Invitation to Hell (1982) / The Last Night (1983)

You know, I have a very high tolerance to movies. I like indie-movies a lot, maybe because I made a lot of them myself during the years. But overall, I just always find something good in a movie and rarely becomes mean. I will not become mean in the case of Michael J. Murphys Invitation to Hell and The Last Night, but I can't say I will recommend these movies. At all.

Both movies features pretty standard stories, something about Satanism at a farmhouse and a hostage-situation in a theater. Invitation is almost unwatchable. The storyline is confusing and drawn-out... but most of all, damn boring. I mean, a movie could really silly, crappy... whatever, but if it becomes boring, it steps over the line of what I can bare. And it's only 50 minutes long! Except one scene at the end, the it's virtually goreless - but has a very bad and uninspired demon showing up trying to look scary. The acting are even bad for being an indie-flick, and it's just plain bad.

The Last Night has a good concept that I really like - this is something I could have seen a more professional remake off - a hostage situation where the actors are forced to finish the play on stage, while their friends are being terrorized and killed off-stage. This there's also older actors, which make the characters more credible and the acting is overall better. Nothing fantastic, but I can live with it. But the last third of the movie totally looses it's energy and I was fingering on the fast forward-button a couple of times - and this movie is also under one hour. Two good kills though, but that don't make  good movie.

I admire Michael J. Murphy for churning out his indie-flicks with micro-budget and doing something instead of just talking about making movie (like me nowadays, I confess...). But it's just that he don't have enough talent or vision. It's just a kid (this was the early eighties, when he was a kid - and I have no idea how his new movies are - but I guess they are in a different league) with a camera and some friends pretending to be grown-ups.