 Hey, guess what? I just got a movie request for a movie called Nightlife. Oh, Nightbreed, the Clive Barker movie. No, Nightlife. Nightshift, isn't that a comedy? No, Nightlife. Are you hearing what I'm saying? I haven't seen 30 Days and Nights since it first came out. What the hell are you talking about? What are you doing over there anyway? I'm editing this week's episode. Yeah, yeah, I'll watch Life Force later, don't worry. Nightlife! Nightlife! Hello and welcome to another edition of Frightfully Forgotten Horror Movies and we have another Patreon request today. This is a request from Jesus Life 39. It is 1989's Nightlife, aka Grave Mystaminers. But before we get started, what are we drinking? We are drinking Vienna of the Damned Vienna Lager. This movie was directed by David Acomba. He was supposed to direct that shitty Star Wars holiday special. It was just a fucking disaster, but he got taken off the project. Lucky for him, I guess. Some scenes he directed kind of made it in, but I think he was uncredited. Who would want to be credited for that abysmal piece of shit? Mark Hamill's all orange for some reason. Probably to cover up his scars or something like that. I think that's exactly what it was. This movie stars Scott Grimes and horror fans and probably know him from Critters and Critters 2. John Astin is in this who most famously played Gomez Adams and also played the Riddler in the Batman TV show. When it wasn't Frank Gorshan. When it wasn't Frank Gorshan, yeah. Cheryl Pollack is also in this and she mostly did TV. All right, so the movie starts off with this montage of somebody over this body and kind of taking it apart. This group of kids in this like wicked 80s Porsche parked outside behind some mortuary for some reason. It's a good make-out spot, I guess. Quiet. The girls start getting all wild. They like the one stands upstairs taking her shirt off. Archie starts coming with a bucket and there's some arm hanging out of the bucket. All this blood and body parts into the just regular dumpster. Either you're going to bury the body or you're going to cremate it. Yeah. Just don't throw it out. Blood gets on the Porsche and they're like, you asshole. I'm going to get you for that. They drive off and they're like, I'm going to get you. They want you to get him now. You're there. He's there. Archie works at his uncle Verlin's mortuary. We see Archie coming home from school on his motorcycle. Kids in the Porsche come up behind him and start trying to run him off the road. They do. Yeah, yeah, they do run him right off. His friend Charlie, no nonsense kind of woman. They start teasing her too. It takes his crowbar. She's going to fucking smash this Porsche. But Archie stops her. They hatch this scheme where they're going to get one of the girls play hot and heavy on Archie to distract him while the other guys are down on the main level getting like a body. And they're going to set up this prank and Verlin comes home. He's like, what the hell trying to get it? Archie, what the hell are you doing? He's like, okay, I'll come down. Meanwhile, there's a body that's hidden somewhere that Archie doesn't know about. And Verlin is in a big panic because he's got a customer coming that wants to see his dead mother. Who is that body? So Archie's in a big panic because the body's missing. And this guy wants to see it. He's going to find it. And he opens up this door. The body's there and all these ropes and everything falls down the stairs. Somehow get this body to the viewing without the guy seeing him get it to the viewing. The body on his back is carrying it. You guys usually just carry bodies to the coffin? Oh yeah, it helps get the bombing fluid moving. Yeah, yeah, it's all bullshit. Because of all this, Verlin fires Archie. But he's not fired for long. He gets a call on the dead of night. Verlin said, I need your help. There was a big car accident. There's five dead kids that we got to get ready. And it's a great scene where they go to the actual scene of the accident. It's on this bridge. It's always missed and you just see the headlights and the tail lights. Oh, it's so good. And you find out that the kids in this crash were the kids who played the prank. These bully kids. All of them died in a car accident. Now Uncle Verlin's like, I understand that you knew these kids. Not that I give a rat's ass. He's all drinking with those gloves on too. And one of the girls' eyes opens and Archie's like, she's not dead. It takes her head. Oh yeah. And he's like, see, the head's completely separated. Like turns it like 180 degrees. These kids are stuck in these freezers now, the mortuary. And the freezers are acting up. So they get a repair guy in to try to fix it. So it starts storming out that night because these all this condensation and these freezers, I guess it's prone to lightning or whatever. So lightning like hits the mortuary and you can see lightning going through the freezers where the corpses are. All the power goes out. Archie calls Verlin says, power's out here. What am I going to do? The bodies are going to start thawing. The body's going to start thawing. So call that repair guy. The repair guy comes over and gets things going. So Archie's going to let him out of the garage. Repair guy's vehicle starts rolling out. Nobody driving. And it hits Archie's bike and rolls over his bike. So his bike is ruined now. Archie goes to look in. There's nobody in this vehicle. He turns around and there's zombies all around him. The kids, the five kids who died got turned into zombies from the lightning. Archie goes to run back in the house. He hits the garage door. He kind of rolls in classic action style rolls in. Now he's stuck in this house and the zombie kids are getting in and terrorizing him. And that's where we're going to end the plot. If you want to see how Archie gets out of this situation, you've got to watch. But why should you watch Nightlife? Well, the horror comedy aspect of this movie is done to a T. Yeah, perfect. Pretty perfect. Yeah. Does both well, which is hard to do. What's harder really is the comedy part of it. It is, yeah. It's always the hardest part of a horror comedy is the comedy. Getting the comedy right where it's kind of subtle and not super over the top and in your face. Yeah, yeah. And they do a great job of it. And it's very subtle and there's a few sort of slapsticky moments. But for the most part, it's dialogue driven. Do you have a more recent picture? Something in the last 10 years? No, no, no. She was so bloated we didn't want to take any pictures up. And it's not crammed down your throat. Archie's got the body on his back and he's trying to get it back into the viewing room without that guy seeing. It's like perfect situational comedy. It's like something out of a Mr. Bean sketch or a Pink Panther movie or something. It's like, it's that perfect. Verlin is just fucking hilarious. Because he's such an asshole, but he's a lovable asshole, right? Very well written movie, you know? The dialogue is great. And of course the characters add to that too. The characters are really good. You care about them and you start to learn about them. Even Uncle Verlin, he's kind of an asshole, but you kind of care about him. Archie, well, great character. I love the fact he's not the typical super nerd that these guys are picking on. He's more of just a regular guy. He's kind of a cool guy actually. He rides a dirt bike. He has a love interest, you know? Kind of likes him back. They're not officially dating, but you know, he's a cool enough guy. I kind of like the emotional aspect of the characters too. The way the movie plays out. Half the movie is Archie getting terrorized by these kids, right? And so you kind of hate them and you see the dynamic between them. But then all of a sudden, as Archie's called to pick these kids up from that accident and start working on them. Even though he hates them, you would hate to be in that situation. Yeah. And you would actually feel bad for those kids. Yeah, just because he hates them doesn't mean he wants them dead. And in his mortuary. Yeah, so you can work on them to get them looking decent for viewing. It's like, fuck. That whole thing is like absolutely crazy. The acting in this movie for like kind of what seems to be in a low budget kind of movie is really good. Like Scott Grimes is really good as Archie. John Astin knocks it out of the park as Uncle Verlin. Cheryl Pollack is great too, is that love interest. Not really dating, but they kind of, they should be, but they're not. Yeah, like you said, a John Hughes movie. That relationship between Charlie and Archie is very John Hughes-y. Super John Hughes. The settings for this movie are awesome actually. But they're so simple too on top of it, right? Which kind of leads to the simplicity of the movie, which makes it a lot more relatable. The mortuary setting is great. And then the rest of it is kind of like a normal house. Yeah, it's like a house attached to a mortuary, which is, yeah, I like that. Yeah, it's neat. There's that bridge with the fog and the mist. It looks fantastic. It looks awesome. They get into this big building, this industrial building with a huge boiler. And this furnace thing. Yeah, yeah. And then they somehow get out of that. They get into the cemetery. That's a great setting. That's awesome with all the mist. And then they get onto another bridge too, right? And they kind of have to play chicken a little bit. With this train and everything. It's really cool. Yeah, it's awesome. The final act for this movie is fantastic. Once this shit hits the fan, the deaths are really good. Not just the people deaths, but the zombie deaths too. And when Uncle Verlin gets it, it's great. Because the zombies have a bit of payback and embalm him at Charlie's shop. They're like, oh, there's oil. And he's all, ooh, stomach. Yeah, yeah, spanding. And then he all blows up. Charlie's asshole friend. When he dies, it's great because the cops pull him over. They're like, what are you going to do? Shoot me? And that's what happens. The evidence is happening because the zombie pushes him to make it look like he's like attacking the officer. The pacing for this movie is very odd because it's not a zombie movie, paced movie. It's more of a John Hughes 80s type movie. First and foremost, I think. Yeah. And it's zombie movie second. You don't see any zombies until like 15 minutes into the movie. More than halfway through the movie, there's no zombies. Characters in the story are good enough to keep you interested. You've never seen a zombie movie paced like this before, but it works. Yeah, exactly. In this context, it works really well. Yeah. And then when the shit does hit the fan, that final act is a blast. That's the payoff, right? I suspected that this was a zombie movie. I didn't look, I didn't read up on it or anything, but I suspected. And I was waiting for it and I was like, where are the zombies? And then right away though, I was like, you know what though? It can wait. Yeah, you don't need them. Okay, it's all right. This is going good as it is. The music too is really good and it's not your typical 80s music. It's kind of more of a string ensemble score, which works for most of the movie. And my only complaint really is that when the shit hits the fan, the final act, and the zombies are coming and it gets really action packed, is the music stays that kind of weird somber string and it's like, okay, we need more 80s music. It needs to be a bit more action packed, more like to really get your heart going when you're watching all the shit unfold. And it kind of just stays like the music is kind of boring on top of all this really action packed visual. So if you want an action packed John Hughes style 80s movie with zombies thrown into it, you can't go wrong with nightlife. It's like it was some kind of wonderful meets return of a living dead. Yeah, it does. Yeah, it's and and it melds them together almost perfectly. It does a very good job. The outcast Archie just like Eric Stoltz is some kind of wonderful girl friend, but they're not really girl friend, boyfriend is is a mechanic. Beast monkey. Just like in some kind of wonderful. Yeah. And then it takes place in a mortuary just like return of living dead. Exactly. So it's kind of a perfect exact perfect meld of the two movies. Yeah. So if you want a different kind of zombie movie, definitely check out nightlife. It's tons of fun. You get to hear Gomez Adams say shit and fuck. Yeah. Until next time. Keep drinking.