Girls Nite Out is a 1982 American slasher film directed by Robert Deubel, and starring Julia Montgomery, Suzanne Barnes, Rutanya Alda, Lauren-Marie Taylor, and Hal Holbrook. It focuses on a group of female college students who are targeted by a killer in a bear mascot costume during an all-night scavenger hunt on their Ohio campus.

The film was developed by Anthony N. Gurvis and Kevin Kurgis, two law firm partners in Columbus, Ohio, who completed a screenplay originally titled Blood Games in 1979. After securing Holbrook to appear in the film, principal photography was scheduled to begin on the campus of Denison University in the summer of 1980, but approval to film there was subsequently revoked. Gurvis and Kurgis then decided to relocate the production to New York, where the remainder of casting took place. The film was shot on location at Upsala College in East Orange, New Jersey as well as the Masters School in Dobbs Ferry, New York, over a period of 21 days in early 1982.

Girls Nite Out first received a test market theatrical release in the southern United States on December 3, 1982 under the title The Scaremaker through Samuel M. Sherman's distribution company Independent International Pictures. After the test market release failed to generate significant box office returns, Kurgis formed his own distribution company, Aries International, through which the film was given an expanded released under the better-known Girls Nite Out title. It received largely unfavorable reviews from critics, many of whom derided the film for its incorporation of humor contrasting against its violent content, as well as its expansive ensemble of characters.

Plot At Weston Hills Sanitarium in rural Ohio, psychiatric patient Dickie Cavanaugh commits suicide by hanging himself. 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.

Meanwhile, at nearby DeWitt University, the basketball team wins a championship game, and as a result, 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 campus 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 Patty 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 Patty 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 enters the girls' locker room and locates the first item of the hunt, only to be attacked from behind by the killer, who brutally slashes her throat while calling her misogynistic slurs. Shortly after, Kathy discovers Jane's body crudely strung up in the locker room showers. Kathy tries to flee before also having her throat slashed. 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. Sheila goes down to the pond to search for another item and runs into the bear-clad killer, whom she believes to be Benson. Teasing him, she goes into an abandoned shed by the pond. While inside the shed, the killer smashes their hand through the window, slashing Sheila's throat.

Meanwhile, Lynn continues searching for items on the scavenger hunt, while Teddy visits Dawn at her apartment, where the two have sex. 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 Bud Remington, 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.

While walking home, Dawn senses that someone is following her and has a panic attack. She uses a payphone outside the student union to call Teddy's house, where he is consoling Lynn. The phone call is incomprehensible, and ends with Dawn screaming, followed by a gruff voice invoking Teddy to "come and get her." Lynn calls the police while Teddy flees to the student union. Once there, he finds Dawn bloody and wounded in the cafeteria. As Teddy is comforting her, he is stabbed by Barney, who reveals herself as the killer. Officer MacVey enters the cafeteria and confronts Barney, whom he addresses as Dickie's twin sister, Katie Cavanaugh. Katie, apparently suffering from dissociative identity disorder, responds to MacVey in alternating voices, claiming to be Dickie. After MacVey tells Katie that Dickie is dead, she reverts, and calmly tells him that Dickie is not dead, and that she brought him home from the hospital. She opens the freezer, displaying Dickie's frozen body clothed in a wheelchair and with the bear-claw weapon in his hand.

Cast

Production Development Executive producers Anthony N. Gurvis and Kevin Kurgis, two law firm partners in Columbus, Ohio, had aspired to break into the film business, developing a horror film screenplay titled Blood Games in 1979. After approaching a film professor at their alma mater, Denison University, they received approval to shoot the film on location at the university. Kurgis then approached actor Hal Holbrook after one of his Mark Twain Tonight! one-man shows at Columbus's Mershon Auditorium, leaving the film's screenplay for Holbrook with the hope that he would accept a role in the film. Holbrook, who had recently completed John Carpenter's The Fog (1980), obliged, and the producers also gave Holbrook's son, David, a part in the film. Filming was scheduled to begin on the Denison University campus in the summer of 1980, but was stalled after a trustee at the university objected to the production, after which their approval was ultimately withdrawn.

The film's title was subsequently altered from Blood Games to The Fatal Clue, after which Gurvis and Kurgis partnered with Concepts Unlimited, an entertainment firm and production house in New York. Robert Deubel, an associate of Concepts Unlimited, was then enlisted as director.

Casting

With Hal Holbrook already cast in the film, the production began casting its younger performers out of New York City. Julia Montgomery, a series regular on the soap opera One Life to Live was given a lead role as Lynn Connors. Rutanya Alda was cast in the small but central role of Barney, the cafeteria server, and Alda's husband Richard Bright was given a minor part as Detective Greenspan.

Several of the younger actors cast in the ensemble already had experience appearing in other regional horror films: Carrick Glen had recently completed The Burning (1981); James Carroll had appeared in He Knows You're Alone (1980); and Suzanne Barnes had a supporting role in The Children (1980). Lauren-Marie Taylor, who was cast in a main supporting role as Sheila Robinson, had previously had a supporting role in Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), and at the time of her casting, had just finished wrapping the comedy Neighbors (1981). Taylor met castmate John Didrichsen while shooting Girls Nite Out, and the couple were married the year after filming completed.

Filming

Girls Nite Out was shot in early 1982 at the Masters School in Dobbs Ferry, New York, and at Upsala College in East Orange, New Jersey, on a budget of less than $1 million. Principal photography lasted 21 days. Director Robert Deubel had previously worked as a documentarian.

According to actress Rutanya Alda, her shooting schedule only lasted three days, and most of her scenes were shot in one to two takes. Because the film was shot on operating campuses, the filmmakers were forced to shoot over weekends; the shoots began on a Friday and concluded on a Sunday, meaning the cast and crew had to work for twenty-four-hour intervals. Alda stated that the final shot of the film in which Dickie's corpse is revealed freezer (which Alda herself played) was shot after the principal shoot. In a 2013 interview, Alda claimed that the producers of the film still owed her $5,000 for her work that they never paid her for.

Post-production After principal photography was completed, producers Gurvis and Kurgis sold distribution rights to the film to Independent International Pictures, a company that specialized in grindhouse, exploitation, and B-horror films. Samuel M. Sherman, the head of the company, requested that the filmmakers change the title from The Last Clue to The Scaremaker, as well as incorporate additional horror elements into the film's first act, as there was no onscreen violence until approximately midway through the film. At Sherman's suggestion, additional footage of the gravediggers being killed while digging Dickie Cavanaugh's gravesite was filmed at night in Central Park. Sherman recalled: "I don't remember if I had anything to do with the writing and planning of these new scenes... I went there one night. It was pretty dark, the area they had chosen, and the crew was digging up a big section of ground... I don't know if the city approved that or not, but they dug it up anyway!"

Soundtrack Though an official soundtrack was never released, the film exclusively features various oldies and doo-wop hits:

"Summer in the City" by The Lovin' Spoonful "Do You Believe in Magic by The Lovin' Spoonful "You Didn't Have to Be So Nice" by The Lovin' Spoonful "Didn't Wanna Have to Do It" by The Lovin' Spoonful "Yummy Yummy Yummy by Ohio Express "Quick Joey Small (Run Joey Run)" by Kasenetz-Katz Singing Orchestral Circus "Indian Giver" by 1910 Fruit Gum Company "1, 2, 3, Red Light" by 1910 Fruit Gum Company "Down at Lulu's" by Ohio Express "Hanky Panky" by Tommy James and the Shondells "Do Something to Me" by Tommy James and the Shondells "I'm Alive" by Tommy James and the Shondells "Darling, How Long" by The Heartbeats "Judy in Disguise" by John Fred and His Playboy Band

Release The film first received a test market theatrical release through Clark Releasing under the title The Scaremaker on December 3, 1982 at 35 theaters and drive-ins in southern United States. Among the cities in which it showed include Little Rock and Jonesboro, Arkansas, as well as Memphis and Jackson, Tennessee; and Clarksville, Mississippi. The film continued to screen regionally under this title through early 1983, as a double bill with Blood Beach.