Nightmaster (1988)

A gymnastics class gets out of hand, when the teacher turns out to be a murderer, and the students are playing dangerous games in an empty powerplant at night...

There are layers to it!

It doesn't feel all that real but it does feel good.

The characters feel real. Their interactions aren't superficial, and sometimes the lack of a soundtrack really can enhance a movie too.

They do have music occasionally - ominous, creatively psychedelic or feelgood tunes both, but a lot of the time there's just the sound of the fight, or the chase, or silence as the characters slowly move through shadow...

I wish more blockbuster movies took note. Sometimes the best sound is no sound. The silence speaks its own language too. It lets you perceive things a different way. It makes you pique your ears and really try to listen.
Makes you pay attention to what's going on in a different way.

In the end this wasn't that amazing a movie though. The choreography is really not spectacular but... you keep watching. The characters are. There's something about the premise of it all too. It's simple, but it works so well...

I suppose this came out at the same time as the wave of other athletic martial arts movies were making their way to the US, though Gymkata - the movie I thought might've started that wave - came later.

I wonder which title really started the trend...

 rated 3.5/5: not bad at all

Fun fact: Nichole Kidman got her big break with this one!

I thought the girl looked familiar...