Title: Alone in the Dead of Night
Director: Matty Castano (1 Dead Party)
Release Date: January 11, 2019 (video on demand)
Fear Factor: Slow to build, but some serious scares in the second half
Gore: Some disturbing body horror sequences
You might like this movie if… you appreciate slow-burning psychedelic horror and don’t insist that the plot wrap up neatly in the end
Overall Grade: B-

Matty Castano’s ultra-low-budget indie flick Alone in the Dead of Night accomplishes something that most horror films, ironically, hardly even attempt these days: it is actually scary.

The plot is a slow build that tests the patience of the audience, but the second-half payoff is worth the wait. Depressive art student Mallory (Tammie Bergholdt), recovering from a knee injury and a recent breakup, paints alone in her apartment when she is visited by friend Gwen (Nicole Dambro). The two friends catch up, guzzle wine, and flirt (the sexual tension between them, or at least emanating from Gwen, is palpable), and then Gwen gifts Mallory with a necklace that, she claims, has supernatural protective powers.

Gwen soon departs, but not before the two friends hear several loud and disturbing sounds echoing from the walls. Spooked, Mallory is tempted to invite Gwen to stay, but eventually decides to brave the night alone.

Bad idea. Alone in the apartment, drunk and swooning from prescription pain meds, Mallory experiences a string of creepy episodes that may or may not be hallucinatory: voices whispering her name and telling her to “give me what is mine”; grotesque wounds appearing on her skin, which she picks at compulsively (but these were just dreams, right?); and most disturbing of all, visions of threatening masked figures who appear in full-on corporeal form and then disappear just as abruptly.

The intrigue for the audience at this point is to try to figure out what in the heck is going on. Mental breakdown? An actual haunting? The necklace? Or could some other person be playing tricks on her: Mallory’s ex-boyfriend, perhaps?

Ultimately, the film succeeds in creating a genuinely scary atmosphere, even if it fails to wrap up these loose ends in any coherent way. And perhaps that is for the best: psychedelic horror by its nature blurs the boundary between the objective and the subjective, leaving the audience to guess what is real and what exists only in the tortured minds of the characters.

Overall, Alone in the Dead of Night is an impressive effort given the clear budgetary limitations at play. This may not be the most polished or the most original film of the year, but so far at least, it is definitely the scariest.

E.F. LaGrand
www.theyearinhorror.com