Review of Girls Nite Out (1982) by Steve M — 04 Apr 2006

Girls Nite Out (aka "The Scaremaker").

Starring: Julia Montgomery, Hal Holbrook and Rutanya Alda.

Director: Robert Deubel.

A maniac in a bearsuit ruins a campus scavenger hunt by brutally murdering the participants. Will the chief of campus security (Holbrook) leave his office long enough to keep the bodycount in single digits and avenge the death of his own daughter at?

"Girls Nite Out" is a by-the-numbers slasherfilm enhanced by "Afterschool Special"-style ups and downs in relationships. The first hour or so is intensely boring, and even when the mad killer gets going, things don't liven up much. The acting is okay, but the problem is that every character is nearly devoid of personality, being nothing more than a required figure in this type of movie (The Nympho, The Nerd, The Stoner, The Joker, The Jock, The Shrew, and so on...), so the actors have even less to do than is typical.

On the other hand, "Girls Nite Out" does warn the viewers up front. I think it has probably the most boring main titles sequence of any film I've seen; I almost didn't make it through them. Plus, the bear costume as modified-by-the-killer is pretty nifty... and I guess the film can claim originality by having a basketball team mascot outfit turned into a deadly weapon.

I think everyone but the world's biggest fans of slasher films can safely skip this one.