poolandrews Review of Nightkill

Nightkill (1980)

Reasonably effective murder mystery/thriller. Worth a watch if you've got nothing better to do.

[6/10 · 30 January 2005]

Nightkill is set in Phoenix, Arizona. Katherine 'Cathy' Atwell (Jaclyn Smith) is married to an overbearing, mean and often cruel but successful businessman named Wendell (Mike Connors), their marriage is for show and business purposes only. First of all we see Wendell place a briefcase with $1,000,000 in it in an airport locker. Later that night his right-hand man named Steve Fulton (James Franciscus, the IMDb listing for this character is wrong. It's definitely Fulton not Fuller, it's pronounced Fulton throughout the film and I even checked the spelling during the end credits) with whom Cathy is having an affair with slips some poison into Wendell's drink which appears to kill him within minutes. Cathy seems surprised and upset, Steve has acted on his own and has involved Cathy against her wishes. Steve's plan is to alter Wendell's passport with a picture of himself and catch a plane as Wendell to Washington, and then travel back as himself and therefore give the impression Wendell has disappeared in Washington. Then retrieve the briefcase with $1,000,000 in it at the airport and fly off into the sun with Cathy and live happily ever after. Well, that's the plan anyway. Steve sticks Wendell's body into a large freezer and heads off to the airport, leaving Cathy to attend a party in her honour organised by two of her friends Herbert (Fritz Weaver) and his wife Monika Childs (Sybil Danning) to give the impression that things are fine. Steve says he will fly back the next day and contact her. A perfect plan? Not quite. Wendell's secretary Christine (Belinda Mayne) reports him missing and Cathy is spoken to by Lieutenant Donner (Robert Mitchum) about his whereabouts. Steve fails to contact her and Cathy feels she should dispose of the body. Cathy opens the freezer only to find Steve in there dead instead of Wendell. Things turn even worse when it comes to light that Wendell knew about Cathy's affair with Steve and hired a P.I. named Rodriguez who bugged the entire house and recorded the murder of Wendell, and Lt. Donner tells Cathy that Wendell never made the flight to Washington. What's going on? Is Wendell really dead? Who else could it possibly be? Will Cathy be able to solve the mystery before Lt. Donner finds out the truth? Will she be blamed for the murders herself? So many questions, you'll have to watch it to find out the answers! Directed by Ted Post I thought this was a good murder mystery but I have to admit I figured out the twist ending about half way through which was a little disappointing as I was precisely right about how everything turned out. The script by Joan Andre based on a story by John Case isn't really at fault for this, I've probably just seen to many of these things that try and be too clever for it's own good. At least it tries, and it's quite clever and interesting to watch overall. It's a little slow at times with certain scenes and characters seeming like padding especially Herbert and Monika who have no relevance to the final outcome at all, maybe it would have been better as a slightly shorter T.V. programme. The pay-off at the end is reasonably satisfying but goes on for too long, the twist is revealed about 15 minutes before it finishes and I expected another big twist within the final 5 minutes or so, but it never happened. The acting is fine by an experienced cast. Technically the film looks a little bland and it's easy to see that Post is predominantly a director of T.V. shows, he tries to light peoples eyes while keeping the rest of their face in shadow in certain scenes which look out-of-place. Not a bad way to spend an hour and a half I suppose, how much enjoyment you get out of this film will greatly depend on if you figure out the twist ending which I did. Worth a watch if you can catch it on T.V. for free.