To All a Goodnight

Plot synopsis:
During Christmas vacation at Calvin Finishing School For Girls, a student is killed when she is accidentally pushed over a balcony by a bunch of students and falls to her death during a chase prank. Two years later as Christmas vacation has started, many of the students go home for the holidays. However five students - Nancy, Melody, Leia, Trisha, and Sam - decide to stay at their school for Christmas.
Later that night the girls sit down to dinner and Leia says that the groups boyfriends will be coming by plane that night. A man outside the school waits for his girlfriend Cynthia to come out of the building. As he waits, an unseen person attacks and kills him with a hunting knife.
Nancy gives their house mother Mrs. Jensen sleeping pills in warm milk to make her fall asleep faster. Meanwhile, Cynthia finally comes outside and is stabbed in the chest by the killer.
After Mrs. Jensen falls asleep, the group goes the airport to meet their boyfriends - T.J, Alex, Tom, and Blake. They go back to the house where Blake plays guitar for everyone. Trisha decides to get beers for her and Tom. As she gets the beers the killer - dressed in a Santa Claus costume - appears. Trisha, believing the killer to be Tom playing a prank, starts to leave until the killer grabs her and slits her throat.
After waiting impatiently, Tom goes to search for Trisha, eventually stumbling upon her corpse. The killer appears and Tom attempts to flee, but he is killed a giant rock crushing his head. Sam and Blake chase each other around the school for fun, then finally decide to have sex in a parlor. The killer, disguised in a decorative suit of armor, shoots Blake with a crossbow and decapitates Sam.
Meanwhile, the school's groundskeeper Ralph tells Nancy that he suspects there is something evil going on. Later, Melody seduces Alex into bed with her and gives him a hand job. The next morning, Alex hysterically chases Nancy into the woods resulting into her tripping over Ralph's corpse with an axe wound to his forehead.
The survivors call Detective Polansky to help investigate, and he recommends that everyone stays indoors for the night. Before leaving, Polansky leaves two police men, Jim and Dan, to watch the area for the night. While guarding the area Jim comes into contact with the killer and is killed with a double-bit axe.
Leia seduces Dan and they have sex. Leia goes to take a shower and discovers Sam's severed head in the shower and screams, while Dan is stabbed in the back with a knife. Leia, now traumatized, dances around the school. Nancy and Alex come up stairs to discover Sam's head and Dan's corpse.
Meanwhile, Melody is walking with T.J outside the school. They stop under a tree to kiss, and the killer, hiding in the treetop, kills T.J by strangling him with a metal rope. Melody screams and runs back to the school. Suddenly, the killer appears and is revealed to be Mrs. Jensen. It is also revealed that the girl who was killed in the prank two years ago was her daughter. Mrs. Jensen blames Nancy for her daughter's death and chases her around the school.
Melody flees to the plane and finds the pilot sleeping under it. The pilot tries to fix one of the engines until another person wearing a Santa Claus costume appears inside the cockpit and starts up the plane, killing Melody and the pilot when they get caught in the engine. Mrs. Jensen chases Nancy to the same balcony where her daughter died. When she tries to stab her, Mrs. Jensen trips and falls to her death. Later, the other killer comes into the room carrying Mrs. Jensen's corpse and is revealed to be Polansky. It is also revealed that he was Mrs. Jensen's husband. Polanksy tries to strangle Nancy, but Alex appears and shoots Polansky with a crossbow, killing him.
Alex and Nancy flee the school, leaving Leia behind. The film ends with Leia dancing on a balcony before the screen turns red and the credits roll.

Tags: revenge, murder

Review:
A year later, a small group of gals who've stuck around during the Christmas holidays will find themselves stalked by a murdering fiend in a Santa Claus costume.
The cops show up on the scene, but much like most things in this movie, they're not very good at their jobs, so our killer isn't going to face very much of a challenge.This demands a viewing on the basis of its curiosity value.
The one rather cool moment occurs when the maniac is actually wearing something other than a Santa Claus suit.The lovely Jennifer Runyon ("Ghost Busters", "Up the Creek") made her film debut as Nancy, a standard issue Nice Girl.
This is, of course, the first SLASHER movie to include a killer santa, which would be repeated in Santa Claws, Silent Night Deadly Night, Christmas Season Massacre etc.
Just for the sake of originality (!), Don't Open Till Christmas opted for a masked killer that killed people in Santa suits instead!The only problems with To all a Good Night is that it's poorly lighted, a little off the wall and perhaps too under-produced.
"To All A Good Night" is another addition to the Christmas --- Santa Clause slasher cycle and probably one of the least known, despite coming out around the same time as "You Better Watch Out" and even before the likes of "Silent Night, Deadly Night" and "Don't Open till Christmas".
Sticking to a formula that seems to be popular; it opens in the past showing a prank going horribly wrong then moves to the present time which has a group of horny rich girls at Calvin Finishing School for Girls waiting to secretly smuggle in their boyfriends for some late-night parting, but after doing so they start disappearing as someone in a Saint Nick costume is going around making ends meat of them.
While Forrest Swanson and William Lauer are tolerable.The location (a large sorority house) for such butchery is ominously remote, but David Hess' glum direction was kind of clunky with many murky set-pieces with a real uneven focus on the deaths or a real lack of build up to them.
There are some fantastic kills in it, and hell anything directed by Mr. Hess, Written by The Incredible Melting man and starring 80's teen film regular Jenny Runyon, is well worth the price of admission.
TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT is noteworthy mostly as one of at least three killer Santa Claus movies to predate SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT.
"To All a Good Night" is directed by David Hess-the star of "Last House on the Left" and "House on the Edge of the Park".The plot of this obscure slasher is pretty simple:some college girls are stalked and killed by a mysterious Santa Claus after they have drugged up their housemother and invited some boys over.This film is so incredibly bad that it truly has to be seen to be believed.The acting is atrocious,the plot is stupid and highly unoriginal and there is no suspense at all.Still there is a seriously high body count and some of the killings are actually fairly gruesome for example a guy has his head split open with axe.The twist ending is okay,but nothing special.So if you love early 80's slasher films give this one a look.6 out of 10..
The acting is easily good enough, it captures that 80's vibe well enough and doesn't waste time getting to a bit of slashy fun.Its a cheap thrill for an hour and a bit, the promiscuousness of girls makes this one of those types of slashers where the victims are totally caught off guard.
The idea of a killer dressed as Santa Claus attacking a group of young people at a sorority house sounds great to a horror fan like myself!
It had so much potential, but with so many flaws to me this is a below average slasher film that I wouldn't care to see again.The movie begins with a girl accidentally falling to her death during a prank/initiation.
It is, as far as I know, the first slasher film that utilizes a killer disguised in a Santa suit which became so controversial with 1984's "Silent Night, Deadly Night."After a dream-like, and silly opening scene, (some sorority girls accidentally kill one of their sisters in a childish game of tag) the film deals with a spooky sorority house where we meet up with very, very cardboard sorority sisters who we care nothing about who are staying at their house for Christmas break.
As far as slasher flicks that cast Santa Claus as a mad killer are concerned, this is a passable yet forgettable offering from actor David Hess (in his one and only directorial effort).
However, "To All a Good Night" is a cut above most derivative slashers, even though it starts out with the mandatory sex-obsessed sorority girls (plus one cute wallflower) and assembly-line violence, it gets progressively better as it goes alongcreating an adequate atmosphere of dread and giving its surviving characters a bit of personality and humanity..
Unfortunately, a psycho in a Santa Claus suit is lurking around, and bringing more than holiday cheer.The directorial debut of David Hess, who is most known for his appearance in Wes Craven's grindhouse classic "The Last House on the Left," this marginal slasher flick is absurdly hammy and yet has simultaneous bursts of greatness.
What the film lacks in conventional Christmas environs (it takes place in a very obvious Southern California) it makes up for in its employment of the Santa Claus suit as the killer's mode of concealment; the killer's appearances are sometimes chilling, and it's worth noting that the film may be the first proper "killer Santa" picture (not counting the 1972 "Tales from the Crypt" segment), a title which often goes to "Silent Night, Deadly Night," released four years later.
The performances here are offbeat by and large, with silly dialogue to match, though Jennifer Runyon makes an okay heroine.Overall, "To All a Goodnight" is what I'd classify as a good bad movie; as a slasher, it is very much by-the-books, and boasts a script riddled with abysmal dialogue and bizarre pacing.
To All A Goodnight has two reason to search for it, one, it's a slasher made when Friday the 13th was made and secondly, it was directed by David Hess most famous of Last House On The Left.
David Hess (yep, the same brillo haired psycho you know and love) made his directorial debut with this downright bizarre slasher flick that transcends bad.
Ol' Hess must have been blazing on coke and pot when he made this flick, because while it follows the formula of the ol' stalk n' slash (featuring the first Santa Clause killer, too) the college co-eds do and say some seriously surreal stuff: in a scene in which a couple of co-eds are about to get it on, the foreplay includes her dancing around the bed in a leotard with a tray of hors d'oeuvres!
The plot is a rather blatant knock off of Friday the 13th with a Sorority house being stalked by a killer who is avenging the death of a loved one, killed years back in an initiation hazing (this scene is particularly amusing as the girls chase after the initiate screaming "sorority!" over and over until she is frightened by a girl wearing a Santa Clause mask and wielding a butcher knife causing her to plunge off a balcony to her death ten feet below).
A sorority house where girls that looks more like thirty years old prostitutes than college coeds have organized a party for Christmas is invaded by a crazy killer masked like Santa Claus.
Flash forward two years and a group of girls invite their boyfriends over just as a psycho shows up to kill them off.TO ALL A GOODNIGHT is a really bad slasher from first-time director David Hess who is of course best remembered for playing the bad guy in Wes Craven's THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT.
There's a bit of BLACK Christmas thrown into the film and you can also at least say this featured a killer Santa Claus several years before SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT.The special effects really aren't the greatest as the majority of the stuff happens off screen.
The film does offer up quite a bit of nudity so director Hess at least had that going for him.TO ALL A GOODNIGHT is a pretty forgettable slasher but I'm sure some fans of THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT will want to see it just as a curio..
"To All a Goodnight" holds quite a bit of cult-value, but that's almost solely linked to the fact that it is the one and only film directed by David Hess; the legendary infamous lead actor of exploitation classics such as "Autostop Rosso Sangre", "House on the Edge of the Park" and – particularly – "Last House on the Left".
You know the routine: a group of girls that don't return to their families for the Christmas period remain at their finishing school, sedate the landlady with sleeping pills and invite their horny boyfriends over for a wild night of jingle bells.
The final twist, as in the revelation of the killer's identity, is fairly obvious from early in the film, and it's not even that difficult to foresee who will survive the Christmas massacre.
First, to add to a collection of Christmas themed horror and fright films, and also because it's directed by David Hess.
I guess the only reason to respect this film was that it was the first killer santa movies.
Staying late over the holiday break, a group of girls at a boarding school find themselves stalked by a psychotic killer wearing a Santa outfit in retribution for an earlier prank and must find a way to escape the killer's wrath.Overall this one here was a pretty disappointing slasher.
The early scenes of the girls getting ready for their party and ensuring that their festivities go uninterrupted is a long, never-ending series of bland, wholly unappealing moments here that just grind the film to a halt, not the least of which here is also caused by the film's seemingly curious decision to start the massacre fairly early on, then instead let the bodies be discovered the next day and wait until the following night to continue things.
Still, beyond this the film's main detrimental strike comes from the majority of the actual horror factors involved not really being of much interest here, from bland and wholly un-suspenseful stalking scenes to bland kills that don't offer up much of any blood or gore and never really lets itself play with the supposedly-chilling idea of a killer loose in a dorm-room house the way this one could've as this one just goes about in a round- about way of getting to the carnage.
There's a few areas here that this does get right, namely from the fact that the film's body count offers up some potentially intriguing fun here with a lot of bland-conceptually but gruesomely-executed kills here, as the fact that there's two big rampages that knock them off in groups makes for a generally fun time in those parts with some decent chasing being done to satisfy the slasher fan in those moments.
Fast forward 2 years to the present time; the girls are prepping for the upcoming holiday break – only this time, a knife-wielding lunatic donning a Santa suit and plastic mask is on the prowl.To reference my introductory statement in this review, this film manages to shotgun the audience straight into the killing grounds.
To its credit, by 1980, Slashers weren't completely overdone and outplayed, so there's really no excuse – probably the only thing it has going for it is that it seems to be one of the first films of the 80's to feature a killer Santa, sharing a spot next to Christmas Evil, also released in the same year and equally as awful.
TO ALL A GOODNIGHT was arguably the first slasher flick to feature Santa Claus as a killer.
Promiscuous college girls, who remain at their school for the Christmas holiday, coerce their resident cook to go to bed, awaiting gleefully for their boyfriends to arrive by plane(..one of the boys has a rich daddy)so they can gather together and enjoy a night of naughty debauchery, not knowing that a psycho in Santa costume plans to ruin the festivities.The film opens with a game that ends disappointingly as one of the female students falls off of a balcony, stoned, falling to the ground below..it seems this unfortunate incident might just be the root cause of the Christmas slayer's mayhem.There's a nerd who talks about the advances in medical science with great detail, some wannabe lothario with an acoustic guitar, an obvious nympho who doesn't get a chance to bed her man, a virginal blonde with a soft voice the gardener wishes to protect, a couple of practical jokers(often criticizing the blonde girl and anyone else they find annoying or bothersome, these two girls are the kind you see in school whispering to each other about people they don't like), etc.
I was amused as I watched this flick how characters are blunt and honest about others giggling and insulting them while they are still in the room(..such as gardener Ralph who seems to be the butt of everyone's jokes, even though he moves about, saying little, without really warranting such constant ridicule, despite the fact that he's a wee bit creepy).To All a Good Night is what it is, a prototypical slasher which doesn't distinguish itself from the others of it's ilk.
Jennifer Runyon is Nancy, Forrest Swanson(Alex), Linda Gentile(Melody), William Lauer(..as TJ, the rich jock with the plane), and Judith Bridges(..whose Leia goes bonkers, singing to herself a lullaby as she dances around in her own little world after discovering the decapitated head and killer Santa with a butcher knife)round out some of the cast in trouble of being chop suey.
Neither cult star David Hess' direction nor Alex Rebar's writing seem very inspired(..it feels like the cash-in of a fad, with little spirit or innovation), although the concept of a killer dressed as Santa was somewhat fresh at this time.
A typical 80s slasher with teenage girls getting stalked and murdered by a masked killer.
But giving the fact that this is one of the first slasher movies to come out, and has an original costume idea with the killer dressing up as Santa Claus.This movie does have a lot of gore and a high body count, but it can get a bit dull at times.
These girls look like they have never experienced fear in their lives."To All A Goodnight" isn't a bad movie, it may be weak and slow in parts but it's still highly enjoyable and it follows the slasher formula quite well.
I pretty much guessed who the killer was at the end but there is more this has a double twist ending and If you're a fan of masked slasher movies from the 80s I definitely suggest you give this one a shot because it is quite gory and as I said before, the body count is relatively high.The killings are brill though we get bloody stabs, some slit throats, a rock jammed into ones head a brutal decapitation, an arrow through head, an axe in head and the bit where the two people get chopped up by a helicopter propeller.All in all i'd say Fairly enjoyable slasher which gets a bit too slow at many times.
A group of female teenagers at the Calvin Finishing School are menaced during the holiday break by a maniacal killer in a Santa Claus costume.
There is a final twist at the end which comes out of nowhere and is not necessary.The cast are ordinary and the characters on the whole are annoying so one looks forward to them being bumped off, which they are in standard slasher movie ways.
This 1980 horror film features a crazed killer dressed as Santa Claus stalking a group of friends at an all-girl school where an accidental death occurred 2 years prior.
Many scenes are dark which makes me want to go to sleep, the characters are unlikable, except for the main girl, Nancy (Jennifer Runyon), the editing stinks and the ending is kind of predictable and ridiculous.
Also, The film obviously rips off "Prom Night," "Black Christmas," "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th." The only plus is the girls showing some skin and a couple of kills/deaths.
The only good killing that I remember featured the maniac dressed in a suit of armour and it was thankfully filmed inside the house, so the lighting was at least passable.
Despite how admittedly terrible the film is, it's B-Movie charm makes it worth watching.At the Calvin Finishing school, several young coeds enjoy their winter break at their sorority house.
After a night of party, sex, alcohol, and murder, one of the sorority girls, Nancy (Jennifer Runyon) stumbles upon a dead body, making her, and the rest of the group, aware that they are in for one hell of a night.Like, I said before, this movie is doubtlessly a bad one, yet still I hold this movie close to my heart for several reasons.
First of all; this is the first film depicting a killer Santa at Christmas (the "Tales From the Crypt" segment with Joan Collins is just that, a segment), it's a few months ahead of "Friday the 13th" with the undying formula of disposable people hacked to death at a secluded location, a minuscule budget and a 10 day shooting schedule definitely called for fast thinking and fast shooting (and a lot of painfully obvious day-for-night scenes).
A handful of college students at the Calvin Finishing School for Girls find themselves being terrorized by a psycho dressed as Santa Claus during Christmas break.