NIGHT TERROR [1977]

 OBJECTS IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR ARE OUT TO KILL RHODA! 

C'mon, the seventies were the greatest era for made-for-TV horror flicks!  Here's one of them.  Sort of a poor man's DUEL, NIGHT TERROR aka NIGHT DRIVE (not sure which title I prefer . . . probably the latter) stars Valerie Harper as Carol Turney, a mom whose plans for a family vacation go tits up when first her husband has to meet up with her later because of work and then her 7 year old son is hospitalized while she is stuck in a motel in Phoenix, Arizona.  She must drive alone the route from Phoenix to Denver where her son is in the hospital.  With her gas tank on 'E', she is constantly thwarted from filling her tank.  At night on the highway, a car speeds past her in the right-hand lane and a patrol car pulls the car over. 

Pulling up alongside the stopped cars, Carol (ugh, that name!!!) Turney tries to ask the policeman where the nearest gas station is when the patrolman is gunned down by the man in the pulled-over car firing a shotgun.  Turns out the man is some sort of contract killer who we've seen earlier in the film (played nicely by Richard Romanus with a nasty scar down his throat who can only speak with a, electronic vocalizer.  Now, the movie chase is on as the killer chases Rhoda as the only witness to the murder.

As I say, the Spielberg TV blockbuster DUEL will immediately come to mind but this is nowhere near the callibre of that earlier film.    What we have here is something like a DUEL-lite.  But frankly, there isn't any point in comparing NIGHT TERROR with DUEL (one of the greatest made-for-TV movies ever made!) since NIGHT TERROR is not a carbon copy of the earlier film.  My little synopsis up there should show that NIGHT TERROR is quite a bit different and, on it's own merits, is a fine TV thriller.  Valerie Harper is perfectly fine as our beleaguered lead but, while she is frazzled and panicked throughout, she doesn't seem to convey a real sense of peril; at least until around the final reel when she starts to show some gumption.  Richard Romanus has that kind of face which probably condemns him to bad guy roles and here he's appropriately cool and reptilian as the evil killer determined to hunt down and kill the only witness to his murder.  Everyone else in the film is kinda just there except for a nice (if small) turn by John Quade as a homeless man.  ANd I particularly like the final scene in which Harper has a good laugh at her condescending husband!  While no masterpiece, NIGHT TERROR is definitely worth your time.