Fearless editing and sound design from an unknown Australian filmmaker in the early 70s. Night of Fear - It's not a completely lost treasure but it does contain incredible composition, editing and brave use of sound (none being dialogue) skills throughout.It would've been a hard fight to get any distribution- not so much because of subject matter or the violence, but of the techniques used that would not have been endorsed by standard filmmaking at that time. What was more impressive is the quality of the print they had for the telecine transfer! It was almost spotless!Terry Bourke (19 April 1940 - 2002) I salute you.More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_Fear_%28film%29

I want to say that this movie is very much a product of its time, but it might actually be the influence that led other movies like it to be what they were. Many of the reviews on this site compare it to Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but note that this movie came first. It follows a girl who gets stranded in the woods and is terrorized by a killer who lives in a remote shack. There is lots of trippy music and Easy Rider-like editing. There wasn't much indication that it was set in Austrailia except for a road sign, and there is no dialog. It does create a very distinct atmosphere, both in look and tone, and there are some gory images. One scene that wasn't done very convincingly was the rat attack. Fans of bad movies would enjoy the ineptitude of that sequence, but there is little else to recommend it for those with only a general interest.

Just when you're thinking of the worst movies you've ever seen, along comes this grade Z clunker zooming into the frame! Anyone who is aware of this Aussie film will know that it was banned by the censors for a long time. It's a pity, in many ways, that the censors eventually relented, as depriving viewers of catching up with this dross would have been something of a bonus. In reality, it has very little in its favour. Okay, it may well be the first Australian horror movie, and a pre-runner of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but it doesn't take very long to become monotonous and downright irritating. The actors couldn't have been too concerned about learning their lines, as there simply arn't any. It's probably the horror equivalent of "The Plank"!! Put simply, this is a total waste of time.

According to the writings of several of my respectable fellow reviewers around here, "Night of Fear" was the very first Australian horror/exploitation movie ever made. This bit of trivia also got confirmed in the brilliant documentary "Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation", so I just had to see it sooner or later… Well, the first Aussie horror flick definitely is a peculiar one. "Night of Fear" is very rudimentary, both in terms of plotting and execution, as if writer/director Terry Bourke was reading in his Horror for Dummies manual whilst operating the camera. There are no dialogs, only female screams and a lot of panting, no attempts to provide depth or background to the characters and the plot is simplistic as can be. Following a banal car accident, a sole young girl ends up on a rural backwoods road and quickly finds herself confronted with a hillbilly waving around an ax. She flees and seeks shelter in a nearby cabin, but obviously her troubles only get worse in there. It may all come across as formulaic and amateurish, but "Night of Fear" actually works quite effectively! The pacing is moderately fast and the suspense is non-stop throughout the short running time. Yup, a modest and straightforward little genre outing with some nasty images and authentic shocks. Sometimes that's all it takes to satisfy a horror fanatic. The ending is very shocking and immediately explains why Terry Bourke struggled against so much controversy when it came out. "Night of Fear" was supposed to be the kick-off installment of an Aussie horror TV-series, but the idiot censors didn't agree.