By Robert Scucci
| Published 1 minute ago
1987’s Night Vision is one of those movies that feels so familiar even if you’ve never seen it before. It plays out like one of those cheesy horror flicks you stumble into at three in the morning after falling asleep to something else, the kind where you wake up unsure if it’s even real. You try to explain it to friends the next day, only for them to insist you dreamed the whole thing up because it sounds too stupid to exist.
That’s honestly the best way to describe Night Vision, and probably the best mindset to have going into watching it. It’s a low budget supernatural horror that feels made for TV and plays out like a fever dream, very much in line with the stranger corners of Tubi where movies go to live because no other streaming service seems brave enough to host them. If the idea of a haunted VCR that predicts the future, along with implied Satanic rituals made possible by whatever tape you slide into it, sounds appealing, then you’re in luck because Night Vision is built entirely around that exact premise.
A Struggling Writer And His Haunted VCR
Night Vision tells the story of Andy Archer (Stacy Carson), a struggling writer from Kansas who moves to the city hoping to make it big. To keep costs down, he pays weekly to live in a rundown motel populated by sex workers and various ne’er do wells, all while hunting for steady work at a local video store. That’s where he meets Jill Davies (Shirley Ross), a wise cracking clerk he quickly develops a romantic attraction to.
While grinding away at what he hopes will be the next great American novel, Andy crosses paths with Vinnie (Tony Carpenter), a low level thief and wannabe mobster. After Andy saves him from getting jumped by a group of thugs, Vinnie shows his appreciation by letting Andy take home a TV and VCR from his apartment, completely unaware that the equipment comes with Satanic baggage attached.
Once Andy brings the setup home, things start to click for him creatively. He begins churning out horror stories at an alarming pace, unaware that the VCR is putting him into trance-like states that cause him to lose track of long stretches of time. When he finally realizes that every story he writes ends up coming true, the horror shifts from abstract to personal, putting Andy, Vinnie, and Jill directly in harm’s way if he can’t figure out how to stop the device from taking over his life.
The Kind Of Cheese You Want To Watch
Loaded with actors I’d never heard of and shot with what looks like whatever affordable portable cameras were available in the mid 80s, Night Vision is an easy watch largely because it fully embraces its low budget aesthetic. There aren’t many special effects, but there’s just enough to sell the idea. Television screens bleed, static spills into rooms, and most of the Satanic rituals that push Andy over the edge play out on a screen within the screen, usually surrounded by an excessive number of candles for added menace.
Andy’s slow descent into madness is also genuinely fun to watch because he’s so laser focused on becoming a writer that he’s completely oblivious to the obvious warning signs piling up around him until it’s far too late. Think of Night Vision as a broke college student’s version of Videodrome and you’ll know exactly what you’re getting into. It’s rough around the edges, sure, but the idea is solid, and if you’re in the right state of mind (read: half asleep on the couch) there’s a lot of fun to be had here.
Like most great B-movies, Night Vision is currently streaming for free on Tubi.
