Night Fright (1967)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Admirable film.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

It had a budget of $18,000. That in itself gives you an idea of what to expect. The male teens look like they are in their 30's. The acting is so wooden the trees seem more animated. The lighting is terrible. I'm surprised people didn't sue it for eye strain. The only redeeming scene was seeing the Coca Cola machine in the restaurant. That's probably what cost the most in this film as I'm sure Coke didn't want their name associated with this turkey. It's so bad it's not even bad good. I wish I could get back the 85 minutes of my life that I wasted watching this crap.

With John Agar as its star, NIGHT FRIGHT was bound to be bad; but did it have to be *this* bad? NIGHT FRIGHT commits the cardinal sin of grindhouse fare: it's dull. At least half the film is turgid scenes of walking, driving, and pointless close-ups.The plot, as nearly as I could make out, involves an outer-space gorilla that's running amok in rural Texas. The ape seemingly got there due to a NASA rocket that crashed nearby. I think.The writing, acting, and production values are only a smidgen above MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE. The horror segments aren't scary, the humor is painfully unfunny, and the scientific explanation offered is (to be charitable) unconvincing. Factor in the numerous failed day-for-night shots, and you have 75 minutes of trash that even MST3K wouldn't touch.

The 1960s were a simpler time when a rampaging space gorilla was enough to enthrall audiences. Or maybe not. I've got no idea how well NIGHT FRIGHT did financially but I can't imagine it did all that great. It's another piece of generic drive-in fodder but, if I'm being honest, this one almost managed to keep my attention. It doesn't help that the copy I watched was horribly degraded from the poorest of transfers and at least half of the movie was incomprehensively dark. I suppose it could've been just poor cinematography but I'm going to give the filmmakers a little bit of credit and assume this was a lot easier to follow when it was originally released in 1967. NIGHT FRIGHT is a creature feature set in a small American town where a space rocket crash lands in the wilderness and unleashes a murderous space gorilla monster on the unsuspecting local populace. This film is a by-the-numbers monster movie that plays out exactly as you expect with the local sheriff leading the charge against the extraterrestrial ape and the town's "teenage" population refusing to see the inherent danger in the situation, allowing them to throw themselves into harm's way. What gives NIGHT FRIGHT a slight edge against the competition is a reasonably decent performance from John Agar as our hero (Sheriff Clint Crawford), the inclusion of Bill Thurman (the one good part to come from 1969 TV movie "It's Alive!") as one of the deputies, and the space ape.I was legitimately surprised to see someone making a decent effort at performing in one of these movies but I guess I underestimated (and had never heard of) John Agar. NIGHT FRIGHT is a movie where it wouldn't surprise me to learn 99% of the cast didn't read the script until right before cameras rolled (and who could blame them) and Agar's Sheriff Crawford feels all the more natural when put in a scene with any of them. He's a stern sheriff with a level head and a desire to keep the community safe. He's aggravated when the Feds roll in to town and refuse him access to the crash site in his own jurisdiction. He mourns for the dead, organizes the final assault against the monster, and even ends the movie as the only person to have gone solo against the beast and walked away alive. Good for him. Bill Thurman is hanging around in the background in the first half of the film as one the handful of deputies under Crawford. While Thurman would go on to bring the fun with his double performance in "It's Alive!" two years after NIGHT FRIGHT, he's toned down to near non-existence here. I almost didn't recognize him without his crazy face, and NIGHT FRIGHT could've used some of his insane cackling. Instead he's generic police force with a future in monkey chow. I sort of wish he'd gotten the role of Sheriff Crawford purely for the fun that could be had in a final battle where he battles a mutant ape. Why not? Go nuts.Anyone else of note in this movie? No, not really. NIGHT FRIGHT has a fun 60's vibe with the town's teenagers (played by no one younger than 25, I'd bet) spouting off the lingo of the era and gathering at the lake for a dance party despite warnings from the police. No, these "kids" aren't going to let the Man get them down. They want to go out to the lake for a groovy time and no one's going to stop them. That dance party, man…we're treated to extensive footage of these "kids" dancing to some generic 60's melody (no money for song rights, I guess) for what feels like forever. We just keep cutting back to the same day-for-night footage of these people twisting and whatnot, probably because the director wanted a reason to keep cutting back to a close-up of one particular girl's butt that we see repeatedly. Groovy? Anyways, the ape: I think it was cool but I have no way of knowing because the footage is so dark that I can hardly make out any details. It truly looks like a costume borrowed from the original "Star Trek"; it's some sort of gorilla with what appears to be a bald head and maybe some ridges? I bet it looked cool in the daylight but we're never lucky enough to find out. Whatever it might be, it loves the taste of teenage flesh and it will require all the strength this little town's police force can muster to bring it down.

Why film a movie if you are not going to provide light for the cameras. The film would have been about seven minutes long if it were not for the shots of people walking through the woods. I enjoyed seeing the typical sixties dress and the 60's cars. I couldn't help but ask myself what self respecting kid would drive a Tornado, though they were neat cars. The music was tedious and repetitive. Ten minutes of people dancing in the dark was too much. I've seen worse acting, but the manikin should have had top billing. At least it kept it's mouth closed. I think the motivation for making the movie must have been that someone had a lot of film available that had gone beyond the expiration date and they didn't want to see it go to waste. It went to waste.