2
(nothing substantial)
6
(strong language, mild sexuality)
1
(so bad it angers me)
After watching some of the awful movies in the “Night Chills” DVD box set I was initially looking forward to seeing "Kiss Daddy Goodnight," something with recognizable names like Uma Thurman and Steve Buscemi. My enthusiasm was misplaced. This movie was just as bad and in some ways worse than some of the ultra-low-budget flicks with people no one has ever heard of in them.
"Kiss Daddy Goodnight" is slow, dull, and unentertaining. And that's not even the worst part! I'll get to why, hang on...
Laura is something of a predator luring men in with sex only to drug and rob them. Now she's being stalked by a seemingly kindly man who thinks she reminds him of his daughter. He has a plan to bring them together. Meanwhile, her friend is searching for an old acquaintance of theirs, Johnny, while crashing temporarily at Laura's apartment.
One of the big problems with the pace is that we spend far too much time with this guy's search for Johnny which comes out feeling completely pointless. With a run time that clocks in at under an hour and a half with all that stuff added in I guess the filmmakers were desperate to pad out some time and couldn't think of a way to do it with the core story. So they added this search subplot to make the story feature-movie length. That might be fine if it felt like it mattered AT ALL.
Laura's predatory nature likewise seems borderline pointless, and her lengthy scenes of dealing with her marks are also likely time padding. They at least are moderately interesting and add some character to someone who is essential to the main storyline which can't be said about the search for Johnny.
The acting is passable particularly from the big name stars though nothing impressive. Steve is unfortunately in very little of the movie so if you're a fan don't get your hopes up. Uma is easily the best of the cast and adds something to the cinematic experience just by being so cute.
The nonstop bad Christmas music gets annoying, but the technical aspects are really what take this movie from bad to hand-over-my-ears awful. The editing is terrible jumping from one extreme style to another in ways that don't work. The shot compositions are terrible often with the worst possible angles imaginable. The video is so dark that it's sometimes hard to see what's going on. The audio mix, though... that is so awful it's almost unbearable. I've seen low budget black-and-white movies from the 40's with poorly restored masters that have better sound quality than this. I literally had to struggle to resist turning off the movie due to the sound giving me a headache.
Morality
The movie is rated R but barely has enough strong language to push it into that category.
There is a little bit of violence but a tame episode of a contemporary crime drama is likely to have more graphic scenes than this.
There are some sexual allusions in conversation. The depicted sexuality amounts to a couple in bed not doing anything and not revealing anything more than the guy's chest. We see some bared breasts in a painting for maybe a second. That’s the closest thing to nudity in the movie. Despite Laura luring her victims with the promise of sex she drugs them before things get steamy.
Spirituality
There is nothing spiritual and even if there had been I probably would have slept through it.
Final Thoughts
Do not concern yourself with this movie unless you are just a die hard Uma Thurman fan. There is nothing worth seeing.
Buying Guide
"Kiss Daddy Goodnight" has so many buying options available that I'm not going to even begin to cover them all. Who's buying these things? Yet here I am writing a guide to help you buy the best one possible. Somebody fetch my straightjacket.
There are numerous stand-alone DVD's available, and at least 4 multi-movie packs (mostly double-features).
Is there a "best one possible?" Not really because I can find no indication that there is any notable difference between any of the editions out there. The ones that do bother to list any specific details all list the exact same thing (the same as what I will detail below). I found no reviews suggesting that there is a good print in existence, and there are no extras to be had anywhere.
The only one I feel worth mentioning is the Drop Dead Gore-geous 4 pack, and only that one because it offers movies that also come in the Night Chills pack. So if you want those 4 and none of the others in the 10 pack, the smaller one may be a better option for you.
Final Recommendation:
Your options to consider are few: if you want this movie by itself I say just go for the cheapest deal you can find because you're probably getting the exact same product in all cases. Otherwise, you might want to grab it up along with some other movies that might or might not make you slightly less regretful of spending your money. I didn't see anything I would choose over the Night Chills pack, but I got that one because I wanted some of the other titles included.
The Night Chills 10 pack is 5 double-sided DVD's.
Video
1.33:
This is the TV standard ratio. While I don't know if this is modified from an original widescreen presentation I can say that not one release lists a widescreen ratio for it. The image is so dark and grainy that details can be hard to make out. It's awful.
Audio
2.0 mono:
I've watched movies with bad sound quality before, but I can't think of many that were so bad I almost turned them off as a result. This is one of the worst professionally produced DVD presentations I've ever heard, and that's counting movies that are much, much older.
Packaging
The set has each disc in a multi-tray plastic case. You can read more details about the whole set in the Night Chills (10 pack) guide.
Extras
There are none.