Fire in the Night (1985) User Reviews (4)

Fire In the Night is low-budget, independent filmmaking, warts and all. And there's a lot to appreciate about that.

[tarbosh22000 · 5/10 · 22 February 2024]

Terry Collins (Casillas) is a small-town girl who works at the local diner. Her problem is that professional jerk Mike Swanson (St. Esprit) is constantly harassing her. The Swanson family "owns the town" and Mike does what he pleases without consequences - until Terry finally decides she's had enough.

The two make a bet, that Terry can throw Mike into the water at the waterfront. If she wins, the tyranny of the Swanson family may finally end. God help us all if Mike wins the contest. He arrogantly doesn't take Terry all that seriously. Naturally, the first thing the Collins family does is go to the International School of Folk Dance. They try to enlist the help of Manolo Calba (Zano) for Terry's training. Of course, he initially says no but eventually agrees. The stage is now set for the ultimate showdown: Terry vs. Mike. Who will get thrown in the water? That just may be the most important question you've ever asked yourself...

Fire In The Night has been described as "a low-budget Karate Kid", and that's not too terribly far off the mark. Perhaps the filmmakers thought they would confuse viewers (and avoid lawsuits) if the trainer was of Philippine origin and the student was a woman. In any case, the film is filled with rough-hewn charm. It's very 1985, and Casillas's line readings are wonderfully flat and carry a lot of the entertainment value here.

Burt Ward is here for a few brief minutes. He appears to be the head of some sort of Karate academy, but wouldn't his best advice be to use Shark Spray on the baddies? We liked that Terry's parents want her to get her revenge and are fully a part of her going to get trained to potentially kill someone. You don't usually see that level of parental consent. Patrick St. Esprit comes close to stealing the show as Mike, the guy who is a total jerkass 100% of the time, all the time. We hate to keep using the word "jerk" to describe him, but really Mike Swanson is the picture-perfect, dictionary definition of what a jerk can, should, and, dare we say, must be. St. Esprit does it well, anyway.

Okay, those are all the positives. In the negative column, there is a definite slowness to the movie, especially around the midway point where there is a dance recital (there's a surprising amount of "folk dancing" in Fire in the Night). It's then that an already slow film almost just stops in its tracks. Director John Steven Soet, who had previously directed a rare film called Skirmish (1981), and has directed nothing since FITN, evidently had some experience and cred in the Martial Arts community, which is a bit surprising considering how little forward drive, intensity, or energy FITN actually contains.

However, though, the charms of Fire In the Night do outweigh its faults (in this case, the charms ARE the faults, or perhaps the faults are the charms). It's best to see this if you're in an especially charitable mood. If you are, the overall stiffness, and things such as blows not coming anywhere near their target, people that look like they are in their 40's playing characters that are supposed to be in their 20's, boom-mike shadows, and the like, will seem delightful rather than amateurish.

Fire In the Night is low-budget, independent filmmaking, warts and all. And there's a lot to appreciate about that.

Worthwhile but sadly not that good.

[freydis-e · 4/10 · 28 June 2008]

It's a familiar story: when her family is threatened by a martial arts expert and bully twice her size, Terry (Graciela Casillas) heads straight to the local kali (Philippine martial arts) master (does every American town have one?) who claims to know nothing about fighting, but has an endless supply of sage one-liners. And the rest is history.

This movie is full of worthwhile messages about women empowering themselves without losing their femininity, and it gives some interesting background on Philippine history and culture. The folk-dance scenes are particularly good. Ms. Casillas is a martial arts great, a multiple world champion and black belt, who has devoted much of her life to helping women and teaching martial arts and self-defence in an American University. Anything she does deserves respect and she is also expert in the fighting techniques used here - the scenes of her training sessions are also excellent.

Sadly though this is not a brilliant movie. Casillas was hired as martial arts trainer, then offered the lead role when the original actress was fired. She had never been trained to act and got little support from the novice director (no surprise he never directed again). The film plays like Karate Kid with a woman instead of a kid, supported by a bunch of wooden TV actors and bit players. Despite Casillas' obvious skills, even the fight scenes aren't great - short, scrappy and never competitive enough to be exciting. The plot is simple and obvious, the direction clumsy, there are plenty of sound booms in shot and the dialog is corny and predictable throughout.

Watch this, if you get the chance, for the beautiful, formidable and entirely admirable Ms Casillas alone. But it's a shame such worthwhile messages were presented so poorly.

Embarrassing martial arts pic

[lor_ · 9 March 2023]

My review was written in May 1986 after a Cannes Film Festival Market screening.

"Fire in the Night" (a pointless title) is an amateurish feature that unconvincingly tries to pull a gender switch on "The Karate Kid". Commercial prospects are poor.

Musclebound Graciela Casillas toplines as Terry Collins, a young college girl in a small California town dominated by the rich Swanson family. When not terrorizing people randomly, young Mike Swanson (Patrick St. Esprit) keeps hitting on virginal Terry to bed him and wed him. This culminates in a near-rape, when Terry is saved by a newly arrived old army (former) buddy Jason Williams (topbilled John Martin). Mike also is putting pressure (through his dad) on Terry's father, threatening to foreclose on the mortgage on his business.

Terry hits on the absurd idea of challenging Mike to a martial arts contest. Even less credible is the presence in town of a Filipino cement contractor and folk dance teacher Manolo (Muni Zano), who reluctantly agreed to teach Terry the secrets of Filipino martial arts in the six weeks before the coed contest. He also hiers her to work at cementing driveways to toughen her up (unfortunately, actress Casillas is an obvious weightlifter with shoulders like Lyle Alzado and thighs to match, destroying the plot premise of her vulnerability).

Of course Terry wins in a very poorly photographed fight finale, and Manolo even makes her a partner in his business.

Preposterous film is acted poorly to boot, with Casillas having trouble reading dialog. Looking like Wings Hauser, St. Espris is a hammy villain. It's hard to believe the filmmakers could keep a straight face cranking out this one.

Best Martial Arts Satire I've Ever Seen

[velvetlightning2003 · 24 March 2004]

This film has recently been re-released and I was finally able to get a copy of it. I'd heard both good and bad and wanted to see it for myself. After watching it, and I must admit it's become one of my favorites, I understand both the positives and the negatives.

The negative is it's probably over a lot of people's heads. It's a very direct and stinging satire of the low-budget martial arts genre and loaded with deliberate attempts to parody bad cinema. There are frequent references through action to other films, and all of the characters are enhanced imitations of martial arts movie stereotypes.

The lead is portrayed by real life kickboxing/boxing champion Graciela Casillas, who also happens to have a killer body. She delivers in the straight, one-expression style of most of the wannabe martial arts stars, then periodically rolls her eyes at the stereotype delivery or suppresses a laugh. In a particularly stinging commentary of the cheapness of martial arts films there is a scene where Casillas is giving a "there's the door" finger point to the local town bully (Patrick St. Esprit). At that moment, a microphone enters the corner of the screen and the direction of her point changes to the encroaching microphone, which quickly withdraws.

I am aware that director John Soet is a martial arts insider, having read his books. Apparently, he is as annoyed as I am by low-budget martial arts films because he is without mercy. For example, one particularly annoying thing about low-budget films in general is the use of cameos in one geographical location -- it's so obvious they paid the person for one day. Soet sprinkles Fire in the Night with intriguing little cameos, such as television and musical star E.J. Peaker as the villain's mom, and Burt Ward (Robin in the old Batman TV show) as a local karate entrepreneur. He also slaughters the obvious stunt doubling annoyance in a scene where the male lead, John Martin, is menaced by a speeding car driven by the A-Team's Terry Ballard. We cut away and cut back to a stunt double who is a completely different physique than Martin who waits, then does a somersault out of the way.

I will say this, and I am a film student so perhaps that colors my judgment. But the final fight scene is literally the most brilliant planned satire I've ever seen. The gags and parodies come so fast I will list them by number.

1. COMBO OF THE OL' "HERO LOOKS LIKE A NO SHOW LAST MINUTE DRAMATIC ENTRANCE/SUPERWOMEN ALWAYS WEAR BLACK SPANDEX." Casillas doesn't show. Suddenly, she emerges over the hill in a skin-tight black spandex outfit to the cheers of the townspeople.

2. THE OL' "WE HAVE TO EXPLAIN WHY SOMEBODY DOESN'T JUST SHOOT THIS GUY." The unanswered question of most martial arts films. So we get that out of the way right away as John Martin pulls a .45 and a group of men rush him and knock the pistol into the water, then he straightens his clothes and he and the men who rushed him go back to watching the fight.

3. THE OL' "HERO IS OVERPOWERED IN THE FIRST ROUND." A very annoying part of MA films is when the hero always seems to be over his/her head. In our send-up, St. Esprit tosses Casillas around like a bean bag, pins her down and plants a kiss on her, and makes her look helpless.

4. THE OL' "PEP TALK FROM THE MASTER." Right on cue, Casillas' martial arts teacher steps in and gives her a few words of encouragement.

5. THE OL' "THAT'S ALL I CAN STANDS 'CAUSE I CAN'T STANDS NO MORE." Right on cue, Casillas apparently gulped down the spinach when nobody was looking. She rushes in, muscles bulging, and St. Esprit is like a rag down in her hands. She takes him out like nothing.

6. THE OL' "VILLAIN LOOKS LIKE HE'S TOAST BUT HE'S REALLY NOT." While everyone's congratulating Casillas, St. Esprit stealthily sneaks over and draws a Chinese sword, conveniently lying on the ground.

7. THE OL' "RAMBO HEADBAND." I kid you not. Casillas ties on a red headband while flexing her biceps (much prettier than Stallone's).

8. THE OL' "STAND THERE AND LET ME HIT YOU." The SINGLE most annoying thing about martial arts films. When it's time for the coup de grace, the villain just stands there and the hero pulverizes him. Casillas runs St. Esprit to the end of the dock, disarms him, then he comes to attention and stands there as she delivers a spinning, jumping crescent kick and dumps him in the drink.

9. THE OL' "MANDATORY BUTT SHOT." Immediately after kicking St. Esprit into the river, Casillas, in ultra tight spandex, deliberate turns her J-Lo buns to the camera.

10. THE OL' "REPEAT THE COOL LINE." Earlier in the story, when her instructor tries to teach her knife fighting, Casillas murmurs "I don't like knives." Now, having knocked St. Esprit in the river after he attacked her with an oversized sword, to herself -- yeah, you guessed it -- "I don't like knives."

Getting into the spirit of this movies satire, I'll close by saying it pulls no punches.