Perhaps other decades produced as many horror flicks as the 1980s, but that period sure does feel like a bottomless pit of genre efforts. For another in this seemingly endless line, we go to 1982’s Girls Nite Out.

Set at DeWitt University, the students gear up for a fun scavenger hunt. However, a lunatic entertains other ideas.

Dressed in the school’s bear mascot costume, an anonymous maniac slashes across campus and leaves a bloody trail of death along the way. Campus security officer Jim MacVey (Hal Holbrook) works to find the culprit and stop this murderous rampage.

Apparently Nite originally saw release as The Scaremaker. A terrible title if ever I heard one, that moniker can’t have helped the film.

Not that Girls Nite Out actually makes much sense either. It implies a bunch of young ladies on the prowl, whereas the final film doesn’t focus on females to the degree we would expect.

Whatever the case, no title could save Nite. An incoherent mess, the movie seems shoddy even by the low standards of 1980s slasher flicks.

Elsewhere on this disc, we get an audio commentary that treats the film as a well-made effort. I can’t help but wonder if those participants saw a different movie, as I can’t find anything particularly positive about Nite.

Some tout the ways the film spans genres as a strength. Whereas most slasher flicks stay stuck in that domain, Nite shows the influence of 1978’s Animal House and delves into comedy.

Sort of. Whereas the movie’s first half does lean toward lighter fare and only sporadically engages the horror side of things, I don’t know if the term “comedy” should apply to what we find here.

Nite does offer an oddly bifurcated tale, with that “comedic” opening segment and then the more traditional slasher material for the rest of the project. This split could work if created by talented filmmakers, but instead, these two parts never cohere.

These segments really do fail to link in a positive way. The opening half just feels random and rambling, and then the violence almost comes out of nowhere.

Not totally, I admit, as the first section does set up the horror to come. We get a few killings through the initial half.

Nonetheless, the majority of the movie’s initial salvo does focus on attempted laughs, romance and melodrama. In theory, these scenes set up the characters and allow us to invest in their fates.

Except Nite explores the roles and themes in such a clunky manner that none of it sticks. We simply watch some random interactions that serve no real informational purpose – you’ll be lucky to remember the characters’ names, much less anything about them.

Perhaps if this mix of melodrama and comedy mustered anything interesting, it would fare better. Unfortunately, all of it just seems like rambling filler as we await the eventual slaughter.

Once that part of the film finally arrives, it does nothing to elevate the end product. The entire “scavenger hunt” theme seems like a flimsy excuse to send the characters off into small groups or solo, and it doesn’t connect to the plot in a logical manner.

The second half does allow us to concentrate on the “girls” of Girls Nite Out. As I alluded earlier, the movie spends a lot more time with men than the title would imply, as males semi-dominate the opening half.

The slasher portions almost entirely focus on women, though, as the guys disappear. This could make sense, as the first half sets up potential killers and the second half’s avoidance of men allows us to engage in more speculation about the maniac’s identity than might occur if the boys filled the screen.

Again, these theoretical positives rely on the presence of competent filmmakers, which Nite lacks. Nothing about the movie connects in a logical manner, so scenes bounce off each other without clarity or purpose.

Nite seems bizarrely plotted and paced. It mixes random “college kids at play” scenes interspersed with out of nowhere jabs at scares.

All of this leads inexorably toward the “surprise” ending. While Nite wants to evoke Psycho, instead it feels more reminiscent of the amateurish cheese of Sleepaway Camp.

With a little more purpose and professionalism, Nite might’ve become a watchable slice of 80s slasher horror. Unfortunately, the end result feels tacky and dull.

Girls Nite Out appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. A disclaimer at the film’s start warns us that despite best efforts, the end product will come with flaws – and they don’t lie.

Print concerns became the most obvious problem, mainly in the form of thin lines, though we got specks and scratches as well. These didn’t overwhelm, but that created a lot of distraction.

Sharpness seemed adequate. While the movie lacked particularly great accuracy, it still came across as fairly well-defined.

No issues with jaggies or shimmering materialized, and I saw no signs of edge haloes. Grain felt natural, so I didn’t suspect any overuse of noise reduction.

In terms of colors, the film opted for a natural palette. Unfortunately, the tones tended to seem somewhat dull and flat. At times the hues fared better, but they lacked much vivacity.

Blacks were a little muddy, while shadows seemed somewhat thick. I suspect that the Blu-ray reproduced the source fairly accurately, but this still ended up as a somewhat unattractive presentation.

As for the film’s LPCM monaural soundtrack, it also seemed bland. Speech came across as intelligible but stiff and a little muted.

Effects lacked much distortion but they also failed to display a lot of range and seemed bland. Music completed the trifecta, as the score and songs suffered from limited dimensionality. Even given the movie’s age and budget, the audio was adequate, but the track still seemed blah.

We get a mix of extras here, and these open with an audio commentary from film critic Justin Kerswell and film historian Amanda Reyes. Both sit together for this running, screen-specific look at the slasher genre, cast and crew, thoughts about the film and some general production notes.

As I note in the body of my review, a lot of the commentary focuses on the alleged high quality of Nite, especially from Reyes, as she really seems to view this as a fine piece of cinema. I think too much of the chat goes down this path, but Reyes and Kerswell offer a decent array of notes about the movie.

These make the track moderately informative, even if we find some odd gaffes – again, mainly from Reyes, who seems to think the 1982 Richard Pryor/Jackie Gleason clunker The Toy was a porn film! This mix of good and bad leads to an inconsistent commentary.

Some featurettes follow, and Staying Alive offers an interview with actor Julia Montgomery. It goes for 19 minutes, 25 seconds and includes Montgomery’s thoughts about her career and the Nite production. The manic Montgomery might want to cut back on caffeine, but she gives us a good look at her experiences.

A Savage Mauling spans 15 minutes, 30 seconds and features actor Laura Summers. She talks about the shoot of Nite and gives us a decent array of insights.

Next comes Alone in the Dark, an eight-minute, 44-second chat with actor Lois Robbins as she tells us about her career and Nite. She gives us a good perspective.

It Was a Party! runs 20 minutes, 55 seconds and features actor Paul Christie. He talks about what brought him to movies as well as his time on Nite.

Christie offers a nice collection of notes, but the setting proves distracting. Recorded outside, Christie appears to sit in an aviary, so expect constant chirping from birds throughout the session.

After this comes Love and Death, a 16-minute, 56-second program with actors Lauren-Marie Taylor and John Didrichsen. Both sit together and discuss their relationship as well as their work on the movie. They offer plenty of entertaining memories.

An Archival Interview goes for six minutes, 45 seconds and features older notes from Montgomery. Apparently shot for a DVD, she gives us more thoughts about her experiences and makes this a decent addition.

In addition to two trailers, we get the movie’s Original Title Card. It runs a mere 23 seconds and simply shows Scaremaker as the title instead of Girls Nite Out.

Although I expect little from low-budget 1980s horror, Girls Nite Out fails to live up to even the most modest hopes. Silly, sluggish and incoherent, the movie never connects in a positive manner. The Blu-ray brings lackluster picture and audio as well as a mix of bonus features. Leave this one to 80s slasher completists.