Blood drinking! Ancient evil! Pregnant women with bellies full of snakes! Homegrown southern gothic horror returns!
The screaming heard at the start of the movie is the only warning you will get as The Long Night begins. Buckle up, bumpkins. This demented trip into the southern stomping grounds of one New York transplant (Scout Taylor-Compton) goes dark and disturbing really quick.
And once it begins, The Long Night practically oozes with nightmarish goo in a trippy, languid sort of state.
Grace is here looking for the parents she’s never known, but what she uncovers is an unending nightmare that would even dare haunt the satanic skull of Rosemary’s Baby. With great visuals and a story that is ripe with WTF?! connections, The Long Night delivers a chapter by chapter spellbinding tale which is surrounded by covens with torches and Grace at the center.
Atmospheric in its handling of Charleston, South Carolina and tinged throughout with expressive drone shots, The Long Night packs plenty of hillbilly horror in its 90-minute running time. This isn’t your run of the mill lowbrow horror, though. This is thoughtful in its approach and absolutely sneaks up on the viewer as mysteries are revealed. It’s as if the countryside - thanks to some of the nice touches from cinematographer Pierluigi Malavasi and a solid soundtrack from Sherri Chung - gets flipped into another dimension as the long night of past connections are unveiled, fulfilling a twisted apocalyptic prophecy.
While searching for the parents she’s never known, Grace returns to her childhood home with her boyfriend (Nolan Gerard Funk) to investigate a promising lead on her family’s whereabouts. Upon arrival, the couple’s weekend takes a bizarre, terrifying turn as a nightmarish cult and their maniacal leader - a wonderfully bizarre turn for Deborah Kara Unger as The Master - terrorize the pair.
Directed by Rich Ragsdale and co-starring Jeff Fahey, The Long Night is filled to the brim with fog, flickering images, levitating bodies, and coven members wearing animal skulls on their heads. The visuals absolutely punch up the devilish dynamics as Grace discovers so much more about her past than she ever realized. The images are intriguing and riveting and definitely add to the otherworldly experience when the horror of this long night settles in.
While it might not be for some audiences thanks to its slow burn of imaginative terror and its densely haunted storyline of sex and ancient haunts, The Long Night definitely delivers the needed chills to get its horror on. The film will be released theatrically by Well Go USA Entertainment on February 4th.
MPAA Rating: Unrated.
Runtime:
Director: Rich Ragsdale
Writer: Robert Sheppe; Mark Young
Cast: Scout Taylor-Compton; Nolan Gerard Funk; Kevin Ragsdale
Genre: Horror
Tagline: A Rich Ragsdale Film.
Memorable Movie Quote: "I don't know what it is about this house."
Distributor: Well Go USA
Official Site:
Release Date: February 4, 2022
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:
Synopsis: While searching for the parents she’s never known, New York transplant Grace (Scout Taylor-Compton) returns to her childhood southern stomping grounds with her boyfriend (Nolan Gerard Funk) to investigate a promising lead on her family’s whereabouts. Upon arrival, the couple’s weekend takes a bizarre, terrifying turn as a nightmarish cult and their maniacal leader terrorize the pair en route to fulfilling a twisted ancient apocalyptic prophecy.
