Screams of a Winter Night 1979
Director
James L. Wilson

Writer
Richard H. Wadsack

Cast
Matt Borel
Gil Glasgow, Patrick Byers

Review by Wayne Malin

Not good, but something about this scares me,
I rented this film way back in 1987. I had never heard of it and the PG rating had me expecting the worst. Still I love horror films so I gave this a try. I saw it on a dark, cold winter night. There was a snowstorm going on outside, I was alone in the house and I turned off all the lights. Under those conditions this film scared me silly.

The opening is all sound effects against a black screen of something attacking a family in their house on a winters night. It gets in and kills them all. Very effective–the sound effects are realistic and NOT seeing the monsters makes it all the more scarier. That opening alone is worth seeing this for.

It’s an anthology movie–a bunch of kids telling horror stories around a campfire. The movie is tame (remember–it’s PG rated) and the stories are kind of predictable but the middle one got me going. It’s about a bunch of guys spending the night in a deserted, supposedly haunted house. They’re on the first floor…and then they hear noises on the floor above…THAT scared me silly. The ending was REAL bad but, for a while, that had me shaking.

So, it’s not a good film, but there’s something about it that really works. I (cautiously) recommend this.