Night Angel (1990)

The ancient demon Lilith uses her seductive charms to wreak bloody havoc on the world. Craig is a young man who falls in love with her but who may have to kill her to end her evil doings.

Genre – Genre Classics

Executive Producer – Walter Josten

Director(s) – Dominique Othenin-Girard

Writer(s) – Walter Josten and Joe Augustyn

Cast – Isa Andersen, Linden Ashby, Karen Black and Roscoe Lee Browne

Blue Rider’s Role – Producers and Walter Josten co-wrote the script

Distributor(s) – MGM, Fries Entertainment (video), Image Entertainment (laserdisc)

Release Date – 1990

Critics’ Kudos:
Staci Layne Wilson, About.com: “If boffing, boobs and blood are three of your movie must-haves, you can’t go wrong with Night Angel.

Jon Bloom as “Joe Bob Briggs”, Joe Bob Goes to the Movies: “There’s been about 50 movies come out in the last 10 years about the anti-wife. And one of the best ones I’ve ever seen–the one that kinda sums up the whole anti-wife phenomenon–is called Night Angel.

“Meet Isa Andersen, mysterious European model making her first film. Maybe your average guy would think something’s wrong when a beautiful woman walks up to him wearing black fingernail polish, breathes in his ear, starts doing the multiplication tables with her pelvis, and then suggests they go to her place for three days of animal sex. Your average guy goes home with this woman, and she sticks those fingernails in his heart and sucks the blood out through her veins.

“Isa Andersen, the night angel of the title, is simply the anti-wife–one woman in the disco, a very DIFFERENT woman at home. It turns out that this lady is the ORIGINAL anti-wife, a woman named Lilith who was Adam’s first wife. She dumped him, ran out of Eden, ‘consorted with demons,’ and for the rest of human history she’s been out there, hanging around the bar at closing time, stuffing quarters in the old alimony jukebox.

“There’s only one thing that can stop her–the true love of a woman for a man. And the woman is Debra Feuer, Mickey Rourke’s girlfriend, because they figured, if the woman can live with Mickey Rourke, she can manage a little 8000-year-old devil woman.

“And, oh yeah, one more thing. Lilith plans to turn the whole world into sex-crazed zombies by posing for the cover of Siren, a high fashion magazine, and putting a lot of subliminal messages in there like ‘Have sex with the cleaning lady today.’ Unfortunately, in order to do that, she has to have crazed devil sex with the editor of Siren, Karen Black, and the way she does it is . . . no, if I talk about it now, I’ll NEVER be able to forget it. A VERY scary movie.

“Twelve breasts, including two that can talk. Seven dead bodies. Throat slitting. Spike impalement. Devil-goddess disco dancing. Tormenting midget. Tire tool through the leg. Claw through the heart. One fireball. One slime woman. Aardvarking. Gratuitous Karen Black. Kung Fu. Lee Press-on Fu. Birthstone Fu. Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Isa Andersen (when they say this woman will break your heart, they mean she’ll BREAK YOUR HEART); Debra Feuer, as the good girl, for saying ‘I’m sorry–I think the wine is getting to me’; Linden Ashby, as the magazine editor, for saying ‘The world needs beauty, desperately’; and Dominique Othenin-Girard, the director–not bad for a French guy.

“Four stars. Joe Bob says check it out.”

Chris Parry, eFilmCritic.com: “Night Angel is somewhat of a rare bird; it’s a titty flick, sure, but it’s also a pretty frightening scary movie and not nearly as hard to watch in the acting department as 99.9% of the genre. If all you needed for an Oscar was good effects, this would be a contender.

“Truth be told, this is a really well-made flick. The premise is ridiculous, but the professionalism that’s gone into putting it together would at many stages rival that of Hollywood. There’s plenty of demons, gore, cadavers and scares, a helping handful of nudie scenes to keep things light and a surprising amount of truly horrific imagery.

“Night Angel has enough action, enough skin and enough effects work in it to keep most people very much entertained. Heck, any flick with credits listed for ‘llama wrangler’ and ‘woman with faces under breasts’ just has to be worth watching, right?”

“Jareprime” in HorrorWatch: “Lilith begins to seduce all who gaze upon her in her quest for world domination. With her thirst for the blood of young men far from quenched, Lilith does the only thing she knows how to do. She takes over a fashion magazine in order to plunge the world into darkness. There is ample skin showed in many bed-hopping scenes.

“I love Karen Black. In each movie she just seems to bring something out of herself that makes her screen time enjoyable to watch. I do however think she is as goofy as a pet coon.”

Richard Scheib, Moria (The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review): “This mixture of horror and erotica received some good reviews in genre publications. And Swiss director Dominique Othenin-Girard was briefly hailed as a name to watch.

“Othenin-Girard creates some worthwhile images, such as photos that come to life and beckon and Lilith’s appearance to hero Linden Ashby spitting a snake out of her mouth. The best sequence is a trip into Hell, filled with sweaty rutting bodies, people kissing who turn to reveal their faces stuck together, a woman who lifts her breasts to reveal they are living heads, severed heads kissing and so on. Andersen makes a fairly sizzling presence.”

Mr. Satanism’s Video Picks for Perverts: “There’s a guy impaled by a giant spring (after he falls down an elevator shaft); a nerd who gets his knee cut off, and later gets stabbed right through his cast (tough break, Ace); leeches shooting out of the evil chick’s mouth; tits with faces on them; hearts ripped out; nudity; a crazy mob; and a big goofy monster at the end, so it’s worth a look.”

Major Cast and Crew Credits and Awards:
Directed by Dominique Othenin-Girard (Halloween 5, The Omen IV: The Awakening, Beyond Desire, Der Venusm�rder; nominated for two German awards for After Darkness and Die Heilige Hure).

Written by Joe Augustyn (Exit, Night of the Demons, Night of the Demons 2) and Walter Josten (Pucker Up and Bark Like a Dog).

Starring Isa Andersen (Real Men, The Wrong Guys, Verbotene Liebe); Linden Ashby (Mortal Kombat, Wyatt Earp, Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, Melrose Place; nominated for Soap Opera Digest’s 2005
Favorite Villain Award for The Young and the Restless); Karen Black (Easy Rider, House of 1000 Corpses, Capricorn One, Family Plot, You’re A Big Boy Now; Oscar nom for Five Easy Pieces; 11 awards and two other nominations for works including The Day of the Locust, The Great Gatsby, Nashville and Burnt Offerings; 65 other films and TV projects) and Roscoe Lee Browne (Babe, Logan’s Run, Topaz, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Cisco Pike, Black Like Me; three awards and two nominations for works including The Cowboys, The Cosby Show and Barney Miller; 29 other films and TV projects).

Cast includes Debra Feuer (To Live and Die in L.A., Hollywood Knights, Moment by Moment); Helen Martin (Kiss the Girls, Cotton Comes to Harlem, Bulworth, Beverly Hills Cop III, Repo Man, Death Wish); Doug Jones (Three Kings, Adaptation, Batman Returns, Men in Black II, Hellboy), Passionella Cashflow (S�rie noire); Patricia Bando Josten (Pucker Up and Bark Like a Dog) and Gary Hudson (Two for the Money, Road House, After Alice).

Executive Producer: Walter Josten (Around the World in 80 Days, Shergar, Silver Wolf; Emmy for The Incredible Mrs. Ritchie; 29 other films and TV projects).

Producers: Jeff Geoffray (Around the World in 80 Days, Shergar, Silver Wolf, Behind the Red Door and 23 other films and TV projects) and Joe Augustyn (Night of the Demons).

Original Music by Cory Lerios (Child’s Play 3, One Crazy Summer, Boiling Point, Beyond the Law; won three ASCAP awards for Baywatch).

Cinematography by David Lewis (UHF, Chairman of the Board, Night of the Demons, Leprechaun 3 and 4, Children of the Corn V).

Film Editing by Jerry Brady (Boiling Point, Halloween 5, The Baltimore Bullet).

Production Design by Ken Aichele (Night of the Demons, Leprechaun 3, Witchboard 2: The Devil’s Doorway).

Costume Design by Renee Johnston (Fun, Down Twisted, Red Shoe Diaries).

Special Makeup and Creature Effects by Steve Johnson (War of the Worlds, Blade II, Eraser, Big Trouble in Little China, An American Werewolf in London, The Fog, Videodrome, Night of the Demons 2; won four awards and six nominations for works including Species, The Shining, Highway to Hell, Freaked, The Outer Limits and The Cat in the Hat).

Visual Effects by Bob Smithson (The Abyss, Darkman).

Additional Makeup Effects: Howard Berger (Pulp Fiction, Scream, Mulholland Drive, Vanilla Sky, From Dusk Till Dawn, Evil Dead II; won Oscar for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; four other awards and six other nominations for works including Sin City, The Hills Have Eyes, Kill Bill Vol. 1, Vampires, Body Bags and Cabin Fever; 57 other films and TV projects); Bob Kurtzman (Pulp Fiction, The Green Mile, Scream, Vanilla Sky, Misery, Boogie Nights; two awards and three other nominations for Wishmaster, Body Bags, Vampires, State of Emergency and Cabin Fever; 44 other films and TV projects) and Greg Nicotero (Minority Report, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill Vol. 2, Phantoms, Cursed, Spawn, Spy Kids; won Emmy for Dune; won five other awards and seven other nominations for works including The Hills Have Eyes, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Land of the Dead, Sin City and Kill Bill Vol. 1).

Release Data:
U.S. premiere in 1989. German video debut was June 13, 1991, with the title “Night Angel – Die Hure des Satans.”
Links:
Internet Database entry for Night Angel