The Night Brings Charlie (1990)

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Murders start happening in a small Texas town where the heads of the victims are taken. The cops are investigating and Charlie turns out to be suspect # 1. I know that might sound interesting, but this amateurish early 90s horror flick isn't as good as it sounds. As well the sub-par acting brings this down. Not worth your time seeking out this rare horror movie.

In the tiny town of Pakoe (pronounced Pak-oh-wee), a masked maniac is pruning the pitiful population of 1251 by sawing the heads off teenagers. Could the killer possibly be hulking, disfigured tree-surgeon Charlie (Chuck Whiting), whose arrival in town just happens to have coincided with the spate of grisly murders? Well, duh! This isn't called 'The Night Brings Charlie' just for the fun of it. Of course, this being a dumb early-'90s slasher, the local sheriff and his men are utterly inept, remaining oblivious to any clues until late in the day, meaning that quite a few heads roll before the end credits do.Director Tom Logan opens his film with a buxom, blonde teenager arriving home after a date, but kills her off before she can get inside and take a shower (boo!); her headless body is found the next morning by a paperboy (whose shocked reaction is priceless), but the killer's gruesome handiwork remains off-screen. With a missed opportunity for some gratuitous female nudity and a complete lack of splatter, it proves a rather disappointing way to start a slasher.Thankfully, Logan soon sets about rectifying the matter, and before long he has delivered a spot of graphic violence (a bloody throat slashing and decapitated corpse) and what must be one of the most pointless (but welcome) shower scenes in any horror film, more than making up for his oversight at the beginning: as a busty babe busily soaps herself up, the killer loiters menacingly on the other side of the shower glass, before eventually slinking away leaving the girl totally unharmed (and very clean). The director also successfully ticks off quite a few genre clichés, with dumb teenagers ignoring common sense, an obnoxious jerk who likes to jump out and scare girls for a laugh, a totally unnecessary nightmare sequence, and creepy phone-calls from the killer.From the halfway mark, there is a noticeable loss of momentum—the film becomes mired in dull police procedure and the script tries to be a little too clever for its own good with an extremely convoluted twist—but Logan picks things up again for the fun final act in which a guy has his (rubber) hand skewered by shears, a trio of bikers meet the business end of an axe, and the killer finally sets his sights on Jenny (Aimee Tenaglia), teenage step-daughter of town coroner Walt (Joe Fishback), pursuing her with a chainsaw, the power-tool of choice for any discerning movie maniac (even one whose messed-up face is the result of a chainsaw accident).

The Night Brings Charlie is a little know, slasher lensed in Florida. It's your typical slasher with teenagers falling prey to a psychotic killer. However, this has to the first slasher to feature a true pruner as a weapon! Now, that's original! Unfortunately, it failed to deliver the goods. On the back of the box, it has a EM (Extremely mature) rating. With something like that, a person would think what they're getting is a relentless bloodbath. Wrong! None of the murders are actually shown. Just afterwards, when they police are at the crime scene. The good thing about this film, is that you don't have to wait 40 minutes or an hour for the first murder to occur. It slows down halfway into the film and pretty much stays that. Give it look if you're a die hard slasher fan. I'm sure you can find a copy of it on eBay for cheap. Happy Hunting!

(Includes Spoilers) Get this: a demented man who wears a mask is murdering people. He wears his mask during the day because he's deformed. Now, someone gets killed so naturally the doctor's daughter has to have a party. But first she has to take a shower and show us some gratuitous nudity. More people are getting killed at Charlie's barn, but that isn't good enough for the sheriff so Charlie is let go. More people die, I fell asleep only to awake and find the ending to be the typical slasher ending. In 1990, if producers hadn't gotten a clue that slasher films were as in as bell bottoms then they obviously needed as much help as Charlie. This is one cliche-ridden movie that's extremely laughable. I even remember *serious* dialogue like "there's a killer loose so I'm gonna walk home from your party Jamie." The killings are laughable, like a man whipped against a car, that I kinda though that Charlie might've been sexually deformed too. Really awful, I'm glad I only paid $2.00 to buy it. It's really boring too. *1/2out of****I'll give it the extra 1/2 just because I still can't look at the box cover without laughing hysterically.