Film Review: Screams of a Winter Night (1979)

I’m not sure if director James L. Wilson wants us to like the main characters in his anthology horror film Screams of a Winter Night or if he hates them as much as I do, but either way, I’m certainly glad I never have to see any of them again. Even though I suspect he’d rather us identify with this hip group of cookie-cutter movie college kids, I couldn’t stand them five minutes after meeting them, even going so far as to wish horrible things would happen to each and every one of them. In this last regard, I’d like to thank Wilson for his service.

Screams of a Winter Night is one of those horror anthology films you’ve likely seen a dozen times already. They always have a similar setup: a person or persons, for whatever contrived reason, tell a series of spooky, usually unrelated stories that are meant to shock, but in reality have little to no effect on a viewer’s nerves whatsoever. Think old E.C. Comics titles from the ‘50s like “Tales from the Crypt” or “The Vault of Horror,” except not scary in any way.

There are, of course, exceptions to this generalization (the old HBO version of Tales from the Crypt certainly had its moments, as do the original Creepshow movies and Shudder’s newly revamped series of the same name—and then there’s the famous Twilight Zone: The Movie, which has enough real-life baggage to horrify just about anyone), but by and large, anthology horror fails to serve its purpose. Screams of a Winter Night, however, has the added distinction of being one of the worst I can recall.

This time around, we have a group of college students spending the weekend in an old, creepy cabin where some long-ago murders took place. After everyone starts sharing creepy stories, the fragile womenfolk get scared, and the manly menfolk make things worse by being complete assholes. After a while, the wind starts blowing so hard that flying shards of broken glass kill someone, and the whole place, much like the plot, collapses.

There is one mildly entertaining story told about some fraternity pledges that are dared to spend a night in an abandoned hotel, which results in some decent Lovecraftian sanity loss, but by the time the movie gets around to this reasonably successful segment, the damage has already been done. I think I’ll stick to Creepshow.