Search - The Night Divides The Day on DVD

An average slasher movie plus two good short films

Daniel Jolley | Shelby, North Carolina USA | 02/23/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The Night Divides the Day is a perfectly adequate slasher film with nothing to make it stand out from the crowd. Hollows Pointe University has a serial killer running around campus, claiming four victims within a week. The group of kids in this film decides to get away for awhile and head off on a camping trip in the middle of the woods. I never got a good handle on exactly who the couples were because they seemed to change slightly over the course of the night, but there was a little sexual tension in the air at times. Sitting in front of the fire, the campers tell incredibly boring scary stories to each other, argue among themselves about the quality of those stories, and insult each other's choice of favorite authors (one is accused of ripping off H.P. Lovecraft, but I must say for the record that the trivial story referred to has absolutely nothing to do with Lovecraft). Eventually, they decide to start heading off into the woods in small groups. Three head off to smoke a little weed, another couple heads out for some unknown reason, the guy whose story was ridiculed stomps off by himself and is followed a little later by the offending party. You can see where all this is going. Everyone who wanders off does not return. Afraid that something dangerous is out in the surrounding woods, the remaining camp buddies decide-of course-to go look for the missing. Some of them are so scared they can't wait to get back to camp, but then they turn right around and go off into the dark again. You can't keep these kids from wandering out to meet their doomThere's a little blood, but there is really no gore to be found here. Of course, I could be wrong because I could hardly see any of the action in the movie's final half hour. There is basically no lighting at all during all of the wood scenes. There were many occasions upon which I watched a screen that was essentially pitch black for a significant amount of time, and my inability to follow the action became pretty annoying after awhile. I will say that the ending is not wholly predictable, but neither is it very climatic. In the end, this movie suffers from its lack of originality, although it does what it does fairly well. I found the two short films included on the DVD much better than the featured movie. 911 is a tight, suspenseful tale of murder. A killer sneaks into a house and attacks a young woman, but she manages to call 911. By the time the cops arrive, the story has taken a nice little twist. The other film, The Initiation, is also a tale of murder. First, we see two girls attacked after running out of gas in the woods, then we join a group of stranded motorists as they hitch a ride, get stranded again, and find themselves in the middle of some type of dangerous, almost certainly unapproved sorority initiation. All in all, this DVD is worth taking a look at, although the main feature is a fairly predictable slasher film."