A different way of telling a story

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

This is a good chase movie with very good acting from Stephanie Powers. Three ladies run out of gas at night in the Bronx. While looking for some gas, the antagonize a local gang and the chase is on. I found the story easy to follow, some twists, good acting all around but especially from Powers. Are these 3 Women going to be able to Survive the Night? You will have a good time finding out. Helen Shaver also plays her part well as one of the Women. I also liked how this film showed the gang members going into a frenzy to try to find the Girls. This movie is well worth your time if you happen to have a chance to see it, you wont be disappointed.

I had no idea of the existence of this film until a few years ago when I looked at the forum for the movie "Judgment Night" and read that it was similar to that film. Fast forward to late last year, I had bought "Judgment Night" and "Trespass" and had to look up the name of this film yet again and in the process, I found out that this movie is out on DVD. I knew that it would be the only way to watch it, so I bought the movie off of Amazon.I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised with this movie. I don't watch a lot of made-for-TV movies and I know that this movie is such, but it was a really good one. There are similarities and differences between this and "Judgment Night," and I don't mean the main difference being that this consisted of women and JN consisted of men on the run from criminals. JN had the men take a wrong turn when they were on their way to a boxing event and ended up in the bad part of town and witnessing a murder take place. STN had more to do with the women on their way home from having Thanksgiving dinner at the house of the mother of two women and the grandmother of the youngest woman. The car was running out of gas and were then cornered by the gang and then were on the run from them. Also, there was a scene when the group tried to cross between buildings on a plank, which was in both films, as well as a showdown in a store or abandoned restaurant.I can't really say which was made first. Both movies were probably made around the same time, though Judgment Night was pushed back a few times but I can't say when it was shot or if Survive The Night was made AFTER Judgment Night. Anyway, regarding Survive The Night, I am glad I was able to find it on DVD because a lot of TV movies have not been released on any medium.I highly recommend this movie.

A woman, her sister and her daughter, on their way from Brooklyn to Connecticut, accidentally turn off the highway in the South Bronx (actually Toronto with fake graffiti on the walls) and what ensues is a veritable "bonfire of the vanities," to coin a phrase. Their car is surrounded at an abandoned gas station by a thoroughly racially-integrated gang (as all street gangs are in such movies) which is intent on pumping much more than gas. They escape on foot, and spend the rest of the movie being chased through, over and under the mean streets of the big city...This is fairly standard for its genre, if a little bloody -- the three unarmed women manage to kill a surprising number of the heavily-armed bad guys, obviously an early manifestation of girl power. Stephanie Powers and Kathleen Robertson are quite good as the mother and daughter, as is Chaz Lamar Shepherd as the youngest gang member. The suspense is also well-done, even though it's hard to be legitimately scared by the Southern Ontario faux-Bronx setting. Recommended, if only for Robertson's unforgettable final line to Powers, absolutely dripping with the quasi-ironic, self-aware zeitgeist of the early 90's: "Next time you drive, OK?"

I'm a real Stefanie Powers nut, so I can't dislike anything she's in. But this film had an unusual amount of gore and suspense for a television film. Stefanie plays Victoria, and is in a car with her sister Stacy and daughter Julie. They are driving home from a Thanksgiving dinner and notice they are almost out of gas. They see a gas station at the bottom of a turnoff, thinking it is open, but it is closed and is lit just to deter thieves. They run out of gas, and a gang of guys surround their car at the gas station. Things go downhill fast. This movie is similar to the film Judgment Night in two ways; 1) People take a turnoff and land in a bad neighborhood they are unable to escape from and get chased on foot by people who want to kill them; 2) It has a scene where a long plank is used to get from one building to another. I don't know if this movie copied off of the other, or if it was the other way around. This film has an eerie quality and is very special to me, but I don't know why.