Night (2006 Video) User Reviews

A+ for effort and entertainment value

[CorblimeyGuvnors · 4/10 · 15 February 2015]

There seems to be a backlash against us "stuffy Brits" and our abilities to enjoy low budget films. Well let me put the record straight, here and now. I am British and I enjoyed this flick !!!!

Night is about two cops who foil an attempted robbery at a store. An innocent bystander is shot. Only thing is she does not die. Mike, one of the cops attempts to find the woman as he really can't understand how she survived. He soon realises that she is head of a vampire clan and he is soon welcomed into their fold. His police partner, Jimi, can't understand why he has gone missing and sets out to find him.

Yes it's low budget but it really made an effort to entertain. There is lots of action and everyone involved seem to enter into the spirit of the thing. I found some of the camera angles interesting and the general mood of the piece was good. Most low/no budget films have endless talking due to not having any budget to stage action scenes. At least this tries to provide entertainment rather than long speeches. A good coherent story as well. Music is also very good Techo/Rock. Only thing I did not like was the over dubbing of the voices, as this was very obvious due to the words not really matching what was being said on the screen. Having said this I would rather this than not being able to hear the words at all, which is a common fault in low budget films.

Oh dear, oh dear. Total crap.

[poolandrews · 1/10 · 14 April 2007]

Night starts late one night as a cop (I think) named Mike Jericho (John Hardy) finds himself in the middle of a robbery, as he tackles the robber (Will Green) a woman named Tonia (Melanie Ginnett) is shot in the chest & survives. Wondering why Mike sets about tracking her down & once he does she reveals herself to be a Vampire & bites his wrist which turns him into one, Mike seems pretty happy about it so all's well with the world except Mike's best mate & partner Jimi Cannon (Shawn LeTang) is determined to find Mike & save him from his newly found Vampire friends whether he likes it or not...

Edited, photographed, written, produced & directed by Byron C. Miller I thought Night was one of the worst films I have ever seen & believe me I've seen some crap films. The so called script isn't worthy of the name, this has no discernible storyline, nothing drives the film forward, it's incredibly dull & boring plus the characterisation is some of the worst I've had the displeasure to see. The dialogue is awful, there's no action, there's next to no gore & it took me four attempts over three days to get through to the end of this piece of crap. Now I realise this had the sort of budget which probably wouldn't stretch to a round of drinks but that is no excuse, I'm sorry but when I have spend good money & 90 odd minutes of my life to watch this utter crap I find it difficult to have any sympathy & I genuinely struggle to see how anyone could gain any sort of entertainment or pleasure from such a poor film. Night is the sort of film which makes you lose the will to live, Night is the sort of film which makes you feel like poking your eyes out & Night is the sort of film which I personally think is killing the horror genre.

Director Byron quite obviously hasn't made a film before & quite obviously has no experience in doing so, this is basically a home movie shot on a digital camcorder using friends & family as cast & crew & edited on a cheap software package on a PC. This is one of the worst looking amateurish films I've seen since Swamp Zombies (2005). Forget about any gore as it's strictly of the plastic axes stuck to peoples foreheads type variety, there's a bit of nudity & some fight scenes which are absolutely pathetic. I'm sorry but I just don't have anything positive to say about this crap.

With a supposed budget of about $7,000 which is maybe the second lowest budgeted film I've seen Night looks horrible in every regard from cheap lighting, poor special effects, bland locations which amount to a warehouse, a few street corners, a car park & a roof, rubbish acting & awful muffled hard to understand shot on set dialogue.

Night is an absolutely terrible film, I hated every single second of it & the fact it's low budget is simply no excuse for such crap. My advice is to avoid this celluloid turd at all costs & do something fun instead like having your fingernails pulled out with pliers.

Edit, to the guy who did the make-up effects & posted a comment referring to mine. Firstly I didn't say I could do better & I know for a fact that I couldn't which I freely & openly admit because I don't want to make a film & have absolutely zero interest in doing so, I simply want to be entertained by them & frankly Night fell someway short for me. Secondly I'm sorry but if I pay good money & spend 90 minutes of my life watching Night then I can say whatever I want about it, period. Thirdly for what it's worth I genuinely hope the film finds an audience & is successful for you, at the end of the day I didn't it like but so what? I'm just but one person on a planet of 6 billion...

Atrocious

[Daru_Jericho · 1/10 · 3 January 2009]

'Night' is the result of watching too much Buffy and listening to too much Combichrist.

The most striking feature of this film is the poor quality of it. The picture is harshly contrasted leaving key characters totally obscured in darkness or eroded away by bright white. The sound is muffled throughout and sounds like you're listening to people talking through the wall in the next room. Naturally, a lot of the dialogue is hard to hear coherently. Many low(er) budget films have overcome this; budget is not an excuse.

The plot synopsis is weak yet not totally unoriginal but its execution is embarrassing. I never got the feeling that Jimi actually possessed long-term friendship with Mike and when Mike turned, it seemed random that Jimi would all of a sudden chase after Mike. They should have spent more time showing the viewer an intense bond between the pair rather than one work related bust. Convincing dialogue would have been a good start at this. I could not feel sympathetic towards Jimi because I could not believe his bond with Mike. Some of the characters had no personality whatsoever and were introduced into the storyline so suddenly it crippled the plot. The characters with personalities were impossible to like (poor an unemphatic acting) and impossible to identify with. They were more like pre-programmed robots than humans (or vampires).

The interconnected sex scenes seem painstakingly pointless and I question why they were there. They failed to reveal more about the characters or move the plot forward. Jimi's sex scene just seems like an excuse to have him rant at the girl about Mike's disappearance which, again, is a weak non-attempt to contribute towards the storyline. Who most of the other people who were having sex are is not clear to myself; poor lighting is one reason and made-up characters seems to be the other. Other scenes were down-right laughable, such as Mike 'turning' into a vampire with his convulsions on the floor. This was hilarious predominantly because of the awful camera handling which accidentally had Mike out of the frame's centre numerous times. Returning to the plot, it was incoherent and challenging to follow. Unnecessary characters literally appear out of thin air for no commendable reason, as if someone were making the story up on the spot. Perhaps they would work better in a plot that is not so linear or one-dimensional.

The fight scenes are in drastic need of work. It is obvious that the actors are not hitting each other and this will make the audience laugh unintentionally. Fight scenes are easier to choreograph if you have intelligent cinematography which obviously Night was lacking in. Industrial music and EBM are enjoyable to listen to in other circumstances but much of the time, it failed to corroborate the scenes they were underscoring here. Why the soundtrack welds itself to electronic music exclusively is beyond me.

The only reason Night could be considered worth watching is to mock the script. It would not hurt to have some quirky one-liners. "Damn you"/"Damn yourself" is not funny nor clever. Just plain weak. Too much of the plot was left unexplored and unexplained. There is nothing compelling that drives you forth to finish watching the film. The attempt at enrolling an inclusive cast for a film aimed at alternative markets is ridiculous (why would a 'goth' girl go for Jimi in a club looking like some kind of business guy without a blazer? Surely a fishnet top or leather-clad male would be more her thing, particularly in an alternative club. Embarrassing mistake.) and should be avoided. This film should be used in film schools internationally as a 'How Not To Make A Film' example. Even fans of vampire films would detest this. It's not even close to art. Stay away.

Micro-budget 1st attempt

[shadowfever · 5/10 · 25 November 2010]

Take a time proved (or time-worn) genre, vampires, and attempt to give it a slightly different slant. Treat vampirism more as an alternate life-style that seems to suggest there is a difference between murder and killing for survival. Pretty ambitious stuff on a $7000 budget.

Mike is introduced as he interrupts a burglary in progress. He accidentally shoots a young woman in the chest but amazingly she doesn't die. Needless to say it piques his curiosity and he looks for her. He must be an excellent detective because he finds her quickly. She is a vampire and she turns him. In the meantime Mike's friend is trying to find out what's up with his best friend.

Most of my complaints are on the technology side. Obvious video with what appears to be a camcorder, poor audio, bad lighting. Of course, many of those problems would not be issues today due to improved camera choices. Even in SD, a DVX at 24 or 30FPS, would give us a better quality image. Spend $1000 of your budget on a decent set of lights (that you can use in your next movie) and adjust your on camera's white balance. Use an off camera mic and hopefully and a sound guy.

The acting was hit or miss though I have definitely seen much worse even with higher budgets.

The sets looked cheap. Surely if you can find actresses to do sex scenes and partial nudity you can find friends with access to better sets.

The directing was competent though I would suggest being more conservative with the use of the skewed angles. Sometimes less is more.

There is a lot of nitpicking that we could do but it wouldn't contribute anything to the review. Give the director a better camera, use quality lighting and sound, and tone down the "tricks."

I am interested in seeing his later efforts.

Freakin AWESOME!!!!!!

[legionwithin · 10/10 · 27 July 2008]

That last guy was a jack ass.

Miller is God!!! I say Night is destined for cult classic status.

Keep on keepin on with your Bad Self Mr Miller.

The world is full of nay sayers and ne'r-do-wellers.

Some people just can not be pleased.

So why try.

Just keep making movies for people who can appreciate your art.

Again I say all Miller touches turns to gold.

And at the very least Night is WAY better than any of the Matrix sequels. Even the last reviewer must concede that much.

Buy/rent it and see what I mean.

General reaction to any of the Nay Sayers views- No offense/No abuse is meant

[glassasylumpds · 6/10 · 9 August 2008]

As a citizen of a free nation I have the constitutional right to speak freely; which is what I had done on Aprill 20,2007. But someone found my words offensive and my post was deleted, and I was censored. So here is a more generic, sanitized, more "PC" revision that contains only what was meant as praise for Byron Miller.

While "Night" may not be a prime example of stellar celluloid, at least give credit where credit is due; Mr. Miller could've been like so many wannabe filmmakers and sat around and talked, and talked, and talked about making a movie. Instead, he got off his butt and had the balls to follow through, despite all of the adversity. The film's, so called, cheap look was not the result of any lack of talent, it was the lack of money. Byron is, in my opinion, a true artist who created something from, for all intents and purposes, nothing. I'd like to see the Nay Sayers who feel it's necessary to tear apart anyone else's creative efforts do better on their first outing. Many a first film is hard to watch by some. Too many people, who have no true idea what when into making this movie, or any movie for that matter, are far to quick to criticize. While the Nay Sayers may be correct about the cast and crew being comprised of friends and family; these Nay Sayers need to realize that many of those friends and family are, in fact, entertainment industry professionals, as well. Read the cast and crew profiles on IMDb.com and see for yourselves. I,myself, worked on "Night" and I have been a working professional in the entertainment industry for many years. "Night" was produced in association with my production company, Glass Asylum Productions, LLC; and I designed and created all of the effects. If studying Make Up Effects under the greatest living make up artist, Dick Smith; being a member of the Universal Orlando Prosthetics Department, and having 6 films (4 for make up) to my credit, makes me an amateur, then I guess I am.

Many of the professionals involved did so, not because we were expecting to make the next Academy Award winning "Best Picture" film, we did it because we saw something special in what Byron Miller was trying to achieve. We saw his talent, that many were and are blind to, and we believed in his unique vision. Always keep in mind that what you set out to create, and what you end up creating are rarely the same thing, be it due to creative differences, lack of budget, etc.

We, with Byron at the helm, decided we were gonna make this movie, even if it meant doing it on our own. That's exactly what we did; we weren't gonna be a bunch of whiny babies sitting around crying that we didn't have any backers. We said "F*ck it, let's do it ourselves!" Ya know what, we did just that and it's out there!

All My Best, Daniel H Ingraham; Executive Producer, Glass Asylum Productions

fun and adventurous

[dtool242 · 7/10 · 30 July 2008]

OK so I am not some stuffy Brit with a pole lodged firmly up my bum.... That may prevent me from writing a well articulated rant on how much I hate a certain movie. But at the same time, not being a limey starched-underpants type allowed me to thoroughly enjoy this film. Sure it was produced on a small budget, that just means it has a phenomenal bang for the buck! As Byron C. Miller's introduction to the film making world, I think it is an amazing first step forward. And if he has a chance to work with a bigger budget the complaints above about the less than Hollywood studio production qualities (lighting, sound, sets, etc) would be negated. I honestly had fun watching this movie. I especially enjoyed the musical soundtrack that emphasized and flowed with the action in the movie. I also enjoyed the fresh approach that was taken on doing a vampire movie. There are probably more movies on the subject of vampires than anything else, and 99% of them are the same re-hash of the same story time and time again. Night is different, fun and thought provoking. I would recommend this movie and hope to see more from Mr. Miller in the future.

Unique and interesting, a breath of fresh air.

[bfan83 · 7/10 · 1 May 2009]

NIGHT is a unique take on the vampire genre. It's about a cop named Mike who witnesses a woman get shot in the chest during a robbery and she lives. Before he is able to question her about how she lived, she mysteriously disappears, which leads Mike on an obsessive hunt to find who - and what she is. He soon discovers she is a vampire and she leads a group of other vampires. She soon sires Mike and introduces him to her world. Meanwhile, his best friend and cop partner, Jimi launches his own investigation into what is going on when Mike begins acting strangely and disappears. This soon leads Jimi into a violent quest to save his friend...

I'm not entirely sure if this was Mr. Miller's directorial debut. If it is, then he did a bang up job! I found NIGHT to be well worth my time. It's unique take on how to slay the vampires was different and refreshing. Instead of staking them you inflict as much physical damage to their being and burn them. I also found the acting from most of the principal characters to be quite well-done. Every character was believable. The fight scenes were also well-staged for a film of this caliber. It's obvious Mr. Miller hired actors who also had martial arts experience. This was another quality that helped rise the film above others of its type. One other quality that I was happy with was the use of alternative/Gothic music in the soundtrack.

The only complaint that I have is the audio was terrible throughout most of the film. I'm not sure if they only used the existing mic on the camera, or if the sound was mixed poorly. A lot of the music was also played too loudly over some of the scenes, including scenes with characters dialogue that may have been important to the plot. Other than that, NIGHT is a perfect example of what a true filmmaker can accomplish on a non-existent budget ($7,000). Kudos to Byron Miller for creating something fresh for the genre! I see great things coming from this man.

Anyone who enjoys vampire films, or independent films in general should be pleased with NIGHT.