Girls Nite Out

Girls Nite Out
Directed by Robert Deubel
Produced by Anthony N. Gurvis
Written by Joe Bolster
Starring Julia Montgomery
Hal Holbrook
Rutanya Alda
James Carroll
Cinematography Joe Rivers
Edited by Arthur Ginsberg
Distributed by Independent International Pictures
Release dates
  • June 20, 1982 (1982-06-20)
Running time
 96 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget Unknown

Girls Nite Out (also known as The Scaremaker) is a 1982 American slasher film written and produced by Anthony N. Gurvis, directed by Robert Deubel and stars Julia Montgomery, Suzanne Barnes, Rutanya Alda, and Hal Holbrook. The film focuses on a group of college girls who are targeted by a killer in a bear mascot costume during an all-night scavenger hunt on their campus.

Plot synopsis

At Weston Hills Sanitarium, Dickie Cavanaugh is found hanging in his cell. Cavanaugh's sister gives permission to two gravediggers to bury the body. While the two men are digging the hole for Cavanaugh's body, they are attacked and murdered by an unseen assailant who throws their corpses into the burial plot and buries them.

At DeWitt University, the basketball team won a championship game, and an all night scavenger hunt will take place the next evening for the female students. Lynn and her boyfriend, the star player, Teddy Ratliff, celebrate the victory at the diner. Barney, the waitress, is thrilled for the team. Lynn, Teddy and other students attend a party that evening.

At the party, the story of Dickie circulates among freshman, who are unaware of his recent death; they are told that Cavanaugh murdered his girlfriend, Penny, in a jealous rage and is locked away in the sanitarium. Lynn becomes jealous over Teddy's attraction to Dawn Sorenson and misfit Mike Pryor gets into a fight with his girlfriend Sheila. Michael Benson, the school mascot, is murdered in his dorm room after arriving back from the party, and his bear mascot costume is stolen by his killer.

The following day, Mike Pryor is questioned by campus security officer Jim MacVey over the fight with his girlfriend. MacVey's daughter Penny was Dickie Cavanaugh's girlfriend. Later that evening, the campus radio DJ broadcasts the clues to the scavenger hunt, which are received by the girls on their portable radios. The killer, dressed in the mascot suit, arms themselves with serrated knives mimicking bear claws.

Jane is murdered in the girls' locker room where she discovers the first item of the hunt, and her body is found tied up in the showers by her friend Kathy, who is also murdered. The DJ at the radio station begins receiving phone calls from the killer, who tallies his victims. The killer places calls to officer MacVey and claims to be Dickie Cavanaugh. Sheila goes down to the pond to search for another item and runs into the killer dressed in the bear suit, whom she believes to Benson. After teasing him, she goes into a shed by the pond, where she is killed. Lynn is searching for items on the scavenger hunt and Teddy has sex with Dawn. Lynn's friend Leslie goes to search for an item in the attic of the old chapel, where she is murdered. Lynn finds her body posed alongside a Virgin Mary statue stored in the attic.

Lynn calls campus security and the police find the bodies. They are suspicious of Mike Pryor and question several of the students. Dawn gets into an argument with her boyfriend, who kicks her out of their house after he tells her he knows about her affair with Teddy. Officer MacVey studys the phone calls placed to the radio station as well as files and photographs of Dickie Cavanaugh, whose death he became aware of by Dickie's doctor.

Dawn senses that someone is following her. She makes a call from the cafeteria phone to Teddy's house, where he is consoling Lynn. Teddy leaves Lynn to go get Dawn, and finds her in the cafeteria, severely wounded and covered in blood.

As Teddy is comforting her, he is stabbed by Barney. Officer MacVey enters the cafeteria and confronts Barney, who he addresses as Katie Cavanaugh, Dickie's twin sister. Speaking in different voices, she seems to be suffering from multiple personalities, and denies that she is Katie, claiming to be Dickie. MacVey tells Katie that Dickie had committed suicide, she shifts back into her usual speaking voice, and confusedly tells him that Dickie is not dead, claiming to have brought him home from the hospital. She opens the freezer door, revealing Dickie's frozen body.

Cast

Production

The film itself was filmed in 1982, but was not released until the year 1984 for a release.

Critical reception

Allmovie wrote "Girls Nite Out might be one of the most forgettable of the early '80s slashers", calling it "dull" and "routine".[1]

Soundtrack

The film soundtrack is composed of several oldies hits by The Lovin' Spoonful, 1910 Fruitgum Co., John Fred & The Playboy Band and others.

References

  1. ↑ Jeremy Wheeler; Eleanor Mannikka. "Girls Nite Out (1983)". Allmovie. Retrieved 22 June 2012.

External links

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