everything you have heard about this movie is true.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Outstanding Giallo where the Giallo tag barely applies, every shot looks like it was painted by an Italian maestro, and Ennio Morricone's soundtrack just adds to the eerie disorientation. The films starts with the dead body of Jean Sorel being found in a park in Prague, although as we can hear his thoughts, he's not quite as dead as he seems. After his initial horror at his predicament, and his futile attempts to communicate, Jean tries to figure out why he ended up in this situation in the first place - while laying out on a mortuary slab. Way back before he was a faux-corpse, it turns out Jean was a groovy US journalist based in Prague and just about to move home with his Czech girlfriend, Barbara Bach. Obviously this is back in the communist era, so he's having to do a bit of bribery in order to get her out of the country. He attends a party where most of the high-ranking politicians are present, and ends up leaving Barbara surrounded by cooing strangers while he fends of the advances of his co-worker and gets bogged down in a pointless conversation with his other co-worker, boozy Mario Adorf!The next day Barbara has gone missing, which leads Jean and Mario on a city spanning hunt to find out where she's gone. The police aren't much help, and Jean uncovers a history of young woman going missing in Prague that leads to a truth far more sinister than a mere black hatted-killer going around knifing folk for kicks. Of course, everyone who could actually help Jean ends up dead, but this film isn't all about body count. And that's just the flashback portion of the film, because in real time Jean's being rolled here and there, tested for responses, poked, probed, and all the while screaming in his head for help. The two plot strands come together nicely in an ending that'll have you thinking: "This is an Italian film."Just stunning to look at it (that means when you look at the film, you fall over your coffee table or just fall off the couch), jaw-dropping (which means your mouth just falls open for no reason), mesmerizing (you starve to death looking at the film). Watch out for the nightmarish visuals and the old person orgy! Recommended. The 'Creepy Eastern European City' plot would return in the Spider Labyrinth, probably the last genuinely creepy Italian film ever made/

A journalist who is in a coma slowly remembers how he got to the hospital. At the hospital, only he knows he is alive but cannot speak to the doctors who think he is almost dead. Scenes at the hospital are interspersed with the journalist (Jean Sorel who bears an uncanny resemblance to Robert Redford) slowly retrieving his memories of romancing his girlfriend (the wooden Barbara Bach) in Prague, whom he saved from some sort of political scandal. We are treated to yet another great Morricone - Edda Del Orso collaboration while they walk around Prague kissing each other. But soon the girlfriend disappears and the rest of the film is about the journalist trying to track her down with the help of a colleague (Ingrid Thulin) who is madly in love with him. While also trying to stay alive at the hospital where everyone thinks he is dead.There are some great set pieces. This was obviously a low budget film. There are little or no long or wide angle shots. The ending is simply spectacular. I did not see it coming. Barbara Bach ruined the film for me a little bit. I did not find her to be attractive at all. Posters on the message board suggest that Stanley Kubrick was inspired by this film when he did the orgy scenes in Eyes Wide Shut.Aldo Lado, the director says in his commentary that this film is about the old feeding on the young to stay alive. Somewhat prophetic, considering Europe's declining birth rates which would lead to young people having to take on the burden of providing welfare for an aging population.

It's been about 25 years since Barbara Bach has appeared on screen. In her early career, she was known for giallos like this one; after all she married an Italian and moved to Rome.Americans will probably know her more from The Spy Who Loved Me, Force 10 From Navarone, or Caveman.Her boyfriend in the film, Gregory (Jean Sorel), is a reporter that shows up in a hospital apparently dead, but not really.While they are trying to reanimate him, we get the story through flashback.Interesting and well made.

I've seen many reviews praising SHORT NIGHT...and I guess I just don't get it. There are definitely some things to like about it-but overall I found the storyline and pace of the film to kill what otherwise could have been an interesting ending. American reporter Greg Moore is found dead in a park in Prague. Thing is-he's not really dead-just paralyzed but still cognizant of what's going on around him-and the plot is presented to the audience through Greg's flashbacks of what brought him to this condition. The 'mystery' of the story revolves around the fact that days earlier-Greg's girlfriend disappeared and the search for the truth surrounding her disappearance, and his subsequent solving of the mystery, is why he ends up in the condition that he's in...There are a few things that I liked about this giallo-styled thriller. I say 'giallo-style' because there are a lot of stylistic differences in this film that in my opinion move it more into just straight-up 'thriller' territory, than the slightly more 'specific' sub-genre of the typical 'giallo'. There's very little actual sex and violence shown-and the typical 'black- gloved killer' is non-existent. Regardless-the film is shot well, the acting is decent, and Greg's odd 'condition' is both interesting and original for this sort of film. The underlying theme of the 'elite' being able to manipulate people and situations for their own benefit usually makes for an interesting basis for a plot as well. That said-SHORT NIGHT is SO slowly paced that after the first half-hour or so-it just drags. I don't mind a slow-paced film-but the problem I found is that often leads were followed that never really went anywhere, therefore not really forwarding the story very much. The 'climax' of the film- though somewhat interesting-didn't feel as though it was built-up to very well. I think the occult angle could have been discovered earlier and then used as a major and interesting part of the build-up...but it wasn't. I will say that I did very much like the downbeat nature of the final scene. At this point-I've now seen three of Lado's films-including the relatively enjoyable (if completely derivative) NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS, and the abysmal WHO SAW HER DIE? I found SHORT NIGHT...to fall somewhere between the two on the enjoyment scale. SHORT NIGHT....isn't a 'bad' film by any means-but I can't agree with those that feel this is a shining example in the genre. I'm not nearly as much of a giallo aficionado as some-but I've seen enough to know that this definitely isn't one of the most notable entries. 6/10