There’s a common belief that the quality control of Tobe Hooper took a brisk march off a cliff after the release of his blockbusting, Spielbergian ghost extravaganza, Poltergeist. However, fans of the legendarily inconsistent director would rightfully put forward the point that even though the remainder of his 80s output more ups and downs than a pogo stick, it certainly wasn’t dull with the likes of Lifeforce, his gonzo Texas Chainsaw sequel and his childlike remake of Invaders From Mars coating the screen in gaudily coloured phantasmagoria.
Hooper’s 90s output, however, was an entirely different story altogether as a endless string of questionable projects and distinct drop in filmmaking flair saw the iconic likes of The Texas Chain Saw Massarce, Salem’s Lot and Poltergeist seem very far away indeed.
Case in point, the utterly nonsensical attempt at erotic horror, Night Terrors that impressively fails to be either terrifying or sexy.
Attractive young woman Eugenie “Genie” Matteson has arrived in Alexandria, Egypt in order to spend time with her archaeologist father while he toils away at a promising new dig site. However, while the father’s away, the nubile, naive daughter will play and after heading out with her friend Beth, a fellow American abroad, she soon finds herself bored and eventually falls into the company of Sabina, an older woman whose tastes are far more expansive and exotic than Genie’s.
Before you know it, Genie is getting drugged in specialist sections of bars and having visions of belly dancers miming acts of fellatio with python – you know, as you do – and as her sexual experience expands, Sabina gets her into the works of notorious libertine, the Marquis de Sade, which only adds to the shaky mental state.
However, after a burgeoning love affair with the dashing Mahmoud that sees plenty of horse riding and the kind of sweaty lovemaking you genuinely get in soft core porn, it soon becomes apparent to everyone except Genie herself that she’s fallen in with a bit of a bad crowd. You see, before she realises exactly how deep in shit she really is, Genie finds that she’s in the clutches of a sadomasochistic cult run by the charismatic Paul Chevalier, who just so happens to be the descendant of the twisted Maquis himself.
Pledged to carry out the twisted revenge of his pervy relation, Paul has targeted Genie because she bears a striking resemblance to the woman who had de Sade imprisoned all those years ago.
With death, conspiracy and vigorous grumpy pumpy all around her, can Genie grant he own wish and escape this sadomasochistic madhouse alive?
So, I feel like it’s my duty to give Hooper something of an out here, because while it was true that Hooper had seemingly lost that knack of crafting beguiling terror, he was brought into the production after the original director has been fired which was somewhat ironic considering that the Texan filmmaker had himself been fired from productions twice before. As a result, he ploughed into a pre-existing project and had the rather unenviable task of making it work while simultaneously trying to add his own particular twist to proceedings, which have been tough even if he was still in the Texas Chain Saw/Poltergeist era of his career.
Also proving to be something of a bad sign was the fact that the producers on the project were the bizarre union of Harry Alan Towers and Yoram Globus, two men who’s dedication to quality filmmaking proved to be noticeably more pfft than Hooper’s at his most erratic, so all the signs were in place for Night Terrors (a rather nonsensical title at the best of times) to be utterly excruciating.
I genuinely find it deeply ironic, yet very fitting that the filmmakers managed to make a movie that features the Maquis de Sade that’s mostly torturous to sit through, but Night Terrors not only managed to make the aggressively confusing Spontaneous Combustion seem like top tier Hooper, but it also helps you understand why his remake of Toolbox Murders was heralded so strongly as a return to form when it was really just okay.
Anyway, enough with rigorously setting the scene, let’s get to the actual movie and I really hope that Hooper enjoyed his foray into psychosexual thrillers, because that would mean one person did. Frankly, the movie is a mess as it bounces us unceremoniously from the bland, modern day shenanigans to flashbacks where we get to spend some quality time with the Marquis as he alternates between being tortured and rotting away slowly in his cell. Whether this is supposed to create a sense of unease, I’m not sure, but it ends up almost feeling like the movie has cast de Sade as a late night movie show host like Elvira or Svengoolie, who frequently breaks into movies to offer their ten cents about what’s going on.
When history’s most notorious sadist isn’t randomly popping up, we’re following the adventures of Zoe Trilling’s Genie as she wanders from bad situation to bad situation with a blank look pasted onto her face the entire time, but while Trilling meets the most basic requirements of an erotic thriller (she’s easy on the eyes and is willing to do nudity), she’s such a bad actress, I’m genuinely unsure of how old her character is supposed to be. Trilling is clearly a full grown woman, but her character acts either like a gormless teen or someone who is suffering a serious case of arrested development. Plus, the scenes that are supposed to be sexy are rendered just weird, especially considering that she make strange sounds during the sex scenes that just sound like a squirrel clearing its throat. The other actors do their thing with differing levels of success with Hooper regular, William Finley is on hand to even make the role of a Christian archaeologist as jarringly eccentric as humanly possible. But it’s Robert Englund who seems to be the only one even remotely having any fun in a dual role as both de Sade and his descendant, Paul. Whether mincing around the modern day with his oh-so-phallic stabby gadget, or playing de Sade with panto levels of intensity as he torture-splains to the man currently whipping him, he’s literally the only watchable thing in the movie – aside from when Hooper let’s his more freakish side out in various sexually charged hallucinations. But no amount of snake sucking, crucifix waving, or nude horse riding (from a dude, naturally) can hope to untangle this mess of terrible performances, muddled story telling and turgid sex scenes.
To see a pioneering director brought so low just makes me Marquis de Sad.
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