Monday, October 12, 2009

Dead of Night (1977)

Directed by Dan Curtis
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Dark Sky Films)

Master of made-for-tv horror Dan Curtis directs this moody anthology. The first episode tells the story of a college student who restores an old car, then travels back in time and meets the original owner. His brief encounter changes the lives of several people, including his own, when he returns to his own time. The second story is a period piece about vampires living in a mansion. A wife is being attacked nightly by a vampire, and the mystery revolves around his identity. The third, and probably best, story stars Joan Hackett as a grieving mother. She performs a satanic ritual to bring her dead son back, but probably wishes she hadn't. The film has the ethereal 70s look in color and texture, and a good shock ending to the third story. I also watched the DVD bonus episode of "Dead of Night" starring Kerwin Matthews, but it was more like the sixties Dan Curtis series Dark Shadows, which is to say a soap opera disguising as horror. The anthology film is much, much better.

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