Behind the uninspired title lies an equally uninspired slasher that fails to deliver those essential ingredients of any good trashy horror: gratuitous nudity and gore. Initially, the film shows promise, opening with a girl getting topless in a changing room before being attacked by a masked maniac, but then it becomes apparent that this is actually a scene from 1981 slasher Graduation Day, as watched by two of this movie's characters before they are stabbed to death. Nudity borrowed from another film doesn't count (which also negates some T&A later on, which comes from a porn film being watched at a party), and the subsequent stabbings are lame.

The rest of the film continues in this disappointing fashion as a group of friends at a post-graduation party are bumped off in tame and uninventive ways off by an unseen maniac. Suspects include the escaped lunatics hiding in the basement, and football star David (Joseph Paul Manno), who is prone to outbursts of violence if he stops taking his meds. Of course, these turn out to be red herrings, but the real identity of the killer isn't hard to guess.

Of the numerous murders that occur in the house, we get a guy skewered with a fire poker, poisoning in a sauna, an axe in the head, a guy barbecued on a stove and stabbed in the neck, strangulation, suffocation, electrocution in a hot-tub, and choking with a pool cue, none of which are likely to satisfy gore-hounds. The best part of the film comes earlier on, when the escaped criminals are involved in a shootout with some cops and kill the staff of a diner in cold-blood: it's a surprisingly brutal scene, with some bloody squib-work.

2.5/10, rounded down to 2 for diabolical dance troupe The Sweetheart Dancers, whose terrible moves would get them four 'NOs' on America's Got Talent.

David seems to have such a bright future. He is the star running back on his high school football team, offered a scholarship to play for Oklahoma. He's got plenty of girls wanting to jump his bones if he so desires. Yet, we can see that without his pills(for "hyperactivity"), David isn't easy to be around, prone, as his mother says, to violent outbursts, rubbing his head as if a migraine was about to rumble his skull a loose. Two escaped lunatics, led by the sadistic Snake(John Hines), kill police officers, a cook and his wife at a diner, soon finding themselves at the home of David's parents, waiting inside the wine cellar as a prom party commences upstairs. Joni(Megan Wyss)is David's girlfriend, very thin-skinned and sensitive to any negativity offered her way. David's friends aren't that fond of her and Joni can sense that they would prefer him dating someone else. Lisa(Janette Caldwell)is the only high school girl who treats Joni with any class. Meanwhile, a serial killer is picking off David's friends one at a time as the escaped crazies seem idle in the wine cellar until the time for which they could go on the attack.

Director Allen Plone drags out the opening in tedious fashion, incorporating a lot of footage from the slasher GRADUATION DAY, this movie a couple is watching intently before being dispatched by a kid who uses a butcher knife, playing a piano tune shortly afterward. He later adds footage from pornos as extra filler. By 1987, the slasher genre was on the decline, and movies like NIGHT SCREAMS were just polluting an already worn premise regarding a psychopath destroying teenagers using various weapons applied in other films before this one. The ax to the head, death using a sauna with a trapped victim inside, electrocution in a hot tub, butcher knife to the back and torso, strangulation, fireplace poker, etc. Even the "escaped loonies" sub plot is old hat and shopworn, and, to tell you the truth, there were times where I almost forgot about them even being in the movie. The best scene, to me anyway, is the gratuitous blood shed of the diner murders as Snake just goes berserk, shooting everything in sight, before finding himself locked away in the wine cellar, just a few other scenes remaining of any worth featuring this character. Hines has this hilarious scene where he's rambling off some dialogue while pouring water over his face that should tickle the funny bone, he's not exactly a Shakespearian actor or anything. Joseph Paul Manno, as David, spends an awful lot of time either sulking or angry. No nudity except for the porno footage, with characters in NIGHT SCREAMS mainly kissing and groping. The identity of the killer will be of no surprise, I think, particularly to those who have seen any number of these kinds of slasher fare.

Another day, another long-forgotten 80's slasher that came to my attention because it looked like it had to offer some decent murder sequences, T&A and a handful of clumsy and not-so-convincing red herrings. And yes, "Night Screams" is a more or less enjoyable horror effort, but only just as long as your expectations are kept to a minimum. We follow the usual crowd of stereotypical and irritating high school teenagers as they throw a graduation party in the football jock's house. However, there are two escaped criminals hiding in the basement and the hunky football star David himself suffers from aggressive behavior when he doesn't take his carefully prescribed pills. Soon after the party-goers are killed off in fairly imaginative ways (one girl has an axe planted in her skull, another guy's face is literally barbecued) and director Allen Plone begs us to think the culprit is either David or one of the mad thugs in the cellar. The plot twists don't really work, but I admire Plone for trying and there's at least a little bit of style to find in his film. Although that does not include the tasteless footage of porn movies and another inferior 80's slasher ("Graduation Day") that continuously plays on TV-sets in the background. I guess none of the actual actresses wanted to take her top off, so they needed to steal the padding from other movies. "Night Screams" is a forgettable and truly run-of-the-mill 80's slasher, but we've definitely seen worse already and avid fans of the decade will certainly not regret watching it.