Since Jason and his ilk took over horror films circa 1980 most every horror film has involved a group of hormonally charged teenagers being chopped to bits with the focus on the chopping and not the suspense.

This little film is different. Made in the early 80's it does what every good horror film should do - bring your worst fears to life while you sit around just knowing that these horrors are just around the corner. Then, you make those horrors simmer, just don't turn it into a lesson on the biology of butchering.

The story features Meg Tilly right before she had a short-lived turn with fame starting with "The Big Chill" and then slipped back into obscurity in the early 90's. Meg plays an outcast teenager who is just dying to get into the good graces of some classic mean girls. They tell her she can be part of their little group if she spends the night in a crypt. The mean girls intend to scare her and cause her to leave the crypt thus giving them a double reward - further tormenting the outcast girl and having an excuse to reject her.

Meanwhile famed occultist Karl Rhamarevich has died a bizarre death shortly after having claimed to have discovered a way to return from the grave and upon his return command great magical powers. His daughter doesn't believe this at first, but she listens to a tape about her father's experiments which included his successful animation of small dead animals and of his plans to emerge from the grave with the power to animate bigger game and draw further power from these animations. She also learns that she may have inherited her father's power and may be the only person who can stop him should he actually rise from the dead. I think you know where this story is headed, so I'll stop here. Did I mention the magician was entombed in the same crypt in which Meg Tilly's character is spending the night?

I will mention that the commercial DVD containing this film does look somewhat degraded compared to what you would expect from a film that was made so recently. I saw it on TV in the mid 1980's and I remember it looking better than this. The problem is that the original negative of the film was never located so the DVD had to be created from a print. This means it comes complete with dirt and scratches.

This is worth checking out for any horror fan. It was an independently made film and an example of the kind of unusual stuff that you could commonly find on late night TV until the infomercial turned that time slot into a vast wasteland circa 1986. Only TCM Underground airs this kind of film anymore.

Flashes of lightning; a sprawling cemetery; the name of Adam 'Batman' West: all pop up on screen before the opening credits are even over, and yet, despite these rather naff elements, One Dark Night isn't as cheesy as it might first seem.

Meg Tilly (Jennifer's sister) plays pretty student Julie, who reluctantly agrees to spend the night alone in a mausoleum as part of her initiation into exclusive high school clique The Sisters. What Julie doesn't realise is that the other 'sisters' plan to freak her out with some ghoulish pranks—or that the most recent body to be interred in the mausoleum is that of 'psychic vampire' Raymar, who feeds off the life force of scared young women.

Admittedly, this isn't the most original of set-ups, but thankfully there are enough inventive touches to help set this film apart from the competition, my favourites being the macabre sight of everyday objects embedded in the walls of Raymar's apartment, and the creepy manner in which mouldy corpses float through the cold marble corridors of the mausoleum during the excellent finale. Hal Trussell's impressive steadicam cinematography and Tom Burman's wonderfully macabre special effects also add immensely to the chilling atmosphere.

I think it's fair to say that I've seen a lot of horror movies - and that it takes something really special to scare me these days after seeing so many. The last time I was really scared was when I watched THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. Well, I popped ENTITY FORCE into the VCR and sat back expecting a run-of-the-mill teen horror movie, but I got a lot, lot more. I spent the majority of the film either being very spooked or absolutely horrified by the events portrayed on screen. For some reason this movie just connected with me. I find it somewhat bizarre that there's hardly a positive review to be found on the 'net for this film, because I consider it to be an overlooked - and very frightening - gem.

The plot is a very simplistic, and overworked one, basically just an excuse to have a number of characters wandering around a mausoleum at night. There's a great set-up at the beginning, which takes place at a crime scene where the bodies of six young girls are found at an apartment along with that of an old man. Bizarrely, household objects and kitchen utensils are jammed into the plaster in the walls as if thrown there by an incredible force - and to make matters more incredible, a briefly-seen flash of lightning emerges from the hand of the old man to knock a hole through the ceiling. This is certainly enough to whet your appetite, and it's also the only supernatural event for an hour.

Some viewers may find the next section of the film extremely slow-moving, but I found it gripping. A superb atmosphere of foreboding is built-up along with lots of suspense and unseen terror. The headstone of the vampire's coffin starts cracking from the inside, so we know something terrible is going to happen, but we don't know what. What follows is extremely over-the-top, largely implausible, but nonetheless completely disgusting and sickening. The vampire's body, which is still alive, brings back the corpses of all the dead bodies in the morgue, which float out of their coffins to press in on the unsuspecting teens. The sight of these slimy, rotting, putrid bodies hovering in the air is pretty gruelling for this viewer. Meanwhile, the spooky old vampire comes out too, emitting purple lightning from his eyes, making for a very interesting effect.

It's fair to say that this film works wonders on a low budget, especially with the plausible first hour which shows little special effects yet achieves a lot without them. The acting is passable but uninspired, aside from a young Meg Tilly in the leading role who conveys fear and panic very convincingly. Meanwhile, Kevin Peter Hall pops up as well as former Batman, Adam West! West never achieved much success in his post-BATMAN career but its always good to see him appear in a movie. Tom McLoughlin's direction is pretty good and the camera-work is excellent, with roving shots through the mausoleum highlighting the fear and suspense. I thoroughly recommend this movie to all of those looking for a good scare and who are willing to suspend their disbelief for the last half hour. A hard-edged horror yarn with stronger chills than most of its ilk, I find this a mini classic of its type.