“Don’t start with that ESP crap again!”

Drake’s rating: My own bio-energy is cranberry flavored

Drake’s review: I always enjoy catching a little horror flick that somehow slipped past me back in the ‘80s. There’s a feeling of familiarity there, even though I’ve never seen the movie before, since I recognize the clothes and the styles and usually at least one of the actors. Sure, the movies aren’t always great, or necessarily even good, but it’s still fun to take a quick trip back in time to a pretty fun decade.

Of course, the flicks I do find are often slashers of one type or another, and that’s fine with me. I do enjoy the slashers of the era, and it’s a kick to find one that I missed some four decades back. But slashers weren’t the only type of horror that was hitting the theaters, especially in the early ‘80s. Some little bits of the previous decade were still slipping in here and there, for better or worse.

Worse, of course, being the seemingly endless disco assault from Mortuary.

But I am happy to report that One Dark Night is delightfully free of disco. There’s nary a disco beat to be found and not a single mirror ball in sight. Instead, One Dark Night embraces the trappings of the Gothic horror story and combines those with psychic powers and creepy visions, all of which feel like they crawled their way out of the 1970s and into the ensuing decade before succumbing to a slasher-driven market.

A coroner team answering a call arrive at an apartment only to find broken mirrors, cracked plaster, and dishes and silverware embedded in the walls. Which is weird and creepy enough by itself, but combined with the literal pile of dead teenage girls, it makes the place a crime scene that baffles all the experts.

Less baffled, however, is a writer named Samuel Dockstader. Well acquainted with the occult, Dockstader knows that the dead man was famed Russian psychic Karl Raymar, and he tells Raymar’s daughter Olivia (Melissa Newman, Revenge of the Stepford Wives) that her father wasn’t just your common, everyday mind reader. In fact, Raymar was a psychic vampire who fed off of the bio-energy of the girls, draining them until they died.

What a jerk, right?

Olivia’s husband Allan (Adam West, Batman) is understandably skeptical about the whole psychic vampire thing, but Olivia finds herself convinced by Dockstader’s evidence. But still, Raymar is dead and has been interred in a massive mausoleum, so he really can’t cause any more harm, can he?

Yeah, about that…

Over at the local high school shy girl Julie (Meg Tilly, Psycho II) is trying to join a group of girls that call themselves The Sisters, who wear matching purple satin jackets because they probably saw Grease one too many times back when they were in junior high. Mean girl Carol, the de facto leader of the group, isn’t so hot on the idea, though. Julie is dating Carol’s old boyfriend Steve, and just because she’s through with him doesn’t mean someone else gets to snap him up. So Carol decides to make the initiation process almost impossible to get through. She comes up with the idea of Julie having to spend an entire night in the mausoleum if she wants to get into The Sisters, which sounds creepy enough even without the recently dead psychic vampire hanging out in one of the tombs.

Still, Julie goes along with it and sneaks into the mausoleum before it’s closed for the night. The other three girls leave here there, but Carol has a plan to go back and torment Julie all night. That doesn’t sit right with Leslie (E.G. Daily, Valley Girl) so she bails, leaving Carol and Kitty to devil Julie by themselves.

So we have a recently deceased psychic vampire who used to feed off of teenage girls, and whose tomb has gradually been cracking as the movie progresses, in the very same mausoleum where three teen girls are even now hiding out. I wonder where this movie is going…

I had no idea what to expect coming into One Dark Night, but I had a pretty good time watching it. The cast is solid, and writer/director Tom McLoughlin (Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives) interjects the film with a nice balance of tension and creepiness, with Olivia learning more about her father even as Raymar’s tomb cracks and glows with an eerie light.

That said, One Dark Night can most kindly be described as a slow burn. Even at a fairly manageable 94 minutes, there are still considerable stretches where not much is happening which, again, was a bit more common in movies from the ‘70s. I didn’t find that to be a particular problem overall, but it is noticeable and it was a surprise how long the movie took even getting Julie to the mausoleum.

Over all, though, One Dark Night is a spooky little thriller that boasts real talent and some very nice FX work. The pacing makes it feel more like a rainy day horror flick than an edge of your set shocker, but it’s still a worthwhile watch if you’re in the mood for something a bit different.

And let’s face it, Russian psychic vampires are off the beaten path of your average horror movie villains.

Intermission!

• That pile of dead teens is really disturbing.
• Have to admit, the kid in me still loves seeing Adam West unexpectedly pop up.
• Man, those matching purple jackets. Sooo shiny.
• ’80s arcade interlude! More movies should have those.
• Coming home to an empty house. Julie’s a latchkey kid!
• Ack! Cranky caretaker scare! It’s like a cat scare, but much less cute.
• I have no idea what’s up with Kitty and her constant toothbrush.
• Steve just tooling around on his motorcycle, happy that helmet laws don’t exist yet.
• Getting crushed by corpses is a pretty grisly way to go.
• Meg Tilly’s had enough of this nonsense. Time for her to go hang out with that nice Norman Bates.