A bit more serious in nature than many of the women-in-peril tele-flicks that populated the primetime airwaves, Children of the Night, first aired in the fall of 1985 on CBS. 

A fictionalized look at the life of Lois Lee, a doctoral student who founded the titular organization to help teen sex workers get off the streets, the dangers facing the young cast here are definitely nerve chilling. They hue closely to a sense of very grimy reality.

While rarely physically graphic, the screenplay here does talk of, and acutely show, the aftereffects of, the emotional, physical and sexual abuse the teens face. These are the circumstances that Lois, played by the reliable Kathleen Quinlan, is determined to save them from. Eventually forming a tight bond with the street-smart Valerie (Lar-Park Lincoln), Lee is soon housing her and other runaways. Facing off against a handsome pimp (Mario Van Peebles), she eventually gets through to Valerie, who as the credits start to roll, is shown joining her in her work.

As gritty as this exercise gets, there are still elements of TV Movie of the Week expectedness here. In the last arc, Quinlan’s journey to a darkened crack house is full of horror film jump scares. The script also doesn’t allow Peebles, who gives his Roy Spanish a quietly intense hue of evil, much leeway. Thus, Spanish is reminiscent of many of the smooth-talking villains that were seen on shows of that era like TJ Hooker and Matt Houston. 

But horror fans, in particular, will be thrilled that The New Blood‘s Lincoln, who sadly passed away from breast cancer in 2025, gives a nervy, full-bodied performance here. It is probably one of the best roles that she received in her Hollywood career and she, proudly, executes all the varied tones and stumbling triumphs of the young girl that she plays. Nicely, Marta Kober, another Friday the 13th film series veteran, provides a true sense of lived-in sass in the smaller role of Linda, as well. 

Indeed, the cast as a whole, including Nicholas Campbell (The Hitchhiker) as Lee’s devoted yet wavering boyfriend, has a sparkling sense of genre pedigree. Quinlan has appeared in everything from the apocalyptic disaster-horror Warning Sign to the 2006 reimagining of The Hills Have Eyes. Peebles, meanwhile, has lit up the cinemas in such cult oddities as Jaws: The Revenge and the cult werewolf flick Full Eclipse. 

Importantly, for those who chronicle the rise of LGBTQIA representation in media, the trio of screenwriters (William Wood, Vickie Patik, Robert Guenette) give a full sense of expressiveness to Marty, the gay hustler that Lois takes in. Painted as both razor sharp and exceedingly vulnerable, actor David Crowley takes this wise and human material and brings it to full, blood flowing life. In that era, when our community was still being painted, on shows such as The Streets of San Francisco and Matlock, as schizophrenic cross dressers, this well-rounded portrait is a rare and important thing.

Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!