The Last Night (1982) was made by Michael J. Murphy as part of a direct-to-video double bill with Invitation To Hell (1982). Both films were produced by Murphy for very little money so Murphy’s resourcefulness and sense of narrative economy are on full display here. But of these two films The Last Night is the more effective and complex feature.
The Last Night opens on the closing night of the play “Murder In The Dark”. As cast and crew prepare for their ultimate performance a radio broadcast is heard warning that two homicidal maniacs have escaped from a nearby prison. The maniacs take refuge in the theater and take the cast and crew hostage. But the play must go on even as bodies begin to pile up because the killers have to be rid of the audience.
Murphy is wholly invested in the juxtaposing aesthetics of theater and film. The naturalism of the backstage drama mirrors the broad performances on stage. Murphy cuts from a stage death to a “real” death in order to draw an obvious comparison between modes of performing. To that end the audience is mostly symbolized by the bright spotlight out in the void gazing at the stage. Like the viewers of the film, the theater audience is helpless to save anyone nor would we or they wish to because we have all come to The Last Night for murder and mayhem.
The Last Night moves at a quick pace, never stopping to revel in the kills or pausing long enough for the plot of “Murder In The Dark” to make sense. Murphy stages The Last Night as a quick succession of shocking set pieces be they backstage or on stage. The rapidity of the deaths in The Last Night only ever pause long enough for the spectator to consider their complicity in the spectacle.
Unlike Murphy’s fantasy films The Last Night is an ensemble immersed in British realism. Murphy’s interest in the craft of performance which has so often been the subtext of his work is the text of The Last Night. The cast essentially give two performances, each more gruesome and bloody than the last. For Murphy the success of a performance becomes entangled with death. Performances are measured in The Last Night by how convincingly an actor dies on stage and on screen.
The reflexive nature of The Last Night is reminiscent of Brian De Palma’s films both in content and operation. But where De Palma explores his themes of voyeurism and complicity at length, Murphy is forced to condense his meditations into a pulpy mix of horror and melodrama. That Murphy’s film is successful at all is a testament to the filmmaker’s artistry and resourcefulness.
