Hell Night (1981) on Netflix
Four pledges accept a Hell Night dare: stay inside Garth Manor until dawn, twelve years after Raymond Garth murdered his family there. Only his youngest child was never found.
- Netflix3.0/5
- IMDb5.6/109,984 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes62%
Trailer
Plot summary
Peter Bennett, president of the Alpha Sigma Rho fraternity, picks four pledges, Marti, Jeff, Seth and Denise, and tells them to remain in Garth Manor until dawn, when the gates reopen. Twelve years have passed since the owner, Raymond Garth, killed his wife and three of his children and then hanged himself; the body of Andrew, his youngest, was never recovered, and stories hold that the boy may still be in the house. Peter, Scott and May return to the grounds to frighten the pledges with mechanical devices and sound effects. The four settle into the old rooms for the night, waiting on the legend.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Hell Night (1981)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- In 2013 a fan in Lincoln, Illinois left his $1 million estate, including a 165-acre farm, to Hell Night's two stars, Peter Barton and Kevin Brophy, naming them in his will as friends even though neither actor had ever met him.
- The two actors who played the Garth brothers are not credited anywhere; their names are believed to be Valentino Richardson and Chad Butler, and the DVD commentary notes they were German nationals who spoke little or no English and that the older, bearded one died shortly after the release.
- Peter Barton, a model who was considering giving up acting, was hesitant to take the role of Jeff in Hell Night until producer Bruce Cohn Curtis convinced him to star in the film.
- Hell Night's original $1 million budget grew by $400,000 when the shoot ran through the holidays; Linda Blair recalled six-day weeks running from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m., with the cast and crew spending Thanksgiving on set and being served a meal from a rented double-decker bus.
- Producer Bruce Cohn Curtis pushed director Tom DeSimone to add an extended chase for Linda Blair's character after seeing Jamie Lee Curtis's chase sequence in Terror Train (1980); it became the chase through the mansion's tunnels.
- The many tunnels the characters run through in Hell Night were actually only two corridors, which director Tom DeSimone had the actors run through repeatedly from different angles.
SPOILER
Randy Feldman's original screenplay had only one of the Garth brothers as a killer; a second villain was added after producer Bruce Cohn Curtis bought the script.- There was no garden maze at the Kimberly Crest mansion in Redlands, California, the house used for the exterior of Garth Manor, so the production brought in the hedge maze seen in the film.
