Troubled young guy Wesley Stuart (hysterically overplayed with eye-rolling aplomb by a then unknown and scrawny Gerald McRaney of "Major Dad" and "Simon & Simon" fame) suffers from terrible nightmares and experiences periodic blackouts. Meanwhile, people around Wesley keep turning up dead. Could Wesley possibly be a deranged psycho? Man, does this choice chunk of fetid grindhouse cheese possess all the right cruddy ingredients to qualify as a prime piece of entertaining dime-store trash: The plodding (mis)direction by Joy N. Houck Jr. (who also co-wrote the talky script), a wonky droning synthesizer score, the hopelessly tacky stylized cinematography that boasts plenty of jaw-dropping "groovy" dated touches (dig the ghastly solarization and that funky psychedelic whirlpool optical that flashes on the screen whenever Wesley flips out), the choppy editing, the total dearth of suspense, the sub-par gore effects, an agonizingly awful appearance by the dreadful rock group The Bored, and the grindingly predictable story all give this clunker a certain endearingly wretched charm. Moreover, McRaney's hammy histrionics are an absolute gut-busting hoot to watch. Evelyn Hendricks as Wesley's overbearing shrew of a mother Agatha likewise ravenously chews up and spits out her own fair share of the scenery (and sports a set of terrifyingly unsightly jagged teeth that are without a doubt the single scariest thing in the entire picture!). Fun junk.
Review of Night of Bloody Horror
