The first feature directed by New Orleans-born Joy Newton Houck, Jr., son of Howco International Pictures (Ed Wood's Jailbait) founder and theater-chain owner Joy N. Houck, Sr., the derivative Night Of Bloody Horror shamelessly flaunts its influences - Hitchcock's Psycho and the bargain basement oeuvre of H.G. Lewis, to name two - while struggling to achieve its ambitions with a poverty row budget. Future television star Gerald McRaney (HBO's Deadwood) is Wesley, a mentally damaged young man with a tragic back-story that is gradually revealed as the blood-soaked body count rises. McRaney's co-stars include Houck team player Evelyn Hendrix (Women and Bloody Terror) as his angst-ridden mother, Charlotte White from the nutty 2069 A.D., Nick Krieger from Brian De Palma's Obsession, and character actor Michael Anthony (Curtis Harrington's Mata Hari). Highlights include a grisly Catholic confessional, a memorably disturbing dream sequence, and the pervasive grimy Garden District atmosphere. Aside from the cribbed library score there's a musical appearance by short-lived New Orleans-based psych band The Bored, whose other big moment was opening for Steppenwolf that same year. Houck, Jr.'s penultimate film was the 1976 "Bigfoot" saga Creature From Black Lake.
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