"Happy Hell Night" came out at a time when the slasher craze had well and truly died, as the same ideas were being recycled over and over again, and this one is no different, here we have a killer priest who escapes from a mental hospital after 25 years for murdering a group of college students and surprise surprise, he sets out to do it again to a new group of college kids.

Happy Hell Night is an OK effort and I actually liked it more than I thought I would, once the first half hour is over and the killer priest starts killing, it actually starts livening up and there are some touches in the gore department, but I could have done without the stupid cheesy one liners from the killer, as it would have made him a whole lot creepier, and the supernatural element was done rather well and it does set it apart from the other slasher fodder that came out during this point.

All in all "Happy Hell Night" is an okay movie once it gets going although it does take quite a while and the cast weren't very interesting but they do get killed which is a bonus, and this movie may just be another run of the mill early 90's slasher, but it's still OK.

1991/R-18/84m Darren McGavin, Nick Gregory, Franke Hughes, Laura Carney, Charles Cragin.

Another frat-house slasher film with more willing pledges accidentally releasing a maniac from his asylum habitat some 25 years after he butchered seven people at the local Church in a pact with the devil or something like that...

Ergo, he returns to the frat house and hacks and slashes his way through airhead co-eds and dumb jocks until two brothers (actual brothers, not just frat brothers) and the girl they're both screwing do their best to stop him.

Not as bad as it could be considering how little known it is; Darren McGavin is hardly in it and most of the murder victims are without any indentity - just kids having sex and dying. The killer offers the best distraction, delivering kitsch one-liners with every murder and talking like E.T.! Switch your mind off, sit back and enjoy - if you can...

When a couple of frat boys break into an insane asylum as part of a Hell Night prank, they release an evil being who has been trapped there for the past 25 years. The demon then proceeds to kill everyone who crosses his path, using a wickedly pointed mountaineering pick as his weapon of choice.

Happy Hell Night is a low budget piece of trash that is, for the most part, pretty awful; the acting is uniformly lousy and the direction uninspired, but, fortunately, the film does deliver a fair amount of (mostly unconvincing) gore and a touch of nudity from a couple of babes, making it just about bearable.

Charles Cragin, as the killer, is fairly creepy to look at—pale and bald with completely black eyes—but his aura of menace is diluted whenever he is given lines to speak. After each kill, the character makes a lame quip with a voice which sounds like he's been gulping back helium—Freddy Krueger he ain't!

Finally, after almost everyone at a frat house party are slaughtered, two brothers (and the slapper they have both been humping) attempt to send the demon back to hell.

Happy Hell Night is silly, instantly forgettable, and only really worth a watch if bad horror movies are your passion.