To All a Goodnight (1980)

Fresh and Exciting

Don't listen to the negative reviews

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

A handful of college students at the Calvin Finishing School for Girls find themselves being terrorized by a psycho dressed as Santa Claus during Christmas break. The strictly workmanlike direction by David Hess (yep, Krug Stillo from "The Last House on the Left") manages to keep the formulaic, yet still fairly enjoyable and engrossing story moving along at a reasonably steady pace, but alas crucially fails to generate much in the way of either suspense or spooky atmosphere. The gore f/x are decent enough, although the murder set pieces could have been staged with a bit more punch. The by-the-numbers hackneyed script by Alex Rebar (yep, he played the titular hideously goopy fellow in "The Incredible Melting Man") trots out all the tried'n'true body count clichés in an almost endearingly clunky fashion: We've got a creepy handyman (hulking West Buchanan), carefree young folks who mark themselves for doom by smoking pot and doing the deed prior to meeting brutal untimely ends, a past tragedy that gets gruesomely avenged a few years down the road, a couple of lame last reel twists, and so on. Bill Godsey's bland cinematography and the wonky synthesizer score both leave something to be desired. Fortunately, the sturdy acting by the able cast keeps this movie watchable: Jennifer Runyon in her film debut makes for an appealing final girl as token nice gal Nancy, Forrest Swanson contributes a likable turn as the nerdy Alex, buxom babe Linda Gentile heats up the screen as seductive strumpet Melody, foxy slender redhead Judith Bridges brings a winningly brash spirit to her role as the sassy Leia (and also even bares her tasty tight body in a shower scene), Kiva Lawrence does well as kind-hearted house mother Mrs. Jensen, and Angela Bath snarks it up delightfully as snooty bitch Trisha. 70's porn legend Harry Reems pops up in a small part as an airplane pilot. An okay slice'n'dice opus.

The idea of a killer dressed as Santa Claus attacking a group of young people at a sorority house sounds great to a horror fan like myself! Which is why I was so excited to this the other day. Unfortunately, 'To All A Goodnight' was a major disappointment. It had so much potential, but with so many flaws to me this is a below average slasher film that I wouldn't care to see again.The movie begins with a girl accidentally falling to her death during a prank/initiation. Flash forward two years, this time with a group of new girls who are staying at the sorority house over Christmas. They invite a bunch of boys over to spend the holidays with them which of course was added just to increase the body count. Eventually, a killer dressed as Santa kills a few people and one of the body is discovered the next morning. A cop comes to the house and tells them to stay and lock up for the night (not sure why they listened, I would have gotten the hell out). Anyways, a few more murders happen that evening leading to the killer's revelation.There are so many things wrong with the movie. The main group of characters are so annoying and make it hard to get through the film at times. The dialogue and acting are so bad, it just makes most scenes seem awkward. Plus, it's Christmas. Where is the snow? I feel that the movie could have been much more moody and creepier with a snowstorm outside or something. And why would they stay at the house an entire day after finding a bloody corpse. It makes no sense. Also, the lighting is pretty bad so don't expect to see everything clearly, including some of the kills. The killers identity was sort of obvious to me anyways, but there is a second twist which came out of nowhere for me. It felt rushed and fell flat. 'To All A Goodnight' has it's moments, like a helicopter propeller kill and making one of the characters go completely insane after finding a decapitated head in the shower. But after I had so much anticipation in seeing this, I felt that it wasn't a very good movie and could have been so much better.4/10

Forget the cheerful seasons greetings, as here's another nasty little holiday slasher that's only made more interesting for the fact it was directed by genre actor David A. Hess. However his presence might have been better suited in front of the camera than just behind it. "To All A Good Night" is another addition to the Christmas --- Santa Clause slasher cycle and probably one of the least known, despite coming out around the same time as "You Better Watch Out" and even before the likes of "Silent Night, Deadly Night" and "Don't Open till Christmas". Still with that on mind, it's your typically rancid and atmospherically moody slasher that amusingly passes the time but in the end there's not too much to write about. Sticking to a formula that seems to be popular; it opens in the past showing a prank going horribly wrong then moves to the present time which has a group of horny rich girls at Calvin Finishing School for Girls waiting to secretly smuggle in their boyfriends for some late-night parting, but after doing so they start disappearing as someone in a Saint Nick costume is going around making ends meat of them. Does the past have something to do with it… I can't see it any other way.It had its moments (death by propeller was a neat touch), an unhinged, if wonky sounding electronic score and a cast (mostly no-names) that weren't too bad either. There's colourful bunch of characters (with expected red herrings; like Ralph the creepy looking gardener who can pop out from anywhere) and gladly they stood out from each other. The angelic Jennifer Runyon (in her debut performance --- although that's pretty for all the young cast) brings a grounded reality to her lead character. Her cute character was more sympathetic, thanks to her forlorn naïve innocence, but even so not worthless for that. Linda Gentile and Judith Bridges have titillating fun with their buxom parts. While Forrest Swanson and William Lauer are tolerable.The location (a large sorority house) for such butchery is ominously remote, but David Hess' glum direction was kind of clunky with many murky set-pieces with a real uneven focus on the deaths or a real lack of build up to them. Some happen off-screen, while others come off jarringly quick. Some passages are lethargic, like the long stretches of fooling around, bickering and then the waiting game for the killer to strike (oh there's numerous leg shots of our psychotic Santa killer walking stairs). The story kind of starts of plain (with some flat writing) but when it begins to open up to where its actually going, it brings out some rather amusing (though not all that intentional) and odd developments. Plenty of contrived instances make there way in and there's one scene that paints it perfectly. After discovering a dead body one of the characters run to the phone to call the police, but *drum roll* the phone is dead. But just before picking it up… the killer perfectly times it by cutting the phone line just before it reaches his ear. But in the end it's the sudden revelation… well more so the outrageous second one that's a groaner.A so-so seasonal low-budget slasher.

A typical 80s slasher with teenage girls getting stalked and murdered by a masked killer. But giving the fact that this is one of the first slasher movies to come out, and has an original costume idea with the killer dressing up as Santa Claus.This movie does have a lot of gore and a high body count, but it can get a bit dull at times. This movie does have faults like at times it's so dark you can't really see what the hell is going on, and the best parts of the movie happens at night. The acting is anything but good. We get a lot of overacting and some of the most pathetic screams I have ever witnessed. These girls look like they have never experienced fear in their lives."To All A Goodnight" isn't a bad movie, it may be weak and slow in parts but it's still highly enjoyable and it follows the slasher formula quite well. I pretty much guessed who the killer was at the end but there is more this has a double twist ending and If you're a fan of masked slasher movies from the 80s I definitely suggest you give this one a shot because it is quite gory and as I said before, the body count is relatively high.The killings are brill though we get bloody stabs, some slit throats, a rock jammed into ones head a brutal decapitation, an arrow through head, an axe in head and the bit where the two people get chopped up by a helicopter propeller.All in all i'd say Fairly enjoyable slasher which gets a bit too slow at many times. Follows the basic slasher formula and has a high body count. A definite must for anyone who enjoys the occasional 80s slasher. If you've seen many of these before however, you might feel that it is a bit too unoriginal even though it was one of the first in its class.