Girls Nite Out (1982) — Triskaidekafiles

GIRLS NITE OUT

WRITER: Joe Bolster

DIRECTOR: Robert Deubel

STARRING: Julie Montgomery as Lynn Connors

James Carroll as Teddy Ratliff

Suzanne Barnes as Dawn Sorenson

Matthew Dunn as Benson

Mart McChesney as Pete "Maniac" Krizaniac

Larry Mintz as Charlie Kaiser

Rutanya Alda as Barney

David Holbrook as Mike Pryor

Hal Holbrook as Jim MacVey

QUICK CUT: Following a winning basketball game, some college kids celebrate with a costume party, and a scavenger hunt, but maybe the real reward is the friends they made along the way.

THE MORGUE

Teddy - The basketball team captain, a nice guy, and loyal and devoted to his girlfriend Lynn. The rock around which our other characters are anchored.

Lynn - Just as loyal to Teddy as he is to her, even if others suggest she should see what it’s like to be with someone else. Smart, friendly, and a good match for Teddy.

Maniac - The team goofball, who likes getting reactions out of people, and I’m pretty sure the tallest member on the basketball team.

Benson - The team’s mascot, and sleeping around with at least one girl. He also likes giving ohers a hard time.

Mike - A larger, insecure young man, who gets made fun of for being a bit of a cuckold, even if he doesn’t realise it yet.

Charlie Kaiser - The college radio host, with all you might expect that to entail.

MacVey - The head of campus security, who lost his daughter when another student went a bit stabby a number of years ago.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! And this week, we are celebrating Trisk's 12th anniversary! And thus begins our 13th year, kicking things off with a Girls Nite Out. I heard this movie on a podcast, and it sounded like my sort of silliness. And there's no particular reason why I went with this for the 12th anniversary, but it felt good. So let's just jump right into this.

The movie starts with a bit of a cold open at Weston Hill Sanitarium, as the nurse on duty keeps receiving strange calls from one of the patients, a Mister Cavanagh. She arrives in his room just in time to see him fall into view from hanging himself in the bathroom.

With that little bit to wet our whistle out of the way, we jump to the main cast at Dewitt University, and most of our cast centres around their basketball team, the cheerleaders, and their mascot.

As they play, the college's radio dj does some commentating, and spins some music. While I’m here, let’s just get into that this is a hallmark of the movie and get out of the way right now; much of this movie's soundtrack is diegetic music played over the college station, made up largely of classic 60sish rock.

Following the game, we learn there's a big party, because college, and there's also a scavenger hunt later. Not sure why any of this is a girls nite out, but oh well.

There's also a few too many characters problem with this flick. I grok who a few of them are, but after the first half dozen or so, it all starts to blur. And we spend too much time with too many of them that don't really add anything to the plot, not even dead bodies.

If you’re gonna drop random characters, at least have the common decency to murder them.

Meanwhile, a pair of guys are burying Cavanagh's body and there's some clunky exposition about oh gosh, this is the guy that killed that security guard's daughter! and that his sister is paying them to bury him in the middle of nowhere.

It's not long before someone shows up cloaked in shadows to clobber them over the head with shovels and toss their bodies to the grave. Gee. Whomever could it be?

Back in town, the team hits what I believe is the school cafeteria to celebrate, and Teddy tells Barney the waitress the great news about the game.

Amongst the group is a girl and her guy who are having troubles. She's been sleeping with the mascot, and Mike can sense something is off, but is being VERY passive to full on aggressive about it. He is very much Mike Redherring with how angry they’re making him.

But it's time for the party to start, and as far as college parties go, this is pretty well presented. It's a costume party, so it's seasonal, there's a LOT going on, but it doesn't feel too chaotic, which is good.

Teddy shows up as James Dean, and a crazed Maniac all dressed up like a mental patient, on a leash, and "the victim of deranged sex experiments".

Like any good party in movies and tv, we get to have out all our relationship drama, as Maniac talks to his ex, and the affair with the bear comes out, leading to a yelling Mike.

Mixed in with all that, we do get some stories from the frat bros about Dickie Cavanagh, and how one day they took Dickie into the woods, and he didn't come back quite the same.

Well, that's ridiculously vague. They could've at least said he was in a hazing prank where he got dunked in a bathtub accidentally filled with acid and corn flakes.

Immediately we get a slightly more detailed, and probably more accurate, account about how Dickie fell for a cheerleader, the daughter of the head of campus security, but snapped when he found out she was sleeping with someone else.

None of which reflects well on Mike Redherring when he gets angry in a few minutes.

After Mike explodes, that kinda dampens the party atmosphere. We cut to Benson getting ready for bed, when there's a knock on his door.

He answers it, clearly recognises who it is, making it all the better for the killer to stab him dead.

Once Benson hits the ground, the killer apologises for the inconvenience and steals his mascot costume, giving them a great disguise to wreak havoc across campus with.

After that, a new day dawns as everyone kinda mills about waiting to be murdered. MacVey has a few words with Mike about his scene at the party, and we just kinda wait for the scavenger hunt to start.

While that gets going, we watch as the killer crafts a weapon out of some steak knives they grip between their fingers, hide in the paw of the mascot, and can crudely retract.

And it's not long before Teddy Krueger finds his first victim in the squash court during the hunt, although no idea why the poor girl angered Shardik the bear god.

While the scavenger hunt continues, the killer calls in to the radio station, but not to make a request, but to tell Charlie that "Janey was number one". Which Charloebrushes off, rightly so, as a weird college prank call.

Cathy looks around for Janey, and uh, eventually finds her dead body, and runs screaming through the halls, until Teddy Krueger finds her.

Meanwhile, the girl who was sleeping with Benson sees the mascot wandering the campus, naturally assumes it's him, and flirts with her supposed boyfriend.

Patty lures "Benson" inside, where the killer bursts out and shows why he’s the best there is at what they do.

Following that, they call MacVey in the security office to gloat and mock him, saying it's Dickie, then hangs up.

MacVey calls the sanitarium and insist on talking to their security, and finds out Cavanagh hanged himself earlier that evening.

The scavenger hunt leads Leslie up into the chapel's attic to find an item, and yep, she becomes Teddy Krueger's next victim.

Lynn eventually finds Leslie, and she's been posed sitting at a desk, over a bible, and a blue shawl draped over her like the Virgin Mary. Okay, that's actually a pretty cool shot.

She calls MacVey, and we have finally reached peak corpse with Leslie's body and everyone realising something is wrong. He calls up Charlie and has him end the scavengher hunt and tell everyone to go back to their rooms, unless they want to be included in the final act.

The cops show up to do some questioning, and Lynn tells them she saw Benson in his bear costume, and gosh, does that make them curious.

While the cops keep questioning students, Mac talks to Charlie some more about the weird phone calls, and he has them all on tape, if he wants to listen to them.

Just because my parents named me Maniac, you think I’m a suspect?

The movie spends a LOT of time questioning all our major cast that might have even been considered a suspect, pretty much ticking off each and every one who had a grudge, including Mike Redherring. The name alone...!

We try for one more red herring, as Bud gets upset that his girlfriend doesn't want to make out with him, and he gets upset over it. If they keep throwing motives at the wall, one of them is bound to stick!

But it at least gets Dawn out of the room so she can be chased by Teddy Krueger. She calls Lynn so Actual Teddy (Okay so making a joke name that's the same as a real character was a bad idea, sue me!) runs off to help her.

MacVey has been doing his thing, listening to the tapes, and scribbling on Dickie's picture, and realises that his sister is the current Dickie Cavanagh.

Teddy the student comes rushing into the school's cafeteria, finds Dawn bloody but alive on the floor, and then he gets assaulted by the killer.

Mac shows up, tells Katie to stop, and she insists she's not Katie, but is Dickie, with some really unsettling work done on her voice.

He tries to get through to her, telling her Dickie is dead, but she insists he's alive, see, he's right here, in the walk in freezer! And she opens the door, revealing that indeed, his body is sitting there, because why not?

And the movie just kinda...stops. We don't really get any explanations, there's a lot left for us to suss out, and it's just a bizarre twist just to have a twist.

Oh yeah, and Katie is actually Barney, which we’re just supposed to recognise her. There’s a lot of plot going on without much actual discussion of it, they just kinda expect you to get it.

TRISK ASSESMENT

Video: Looks decent enough, maube a bit dull, but about what I’d expect for early 80s slashers.

Audio: Sounds good enough, and the music comes through nicely.

Body Count: Not a great amount, but it delivers some quality deaths.

1 - Dicky Cavanagh hangs himself about 3:30 in

2 - A gravedigger takes a shovel to the face

3 - And his friend doesn't do much better

4 - Mascot gets stabbied

5 - Jane gets slashed up after finding dental floss

6 - Cathy gets grabbed and slashed after finding Janey

7 - Sheila is the next to be gashed by the bear.

8 - And then he gets Leslie in the church

9 - They say there was a body found at the pond, not sure if that was Shiela or someone else.

Best Corps: While I appreciate the artistry of the Virgin Leslie, finding Jane with her gashed neck sticks with me the best.

Peak Corpse: We’re over an hour in when everyone discovers Leslie’s body and figure out there’s a killer going around.

Blood Type - B-: Some good kills, some decent makeup when we see the gashes, and globs of blood give it a decent score.

Drink Up! Every time you hear the song “Do You Believe in Magic?”

Movie Review: I quite liked this, but I really need to sit back and just not think too deeply about it. It’s a very standard slasher, with some giallo touches to it, but it’s trying to do too much. Too many characters that are just there to say two lines, too much time spinning wheels, dragging things out with the cops. The movie seriously needed some more focus, to really bring the plot together. And while I don’t want tohave my hand held, I would have liked more talk about just what was going on and why. The bare bones of this movie are all there, it just needs more meat. Three out of five bear claws.

Entertainment Value: It may be a dense mess that doesn’t want to explain itself, but it’s got some memorable moments. The performances are all generally solid, the killer is a REAL standout in a crowded field, and that weapon is perfect. The kills are a bit one note, but nicely executed, and the killer is unsettling. Really good bits in an overstuffed movie. Four out of five basketballs.