Horror in the Night (1996)

Posted by Mrs Giggles on March 24, 2018 in 2 Oogies, Idiot Box Reviews, Series: Tales from the Crypt

Horror in the Night (1996) - Tales from the Crypt Season 7

Main cast: Elizabeth McGovern (Laura Kendall), James Wilby (Nick Marvin), Ronan Vibert (T), Edward Tudor Pole (Lou), Peter Guinness (Mr Starr), and John Kassir (The Crypt Keeper)
Director: Russell Mulcahy

Nick and T are two thugs hired by Mr Starr to stage a robbery at his jewelry store, so that that man can pocket the insurance money. All is not well between T and Nick, though, as T attempts to shoot Nick after the robbery, in order to keep the jewels for himself. Nick manages to shoot T back and runs off with the jewels himself, but not before sustaining a shoulder wound from his now ex-partner. Our protagonist then runs off to hole up in a room in Sandoval Hotel, leaving the car outside for everyone to identify and track him down. This guy is not very smart, as you can clearly tell by now.

Horror in the Night refers to the subsequent weird, out of this world happenings that Nick finds himself in, with a mysterious woman, Laura, right in the middle of them. The plot isn’t bad, actually – Nick can’t remember at that time but he has wandered into the same room in which he had done at hit, and Laura is a ghost of his victim wanting revenge – but the execution is a miss.

While it’s nice that James Wilby wears rather nice boxers most of the time here, the entire episode is basically his character dreaming of scenes that look like a first year film school student’s effort to replicate scenes from everything from The Shining to Exorcist. These scenes aren’t scary – most feel too over the top to be taken seriously – and after a while I get this feeling that these people are just throwing up things on screen to fill the time.

Needless to say, things get boring and repetitive fast, especially with poor Nick who just seems like a passive participant in all the mess happening in this episode. The true Horror in the Night is how much of a dreary, plodding episode this is.

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