing ingredients. We would see a character sitting in a chair and the next time we saw that character he would be dead on the floor with no explanation. It does have the creepiest killer since Barlow from Salem's Lot though. There were also some very creepy moments in the film, just too few of them. If the whole film would have taken on the tone of "Scary Jesus" scene, the film would have been great. Other than that, this is not the best fraternity prank/slasher film. How to do it right: Hell Night. How to do is so terrible wrong that it becomes right: Pledge Night. This film is somewhere in between those two and, thus, not as enjoyable. Keep an eye out for a pre-fame Sam Rockwell and Jorja Fox.