Girls Nite Out

Plot

At Weston Hills Sanitarium, Dickie Cavanaugh is found hanging in his cell. Cavanaugh's sister gives permission to two gravediggers to bury the body. While the two men are digging the hole for Cavanaugh's body, they are attacked and murdered by an unseen killer who throws their corpses into the burial plot and buries them.

At DeWitt University, the basketball team won a championship game, and an all-night scavenger hunt will take place the next evening for the female students. Lynn and her boyfriend-star player Teddy Ratliff celebrate the victory at the diner, and the waitress Barney is thrilled for the team. Lynn, Teddy, and other students attend a party that evening, where the story of Dickie circulates among freshmen who are unaware of his recent death; they are told that Cavanaugh murdered his girlfriend Penny in a jealous rage and is locked away in the sanitarium. Lynn becomes jealous over Teddy's attraction to Dawn Sorenson and misfit Mike Pryor gets into a fight with his girlfriend Sheila. Soon, school mascot Michael Benson is stabbed in his dorm room after arriving back from the party, and his bear mascot costume is stolen by the killer.

The following day, Mike Pryor is questioned by campus security officer Jim MacVey over the fight with his girlfriend; MacVey's daughter Penny was Dickie Cavanaugh's girlfriend. Later that evening, the campus radio DJ broadcasts the clues to the scavenger hunt, which are received by the girls on their portable radios. Meanwhile, the killer who is dressed in the bear costume, is armed with serrated knives mimicking bear claws.

Jane is brutally killed in the girls' locker room after finding the first item of the hunt, and her body is tied up in the showers. Her friend Kathy discovers her body and tries to run before getting murdered by the killer. The DJ at the radio station begins receiving phone calls from the killer, who tallies his victims; the killer also calls officer MacVey and claims to be Dickie Cavanaugh before hanging up. Sheila goes down to the pond to search for another item and runs into the bear-clad killer, whom she believes to Benson. Teasing the killer, she goes into a shed by the pond and she is murdered by the window. Lynn is searching for items on the scavenger hunt and Teddy has sex with Dawn. Lynn's friend Leslie goes to search for an item in the attic of the old chapel, where she is murdered and her body is discovered by Lynn. After calling, the police arrive and find all of the bodies, where they are suspicious of Mike Pryor and question several of the students. Dawn gets into an argument with her boyfriend, who kicks her out of their house after he tells her he knows about her affair with Teddy. Officer MacVey studies the phone calls placed to the radio station as well as files and photographs of Dickie Cavanaugh, whose death he became aware of by Dickie's doctor.

Dawn senses that someone is following her and she makes a call from the cafeteria phone to Teddy's house, where he is consoling Lynn. Teddy leaves Lynn to get Dawn, and finds her bloodily wounded in the cafeteria. As Teddy is comforting her, he is then stabbed by the Barney, who was the killer all along. Officer MacVey enters the cafeteria and confronts her, who he addresses as Dickie's twin sister named Katie Cavanaugh. She suffers from multiple personalities (with her speaking in different voices) and claims to be Dickie. After MacVey tells Katie that Dickie had committed suicide, she calmly tells him that he Dickie isn't dead and that he brought him from the hospital. The film ends with her opening a freezer door, showing Dickie's frozen body clothed in a wheelchair and having the bear-claw weapon in his hand.

Cast

Music

The film soundtrack is composed of several oldies hits by The Lovin' Spoonful, 1910 Fruitgum Co., John Fred & The Playboy Band and others.

Critical reception

Critical reception for Girls Nite Out upon its initial release were not very positive. In Variety's review of the film, it was described as "a routine slasher picture, offering little entertainment..."

Retrospective reviews haven't been much more favorable. Online movie guide Allmovie wrote "Girls Nite Out might be one of the most forgettable of the early '80s slashers", calling it "dull" and "routine".