One Dark Night (1982)

1982

Action / Horror

IMDb Rating 5/10

Plot summary

Six girls have been found murdered in the apartment of famed Russian occultist, Karl "Raymar" Raymarseivich, and police cannot explain the bizarreness of it. All six girls were stuffed into a closet, there were plates and silverware embedded in the walls, and when Raymar's body was lifted onto a stretcher, bolts of electricity shot out from his fingers. Not even his estranged daughter, Olivia McKenna (Melissa Newman), or her down-to-earth husband Allan (Adam West) knows what went on; that is, until they meet Samuel Dockstader (Donald Hotton), a feature writer for "The World of the Occult". Dockstader, once a friend to Raymar, explains that Raymar was a psychic vampire who gained great powers of telekinesis by kidnapping young girls, terrorizing them, and feeding off the bioenergy they produced. Allan doesn't belive a word of it, but Dockstader shows Olivia a set of Kirlian photographs to demonstrate how bioenergy works and gives her an audiotape that outlines his findings from "the Raymar telekinesis experiment." Olivia believes him.Meanwhile, high school student Julie Wells (Meg Tilly) wants nothing more than to be one of "The Sisters," an exclusive clique of three snobby high school girls; Carol Mason (Robin Evans), Leslie (Elizabeth Daily), and Kitty (Leslie Speights) -- who saunter around in their purple jackets with a red "Sisters" logo on the back. Unfortunately, Carol Mason is the ex-girlfriend of Julie's new jock boyfriend Steve (David Mason Daniels), and Carol is jealous as it intends that she wants to get back at Steve and Julie by making Julie spend one night alone in a mausoleum, not knowing that Raymar's body was just entombed there in a funeral cerimony that afternoon.That evening, just before the mausoleum closes, Julie is picked up from her house as her parents are out for the evening, and dropped off by "The Sisters." They have given her a flashlight (with no batteries) and a couple of Demerols to keep her from falling asleep. After exploring the masoleum, Julie takes one of the Demerols and sets up her sleeping bag on the shower room floor. She doesn't see the cracks that are beginning to appear around Raymar's vault.A little later, Carol and Kitty, hoping to scare Julie, sneak back into the mausoleum along with some Halloween masks and props. First, they wake Julie up by hattering a vase on the floor. Then they toss around some red slime that looks like blood. While Kitty pulls a rubber "severed" hand by a string down the hall, Carol dons a ghostly costume and frightens Julie, who runs and locks herself in the chapel. While Julie hides under a pew and prays, Carol and Kitty smoke a joint under Raymar's vault. They fail to see the chairs and vases begin to tremble. Suddenly, the mausoleum walls begin to shake, windows explode, and doors slam shut. Furniture is whipped around, and the cracks near Raymar's vault split open, revealing a reddish glow inside. Thinking this is the result of Julie being scared crazy, Carol and Kitty decide to get out of the mausoleum. When vaults begin to open, coffins to slide out, and the dead rise and surround them, Kitty and Carol get what's coming to them when they are overpowered by the mob of zombies.Meanwhile, Steve has gone over to Julie's house and realizes that she is not home. He catches up with Leslie, who was ejected from Carol's car when she refused to accompany them to the mausoleum. Leslie reluctantly tells Steve about Julie's initiation, and Steve angrily heads over to stop it.At the same time, Olivia sneaks out of her house away from Allan and dashes over to the mausoleum after listening to the tape and learning about her father's powers and the possibility that she might also possess them.Back at the mausoleum, Raymar has broken out of his coffin and is controlling the doors and cadavers with his psychic powers. Steve climbs in an open window and finds a hysterical Julie. Steve has just about convinced her that it was all a prank when they notice that they are surrounded by cadavers... all moving closer.Steve tries to fight the cadavers, but they knock him out. Raymar pulls a dazed Julie closer to him just as Olivia arrives. Olivia tries out her psychic telekinsis powers on her father, but he is obviously stronger. As a last ditch effort, Olivia takes her compact mirror from her purse and reflects the bolts of lightning from Raymar's eyes back on him. Raymar disintegrates, the cadavers crumble to the floor, and Julie and Steve are saved. Olivia, Julie and Steve slowly walk out of the mausoleum as dawn begins to break.(Original Synopsis by bj_kuehl.)