One night, I was thinking about how weird it was to wander the empty streets during the pandemic, which made me think about the 1984 post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie Night of the Comet, which made me think of other movies that use “Night of the” in the title. Then some guy on Twitter said I should rank them. I said I would.
This was a foolish choice. There are a lot of movies that use “Night of the” in the title, even if you cut out short films and TV movies. But hey, I’m in lockdown.
This brings us here: a ranking of every single movie that starts with “Night of the,” from worst to best. Horror classics rub shoulders with serious dramas and the occasional ’70s porno to create one long, bizarre night. The sun’s going down, so let’s get to it.
82. The Night of the Wererooster
There’s a certain place in Hell for moviemakers who make intentionally bad movies that end up being boring. A generic “creature in the forest is murdering people” plot gets coupled with deeply unfunny jokes and excessive flashbacks to create an overlong, disposable mess. Plus you never even get to see the wererooster!
81. Night of the Clown (2016)
Of all the movies to score a remake, someone picked Night of the Clown? Even more depressing, Dustin Ferguson’s 2016 take on the 1998 horror movie is worse in just about every way than the original (we’ll get to the original in a second). Ferguson is notorious for pumping out multiple low-budget features every year — as many as nine! The level of quality is about what you’d expect, with the whole thing feeling like a community theater production.
80. Night of the Animals
This early-’70s, X-rated sleaze stars Larry McCoy and Doug Draine as a pair of escaped convicts who take a suburban family hostage, eat all of their fried chicken, then have an orgy. When a cop comes to investigate, he ends up having sex with the motley crew, too. Grimy home movie-quality filming is probably for the best, as seeing many of these people naked in crisp, clear HD would probably not be very arousing. Great funky soundtrack though.
79. Night of the Living Heads
Marijuana-influenced films are probably fun to make, but they’re often a chore to sit through. This 2010 horror flick is no exception: When a strain of dank from Jamaica called “Voodoo” gets into the hands of a group of stoners, it transforms everybody that smokes it into a flesh-eating zombie. Made on a budget of just $3,000, there’s not a lot to expect here, with lousy acting, pacing problems and a very stupid script.
78. Night of the Templar
What exactly are Norman Reedus and David Carradine doing in this mess, which was shot in 2009 but not released until after Carradine’s death? Widely regarded as a total trainwreck from start to finish, Night of the Templar amps up the the stereotype factor of a stock plot of (a group of people visiting a remote manor for the weekend only to be serially murdered by a supernatural assailant) to 11. You’ll probably enjoy reading the suspiciously similar-sounding positive IMDb reviews more than watching the actual movie.
77. Night of the Unspeakable
Night of The Unspeakable Official Trailer (2017)Bringing you the horror of #HipHop in the States. Available now on #AmazonPrime for #streaming and download, "Night of The Unspeakable". Check out the trailer and click on the link to watch the movie: http://buff.ly/2ocnFx6 Jamie Rhodes #blackhorror #JamieRhodes #hiphophorror #urbanfilms #demons #evil #newmovies #NOTU
Posted by Shami Media Group Films on Thursday, April 13, 2017
Give this one credit for an unusual setting: A number of musicians — including a rapper, a rock band and a girl group — are trapped in a recording studio for the night as a pair of demons pick them off one by one. Unfortunately, the execution doesn’t live up to the premise, as much of the running time is occupied by musical performances, the demons aren’t scary and the whole thing ends with a fade-out and “To Be Continued!”
76. Night of the Living Babes
The late ’80s were an era where, if you could get a couple naked boobs and a few gallons of fake blood, you could put a movie together. This deeply stupid film follows a pair of married yuppie jerks who travel to a brothel only to discover that all the working girls are former male patrons zapped by a sex-change ray. Smut director Gregory Dark made this his non-X debut.
75. Night of the Wild
A mysterious meteor transforms a town’s domesticated dogs into violent attack animals in this cheesy entry from prolific schlockmeister Eric Red. The dog attacks are extremely unconvincing and the human actors don’t do much better.
74. Night of the Zombies
Also known as Battalion of the Living Dead and like six other titles (including Night of the Zombies II!), this is a pretty pathetic 1981 movie about World War II soldiers turned into the undead by experimental nerve gas. It stars adult actor Jamie Gillis and is directed by the guy who made Blood Sucking Freaks, so you know that quality is on the menu.
73. Night of the Dribbler
Shot in 1990 but not released until 2009, this is one that probably could have stayed on the shelf. Longtime game show panelist Fred Travalena plays a trifecta of roles in this spoof about a serial killer targeting a basketball team. According to the DVD commentary it was intended to be a hard-R film, but Fred objected and the producers totally reworked the entire project to make it a goofy comedy, letting him improvise most of his lines. Needless to say, the end result is very stinky.
72. Night of the Demons (2009)
The wave of horror remakes hasn’t really presented too many films that improved on the originals, and the 2009 reboot of Night of the Demons is no exception. There’s a lot more profanity and CGI gore, of course, but not really any reason to watch it aside from that. This one didn’t even get a theatrical release, going straight to video despite its $10 million budget, and it looks like the franchise has finally come to an end.
71. Night of the Living Dead: Resurrection
A fourth attempt to go to the Romero well was also the worst, as this 2012 remake indulges in just about everything wrong with 21st-century horror. This time, the movie’s set in Wales, for some reason. Terrible acting, weak effects and arduously slow pace make this a completely unnecessary cash-in.
70. Night of the Sinner
Robert “Freddy Krueger” Englund is the marquee name on this Gothic horror, but he’s only in the last third and it’s sort of a mess. The plot concerns a young woman who travels to Italy to investigate a library only to become embroiled in a supernatural trap. It’s not very good.
69. Night of the Demon (1979)
Why would you advertise a movie with demons and give us Bigfoot instead? An anthropologist takes a team to the Northern California redwoods to investigate a murder by Bigfoot, only for them all to get … murdered by Bigfoot. The whole affair is taken with deadly seriousness, which adds to its hallucinatory charm, but you might find yourself losing patience halfway through.
68. Night of the Beast
Also known as Lukas’ Child, Night of the Beast is a pretty dire little 1993 cheapie about a skull-masked horror director and his two cronies who kidnap the female stars of his new movie. There’s also an unconvincing monster in the basement of the studio. The movie sports plenty of nudity, which seems to have been the main selling point.
67. Night of the Dead: Leben Tod
Director Eric Forsberg sold his house to pay for this movie, and then it got released by the Asylum, which you have to think wasn’t the plan. In it, a scientist investigating eternal life brings his family back as flesh-hungry ghouls. Forsberg definitely cribs a lot from Re-Animator, and the gore is extensive if you’re into that kind of thing.
66. The Night of the Headhunter
Generic and grimy mid-’80s porn with Peter North and others coming under the magical influence of a tribal mask in … Alabama? The mask makes everybody who enters the house get horned up and go hump crazy. It ends with Ron Jeremy (who in the last few months was charged with the rape of three women) in a cowboy hat getting his rocks off and then getting attacked by a random guy in face paint who appears from behind a hay bale.
65. Night of the Demons 3
Every horror aficionado knows the curse of diminishing returns that hits a franchise, and the third and final installment of this series is no exception. There are a few twists — the teens who wind up at the haunted mortuary are fleeing a convenience store robbery gone wrong, but it’s just dire, cheap and uninspiring.
64. Night of the Living Dead 3D: Re-Animation
Whoever thought Night of the Living Dead 3D needed a prequel was deeply wrong. Andrew Divoff steps into Sid Haig’s shoes as mortician Gerald Tovar, who turns out to be the guy responsible for the zombie plague after he accidentally exposed corpses to radioactive waste. Throw in a deeply unfunny Sarah Palin caricature and you have an absolute waste of hard drive space.
63. Night of the Blood Beast
This chintzy ’50s sci-fi horror number got the MST3K treatment, so you know it’s good. An alien creature implants its embryos in an astronaut, who crashes to Earth and is presumed dead. When the alien parent makes its presence felt, the astronaut revives and tries to protect it until a showdown in iconic Bronson Canyon. Filmed in a week from a 21-year-old screenwriter’s first script, this is a hot mess with a particularly dumb-looking monster.
62. Night of the Pumpkin
Mostly stupid. Director Bill Zebub (get it?) brings us a story of a killer pumpkin that washes up on a beach, is stomped by two girls, then returns for revenge. The plot is just there as an excuse for softcore nudity and blood, neither of which is exceptional enough to justify watching this. Death metal fans might appreciate the soundtrack.
61. Night of the Bloody Transplant
The selling point for this remarkably gross 1970 horror effort was that it contained real documentary footage of open-heart surgery. The plot concerns a mad scientist who wants to perform a transplant for a rich elderly benefactor, but when his drunk brother accidentally kills a young girl he takes her heart to do the job. One of the only horror flicks I’ve seen from Flint, Michigan but not much else to recommend it.
60. The Night of the Great Chinese Lottery
The gimmick of this indie is that it was all filmed guerilla-style without a permit in Hong Kong, which is fun, but the end product isn’t great. Director Marco Brunelli has a great eye and wrings a lot out of the locations but the storyline and acting are both subpar and the movie loses a lot of momentum as it goes.
59. Night of the Prowler
No one has bothered to leave an Amazon review on this fairly dull British whodunnit from 1962 about the murder of a car racing executive, and the other members of his team trying to find the culprit. This is a bog-standard movie of its type, replete with red herrings and people acting stupid to move the plot along, so there’s really no reason to hunt it down.
58. Night of the Dog
A not-terribly-funny comedy with an interesting quirk: the six stars all wrote and co-directed the tale of a group of friends on a wild night out. It consists of three separate vignettes loosely connected, and while some jokes land, the gestalt doesn’t do anything particularly compelling.
57. Night of the Ghouls
Directed by Ed Wood, this 1959 hot mess has it all: an introduction by bogus psychic Criswell, the hulking Tor Johnson as a hulking manservant, and a guy named “Dr. Acula.” The end result doesn’t make a tremendous amount of sense, but it’s an entertaining ride with some all-time great bad dialogue. The flick wasn’t released in Wood’s lifetime, but a fan purchased the negatives from a lab after the director’s death and put it out on VHS in 1984.
56. Night of the Clown (1998)
This shot-on-video mess stars Chad Eubanks as a clown who was murdered outside of Dallas and comes back three decades later to get his revenge on an unrelated group of teenagers. At a lean 70 minutes, it doesn’t wear out its welcome and several of the kill scenes are appropriately squicky, but it’s bottom-tier as far as murder clown movies go. That’ll have to be another list.
55. Night of the Living Dead: Darkest Dawn
Probably the most curious of all the Romero cash-ins, this entirely CGI production transplants the action to New York City, where a group of survivors are barricaded inside an apartment building to fend off the zombie hordes. Made over a period of five years, the animation looks fairly amateur, and what you might expect from a college class. The voice acting isn’t awful, but it can’t save this mess.
54. The Night of the Interview
Shot simultaneously in Hindi and Bengali, this intimate drama follows a journalist who goes to interview a blind author and unlocks a traumatic event in her past. Your patience for melodrama will affect how much you enjoy this one, and the ending twist is pretty lousy. It was a financial flop on release.
53. Night of the Seagulls
Here’s a two-for-one, as this movie was also released as Night of the Death Cult. The fourth and final film in Spanish director Amando de Ossorio’s “Blind Dead” series, it follows a doctor and his wife who move to a small coastal town that offers a human sacrifice to undead Knights Templar every seven years in exchange for their safety. When they try to rescue one of the tributes, things start popping off. It’s decent but unspectacular and the worst in de Ossorio’s quadrilogy.
52. Night of the Day Of The Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Terror: The Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Hellbound, Flesh-Eating Subhumanoid Living Dead, Part 2
Good grief. This 1991 spoof was created by taking the George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead footage and re-dubbing it with new dialogue, What’s Up Tiger Lily-style. Director James Riffel has pulled this gambit a few times on old flicks, but we’re only going to credit this one, otherwise we’ll be here all day. It’s perfectly competent for what it is, but a lot of the humor is dated in that late ‘80s/early ’90s “racism and homophobia are hilarious” way.
51. Night of the Archer
This is a sloppy, steamy Euro-drama about a rich family living in a huge castle. When they decide to hold an archery contest, the type of event at which nothing ever goes horribly wrong, the patriarch winds up dead and a guy on the run from the Mafia is the prime suspect. If you like thick, incomprehensible accents and poor acting from people who should have really known better, track this one down.
50. Night of the Lepus
Of all the horrors that stalk these nights, the monsters in this absurd 1972 effort from a director who had only made Westerns might be the weirdest, a bunch of giant, carnivorous rabbits created as a result of hormone experiments. Absolutely ridiculous special effects including laughable miniature sets and humans in rabbit costumes make this flick entertaining despite itself, although the dialogue is almost unendurably wooden.
49. Night of the Howling Beast
Paul Naschy played lycanthropic Count Waldemar Daninsky in a dozen different movies, each one taking more and more liberties with the concept. This one throws out a bunch of the previous flicks, with the Count turned into a werewolf by … being bitten by vampires. He travels to Tibet to hunt the Abominable Snowman and gets into a fistfight with the mythic beast. It’s pretty stupid and incoherent but still manages to be fun.
48. Night of the Forgotten
If you’re a filmmaker working with a limited budget, “psychological thriller” is a pretty fruitful genre to work in. Why pay for effects and sets when you can just have people be mean to each other for 90 minutes? This 2019 effort from writer-director Beau Marie follows an attorney held hostage by his obsessed ex-girlfriend. Shot in an abandoned luggage factory in Virginia, it played well on the small festival circuit.
47. Night of the Laughing Dead
Released elsewhere as The House In Nightmare Park, this 1973 horror comedy stars Ray Milland as the owner of a country manor who invites actor Foster Twelvetrees to perform a monologue for his assembled family. Things get stupid when we learn that the actor holds the secret to a cache of diamonds buried on the grounds. It’s not bad, but a lot of the jokes fall flat and the flick quickly loses momentum.
46. Night of the Cobra Woman
The 1970s saw a boom of low-budget exploitation flicks shot in the Philippines. Produced by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, Night of the Cobra Woman sees a World War II nurse bitten by a magical cobra in a cave. Thirty years later, a young woman comes to see the snake woman, her dumb boyfriend tags along, and it launches into a completely incoherent tale of sexual immorality. Terrible acting makes this tough to watch but there are some fun shots and goofy cheap effects, most notably the snake woman peeling off her shedding skin.
45. Night of the Living Dead 3D
A third attempt to recapture the magic of George Romero’s original capitalizes on a quirk in the system: Since the first film wasn’t properly copyrighted, it’s in the public domain, meaning unscrupulous moviemakers can do whatever they want with it. In this case, it’s a bizarre, self-referential homage featuring the great Sid Haig, deeply wooden line readings and eye-straining 3D effects.
44. Night of the Quarter Moon
This interesting-but-flawed, late-’50s melodrama is about a man who brings his fiancée home to meet the family only to reveal she’s - gasp! - one-quarter Black. Directed by Hugo Haas, who was notorious for low-budget steamy potboilers, this major MGM release has one of the most audacious climaxes of the era, when the heroine needs to strip in court to show she has no tan lines.
43. Night of the Sorcerers
This 1973 Spanish horror flick follows a group of explorers who run afoul of a group of West African natives who were massacred years ago, only to come back as zombies to get their revenge. They do so by turning white women into fanged vampires in leopard-skin bikinis, of course. Not a lot that’s original about this one, and the cinematography can’t really pass off day shooting as night, but it’s decent enough.
42. Night of the Warrior
Lorenzo Lamas stars as a kickboxer who has to pay off his debts by kicking people in the face, and Danny Kamenkona plays a Korean gangster who kidnaps his girlfriend to keep him kicking. There are a few good fight scenes by early 1990s standards, but the middle of this movie seriously drags. It’ll still hit the spot if you’re looking for a self-consciously arty action movie.
41. Night of the Sharks
An extortionist tries to shake down a corrupt businessman in this Italian-Spanish-Mexican flick shot in the Dominican Republic. The titular sharks are friends with his brother played by Treat Williams, who inexplicably becomes the movie’s protagonist in the third act. This movie has a uniquely weird laid-back vibe considering it has explosions, car chases, and a man-eating shark named “Cyclops.”
40. The Night of the Wild Boar
This 2016 thriller starts promisingly, with a writer traveling to her partner’s South American hometown to unravel whether he was responsible for a series of murders. Unfortunately, things start to lose momentum as the director struggles to find a satisfying way to tie things together. It’s definitely interesting.
39. Night of the Flesh Eaters
Flesh Eaters is a fairly generic horror film about an assassin, an unfaithful wife, and two Mob goons who find themselves in a haunted forest and get messed up by a variety of supernatural entities. There’s nothing particularly great about this movie, but it’s reasonably inventive when it comes to the menaces, starting with the pint-size cannibals that only come out on one night every year and extending to the other decent practical effects. It’s very over the top. Evil Dead fans will dig it.
38. Night of the Walking Dead
Charmingly earnest psychedelic Spanish gothic flick that follows a sick young woman who meets a mysterious Count who may or may not be a vampire. It’s not terrifically scary or gory, with more focus on the doomed romance than the horror. It’s a little talky and drags in parts, but if you’re into Euro-style horror you might have a good time.
37. Night of the Kickfighters
Distributed by Action International Pictures, this 1988 flick involves a laser cannon that can recognize enemy soldiers by their eyes, a female terrorist kidnapper named Kedesha and the team of mercenaries hired to stop her evil plans. Nothing about this movie is particularly good, but it’s definitely trying hard: Everybody involved is doing their absolute best with the limited resources at their disposal, and many of the concepts — including bullet-firing nunchucks! — are adorably silly.
36. Night of the Dolls
A quartet of young women who play in a band called The Lolita Dolls travel to an abandoned sanitarium to film a music video, which is always a great idea. Of course, horrible torture experiments were conducted there in the past, and bad things happen to the girls when they arrive. Perfectly competent horror made on a budget, with a decent screenplay and some seriously effective gore.
35. The Night of the Following Day
Here’s an interesting obscurity many might not have seen. Marlon Brando stars as a chauffeur who helps kidnap a young heiress, but when the criminal scheme goes bad, he’s the only one who can keep her alive. A fun cast, including Richard Boone as the sadistic ringleader of the operation, make this somewhat conventional movie worth watching. Beware of the serious cop-out ending though.
34. Night of the Lawyers
Surprisingly funny Chicago-shot indie film about an emergency room doctor who, through a series of bizarre coincidences, gets an alien device implanted into his skull that gives him superhuman powers. He uses them to vaporize the lawyers who are suing him, ultimately revealing a conspiracy at their firm. It’s not particularly clever, but if you dig low-budget spoofs you could do much worse.
33. Night of the Blood Monster
Also released as The Bloody Judge, this 1970 Jesus Franco effort gets a couple points for the presence of horror legend Christopher Lee. As the titular judge, he’s a merciless ruler who sentences rebellious townspeople to torture and death at the hands of his executioner, Satchel. With multiple producers involved, this is a fun-but-unfocused flick that can’t really decide what kind of movie it wants to be, serious historical drama or smutty gorefest.
32. Night of the Spanish Fly
This 1976 porno has a very amusing conceit: a shipment of the legendary aphrodisiac gets crossed up with a truckload of “Gogo Weiners,” and when the horny-making hot dogs make their way into the general populace, it kicks off an orgy of humping across New York City. The movie is basically isolated smut scenes framed by a couple driving around in their car listening to radio reports about the hot dog sex pandemic. If you have a soft spot for this era of sleaze, it’s fine but nothing to call your mother about.
31. Night of the Eagle
This one was released in the States under the much cooler title Burn, Witch, Burn, but it still counts. Based on a Fritz Leiber novel, a psychology professor discovers that his wife is messing around with witchcraft and forces her to stop with disastrous results. The titular eagle is a huge stone sculpture that our poor protagonist is convinced has come to life and is after him, and at the end it plummets from its perch to squish the evil witch.
30. Night of the Strangler
This oddball Blaxploitation movie features a post-Monkees Micky Dolenz. When a young woman returns to New Orleans to tell her family that she is pregnant and the father is Black, things get deeply weird. People start dying left and right, a woman is killed by a venomous snake hidden in a bouquet of roses, and the culprit is one of the characters’ never-mentioned twin brother, who gets away with everything at the end!
29. Night of the Hex
Possibly the weirdest entry on this list, Night of the Hex is a fly-fishing documentary! Every year, the hatching season of the Hexagenia Limbata mayfly draws anglers from all over to cast for trout, who go nuts feeding on the bugs and are big and easy to catch. It’s a cut above your standard fishing flick, not really romanticizing its subjects.
28. The Night of the Grizzly
“Big Jim” Cole leaves his dangerous lawman’s life behind to run a ranch in Wyoming. Unfortunately, his past catches up to him when a criminal he put away comes for revenge, along with a murderous bear named Satan (!) and other hassles. Pretty paint-by-numbers for the era but some nice scenery if that’s your bag.
27. Night of the Alien
Perfectly competent little slacker sci-fi spoof where a young slacker and her friend pick up a hitchhiker on the side of the road. She speaks with a generalized Eastern European accent but claims to be from outer space. There’s not much plot momentum to be found here, just a parade of weird characters.
26. Night of the Creeps
The Monster Squad writer Fred Dekker’s directorial debut was written in a single week, and it shows. It’s a frantic homage to some of the greatest B-movie tropes, featuring escaped murderous mental patients, alien body-snatchers, and the walking dead. That said, it’s still an effective and fun film, keeping the scares brisk and getting the most out of its minimal effects budget. Dekker would go on to bigger and better things.
25. Night of the Devils
This is a fun Italian-Spanish co-production about the patriarch of a family obsessed with the thought that he will return as a vampire after his death. When a lumber salesman’s car breaks down, he’s taken in by the clan and has to contend with their serious craziness. It’s gleefully lurid with some outrageous effects courtesy of Carlo Rambaldi, who would go on to design the alien in Spielberg’s E.T!
24. Night of the Running Man
No relation to the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle, this 1995 straight-to-video movie stars Andrew McCarthy as a cab driver who picks up a man who has just stolen a million dollars from a casino owner. As you might expect, things go south pretty fast and our hero must elude a cunning hitman to escape with the money and his life. Solid but unspectacular thriller.
23. The Night of the Great Attack
Bombastic but enjoyable Italian swashbuckler about a hired sword who defends a castle, and its comely female occupant against the rampaging Borgias. It’s not anything new or original but perfectly competent and with a banging soundtrack by Carlo Rustichelli.
22. Night of the Demons (1988)
This fairly derivative horror flick manages to still accomplish some good stuff despite its hoary premise. A group of dumb teens throw a party inside a funeral parlor and disturb a demon trapped in the crematorium. The malevolent spirit passes from host to host through kissing, letting most of the main cast have fun being the villain for a bit. The flick’s bizarre coda doesn’t have much to do with the main plot, but whatever.
21. Night of the Demons 2
Six years after the original movie, a new group of teenagers decide to return to the haunted mortuary despite a bunch of people dying there. It’s hard to decide whether this one is better than the first — it’s not particularly scary, but it’s funnier and has a better cast. Some of the comedic bits are a little too ridiculous for me, but if you’re looking for a brainless, gory good time this will hit the spot.
20. Night of the Werewolf
Paul Naschy is Count Waldemar Daninsky in the ninth installment of this long-running werewolf series. The actor considered this one his favorite, and it’s a solid little horror flick that pits him against immortal vampire countess Elizabeth Bathory. A fun Gothic castle set, great lighting and gore galore makes this a solid pick.
19. Night of the Juggler
James Brolin stars as a retired New York cop whose daughter is kidnapped by a psycho in a case of mistaken identity in this solid thriller. At times it seems like the entire city is working against him as he scours the Big Apple, and fans of late-’70s NYC squalor will find a lot to love in the locations. The plot’s a little overstuffed and the kidnapper’s motivation is silly, but this is a very solid B-picture.
18. Night of the Serpent
Also released as Nest of Vipers, this spaghetti Western is a little slow, but mesmerizing. When a young boy inherits $10,000, a gang of malcontents starts angling for his cash. When they hire a gunman to murder the kid, he has a flashback to killing his own son and switches sides. If you’re into the genre this is definitely worth a watch.
17. Night of the Generals
Entertaining mystery set in World War II, as a trio of German generals all come under suspicion for the murder of a prostitute. Two years after the crime, they gather in Paris in the midst of a plot to assassinate Hitler. Night of the Generals is ponderous and melodramatic and like many serious movies of its era feels overlong, but great performances from Peter O’Toole and Tom Courtenay elevate the plot.
16. Night of the Living Dead (1990)
Tom Savini’s remake of the George Romero classic isn’t bad, it’s just not all that necessary. Interference from producers reportedly made the shoot a nightmare, and while the updating of a few elements for modern audiences is interesting, it doesn’t make for an improvement on the original. Worth watching for completists, certainly.
15. The Night of the Virgin
This one isn’t for the faint of heart or weak of stomach. When young Noel attends a New Year’s party looking to lose his virginity, he meets up and goes home with an older woman. So far it sounds like any generic ’80s sex comedy, but director Roberto San Sebastian quickly takes us into some seriously gross waters, with body fluids flying left and right. It’s a little unfocused, but gore fans will find a lot to love.
14. The Night of the White Pants
This solid indie flick pairs up a divorced Texas oil magnate with his daughter’s punk boyfriend for a night of increasingly awkward situations. While this is a concept that could easily degenerate into cliché, first-time feature director Amy Talkington keeps a solid hand on the wheel and this one’s definitely worth a watch.
13. Night of the Bloody Apes
This absolutely wild Mexican horror movie landed at the end of the swinging ’60s, but be warned: the title is a little misleading, as there’s only one ape in it. What it does have is grisly real-life surgery footage in the scene where a mad scientist transplants a gorilla heart into his sickly son, who transforms into a ravaging beast. Only a female lucha libre wrestler disillusioned with her job and her cop boyfriend can stop his rampage. Luridly colorful and cheerfully gory, this is a solid B.
12. Night of the Wolf
Originally called Late Phases, this indie horror pits an elderly blind Vietnam veteran against the lycanthrope stalking his new neighborhood. The whole thing doesn’t quite hang together, but Nick Damici turns in a solid performance as the lead, really making you believe that this crusty ol’ coot has a chance to triumph over the beast.
11. Night of the Demon (1957)
Solid example of late-’50s British cult horror. A professor is placed under a curse by his rival, who may also be the leader of a Satanic coven. After he dies, a friend tries to figure out whether supernatural forces were involved. The director and writer wanted a slow-paced, psychological thriller, but producer Hal Chester demanded the titular demon be seen on-screen in a less than effective visual. That said, this is a very good film.
10. Night of the Living Deb
A zombie rom-com? Why not? In the movie, Deb (Maria Thayer) meets a cute guy at the bar and heads home with him, only to have their hookup interrupted by an attack of the living dead. It hits most of the usual zombie movie beats, but the script is solid and the performances are quality. Easily the best of the horror spoofs on this list.
9. Night of the Big Heat
Also known as Island of the Burning Damned, this 1967 sci-fi flick takes place on a small British island experiencing an unseasonable heat wave in the middle of winter. As temperatures rise, televisions explode and all the phones stop working. When a mysterious scientist arrives to investigate, the culprit turns out to be extraterrestrials that radiate incredible levels of heat, sufficient to burn humans alive. Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee are fun, and the interplay between cast members make this one worth checking out.
8. Night of the Shooting Stars
This 1982 Italian fantasy takes place during World War II, where the residents of a small town are preparing for the German army to retreat, leaving a path of destruction in their wake. Some of the populace cluster together inside the church, with others not trusting the Nazis to leave the edifice standing. We’ll let you guess how that works out. It’s a charming and unique little film.
7. Night of the Chupacabras
This Brazilian horror flick deploys the legendary goat-sucking beast of South America as its villain, as two feuding families have to contend with the creature getting in the middle of hostilities to kill them all. It’s a fun and ambitious effort from director Ted Rivera that features a neat monster, some effective gore, and an engaging story.
6. The Night of the Hunted
Jean Rollin’s 1980 psychological thriller starts with a man picking up a mysterious woman on the side of the road and realizing she is unable to remember anything, or even hold new memories in her head for longer than a few minutes. She’s not alone, as we soon learn of a whole clinic full of people degrading into mindless zombies in this slow-paced, dreamlike but sleazy flick that’s definitely worth a watch.
5. Night of the Comet
This 1984 horror flick is a bit of a forgotten cult classic, but it has a lot to recommend it. A comet passes close to the earth and emits radiation that either turns people to zombies or dissolves them into dust. The few survivors are a motley crew of Southern California stereotypes who contend with all sorts of problems. Writer-director Thom Eberhardt consulted with actual Valley Girls before he penned the script, and it has a very unique vibe that goes a long way.
4. Night of the Iguana
Based on a play by Tennessee Williams, this 1964 drama tells the sordid tale of a disgraced Episcopalian minister turned Mexican tour bus driver who is blackmailed by a female passenger and takes the bus to a cheap Costa Verde hotel. A lot of Williams’ work seemed clunky and artificial on the silver screen, but this one managed to do pretty well, buoyed by a pretty great cast that includes Richard Burton and Lolita’s Sue Lyon playing a similar nymphet.
3. Night of the Pencils
Based on horrifying true events, this 1986 film dramatizes the crackdown by the Argentine government on a group of students who were protesting high bus fares. All seven were kidnapped and six of them were killed, but one was able to get free and tell the tale. It’s a harsh and uncompromising movie that packs a serious punch and reminds you just how bad authoritarianism can get.
2. Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Even if George Romero’s low-budget, Pittsburgh-shot horror feature hadn’t inspired an entire genre, it would still stand as one of the all-time greats. Clever and claustrophobic, the movie ramps up in intensity until we get to the shocking ending. Much of the script was ad-libbed by the actors, lending to the realism. It’s the rare horror flick from this period that still holds up.
1. The Night of the Hunter
Robert Mitchum cemented his legacy as an itinerant minister turned serial killer preying on the helpless in this 1955 classic. Trying to discover the location of $10,000 leads him to romance a deluded widow, and only her children know his true intent. The only film directed by actor Charles Laughton, this is a brilliantly tense all-time classic that holds up more than half a century after its release.