I have such mixed feelings about this movie.GIRL'S NITE OUT has a little bit of gore - not as much as you'd see in a normal slasher movie and not nearly as graphic as most I've seen, but it has some. It was executed (in a manner of speaking) about as well as you'd expect for an average 1980's slasher film.In places, the movie annoyed the you know what out of me. Stupid jump scares and set ups that don't go anywhere aren't really my thing. Nor is watching a bunch of horny, drunk college students I don't really care about. It includes the obvious ploy to make you think that a certain person is the killer - that usually means it isn't, and this movie is no exception. As is common in a lot of slashers, there really isn't a plot to be had. It does have the generally mandatory back story though. GNO also has some audio problems here and there.On the plus side, this one didn't insult my intelligence by making me watch people do idiotic things. I hate stupid horror movies where everyone knows there's a killer but they decide to split up anyway, go for a walk at night in the forest, check out the attic on their own, etc. At least in this film the characters didn't know there was a murderer on the loose and most of the time, they had a reason to be alone - a nice change.The soundtrack is pretty good overall, and there is also a fair amount of licensed music from the 1960's. I think that's probably where most of the budget went (along with hiring in Hal Holbrook). Most of the acting was okay with a few exceptions. The film starts out slow (again, watching college students partying and dealing with their dramas) - it picks up in the second half when most of the killing occurs. I will say when the killer was revealed at the end, I was actually quite surprised. I knew it wasn't the person the movie was trying to lead me to believe it was and I thought I'd figured it out - and I was wrong.One quick note about the plot line such as it is - There is a costume party at the beginning of the movie and it would have made much more sense to have the slaughters happen then because the killer wears a bear costume (the school mascot's), but it is what it is.This movie would be a great introduction to slasher films if 1. You're college age 2. You don't want to see an excessive amount of gore or graphic violence and 3. You don't watch a lot of horror. For a seasoned horror fan, it was just okay.

This 1982 horror film stars Julia Montgomery, James Carroll, Suzanne Barnes and Hal Holbrook. This begins at a psychiatric hospital where a patient has committed suicide. Soon, a killer stalks a group of college students who are having an all-night scavenger hunt. The killer decides to dress up as their university's bear mascot. Montgomery (Revenge of the Nerds) plays Cheerleader, Lynn, Carroll plays her jock boyfriend, Teddy, Barnes plays Dawn, a girl Teddy befriends, Holbrook (Creepshow, The Fog) plays campus-security guard, MacVey and Holbrook's son, David (Creepshow 2) also appears as student, Mike. This isn't a bad slasher flick with a decent cast, chilling score and some bloody kills along with some goofy moments. Horror/slasher buffs should check it out at least once.

The story here is simple enough: on a college campus, coeds find their good-hearted fun, in the form of a scavenger hunt, hampered by the activities of a brutal killer who has murdered the basketball team's mascot, appropriated his goofy bear costume, and is using it to escape detection while slaughtering the participants. To add to that, there's a melodramatic sub plot about the killing of campus security head Jim MacVey's (Hal Holbrook) daughter once upon a time, which is going to prove to be important to the story later. Name actor Holbrook is clearly slumming here, and looks rather weary; his appearance certainly must have something to do with the fact that his son David is also in the movie playing the pivotal role of Mike Prior, a volatile athlete. But it is great novelty to see him here, and it's a treat to see the other adult actors, lovely Rutanya Alda as Barney (!), and her husband Richard Bright as the detective who shows up on the scene. Other familiar faces include some slasher alumni: Lauren-Marie Taylor ("Friday the 13th Part 2") and Carrick Glenn ("The Burning"), and of course ravishing lead Julia Montgomery was Betty Childs in "Revenge of the Nerds". The problem that this viewer has with this movie is that it gets a little tiresome after a while. Yes, it does have some things going for it: the addition of a scavenger hunt helps to create a somewhat playful approach, as well as the bear costume (it is a hoot to see a slasher villain wearing something like this), the soundtrack features golden oldies like "Summer in the City" and "Do You Believe in Magic", and the killer's weapon of choice automatically calls to mind the glove made famous by Freddy in "A Nightmare on Elm Street" two years later. There is some atmosphere and suspense and a little bit of gore. However, in order to get to this movie's good stuff, one has to sit through a lot of dopey comedy & tomfoolery, and emphasis on character relationships before the pacing picks up at all. The beginning is pretty good, but the ending, once our psycho's identity is revealed, is fairly abrupt and not altogether satisfying. At least the calls that this person places to both campus DJ Kaiser (Larry Mintz) and MacVey are good for major amusement. Underwhelming overall, but does have its moments here and there. Five out of 10.

Girls Nite Out (1984)* (out of 4) This entry in the slasher genre was made during the height (1982) of the era but it didn't see a theatrical release for a couple years and it's easy to see why. Our story takes place at a college where a maniac is going around slashing people up. That's pretty much all you need to know except it's important to point out that the killer has stolen the team's bear mascot outfit and that's about the only original thing you're going to find here. I'm really not sure what it says when you consider that it took four different writers to come up with this thing unless they just tried to keep outguessing one another in regards to how unoriginal they could actually get. The film's first thirty-minutes features all the suspects being introduced and of course there's a backstory about something bad that had happened previously. At around the thirty-four minute mark we finally get our first kill and then we're waiting around another twenty-minutes for the next one. For a slasher film it seems that the four writers knew how to throw in every cliché that they could yet they didn't seem to remember that fans of the genre wanted nudity, violence and gore. Well, there's not any nudity to be found and what violence we do get is rather childish and we're basically just left with seeing the aftermath. The murder weapon is like a bear claw that the killer uses to cut out the victim's throats but again, we really don't get to see much. The performances are what you'd expect to see from a film like this but we do get Hal Holbrook picking up a paycheck (or agreeing to appear if the producers gave his son a role in the film, which they did). At 96-minutes the film runs way too long, features a boring story and the entire identity of the killer just isn't very interesting. GIRLS NITE OUT has pretty much been forgotten and for good reasons.