Happy Hell Night

Decent cast, good locations and fine f/x, but lousy storytelling

Students of an upstate New York college celebrate their annual Hell Night with a few of them inadvertently unleashing a diabolical inmate of a nearby asylum, who happens to have a history with the school. Darren McGavin plays the father of two siblings who attend the college (Franke John Hughes & Nick Gregory) with Sam Rockwell playing the younger version of the dad in flashbacks.

"Happy Hell Night" (1992) has everything for a quality slasher, but fumbles the ball with grossly amateur directing and editing. There are bits of certain key scenes that are so clumsily executed the director or editor should’ve been fired. It doesn’t help that the supernatural element is awkwardly worked into the script with the corresponding gobbledygook.

On a positive note, the antagonist is effective enough and the female cast is quite good, highlighted by Laura Carney (Liz), Tatjana Pujin (Kimberly), Gala Videnovic (Marjorie), Jorja Fox (Kappa Sig Girl) and Kate Delay (Susan).

Speaking as a fan of the genre, it’s strange how this flick failed so badly despite its resources and the fact that it had a dozen years of slashers to use as a blueprint.

The film runs 1 hour, 27 minutes, and was shot in Yugoslavia and Humber College, Toronto (I’m assuming the latter applies to exterior shots, but I’m not sure).

GRADE: D+/C-