Après minuit

"After Midnight" offers interesting tales that remind me of another 80's slasher flicks such as "April Fool's Day" (the first tale), and "Girls Night Out" (the second tale).

People inside a house narrate these tales while a prowler lurks outside the place.

Anyways, the first story is pretty interesting and has a chilling climax. I didn't see that coming!. In the style of "April Fool's Day" but in this case something went wrong. The second tale is less interesting but has more action involving flesh eating dogs chasing the girls. It is thrilling and has a decent conclusion. The third one is absolutely thrilling and nerve tensing involving a psychopath.

I watched it on TNT a few years ago so my advice would be , look for this popular Anthology. You might be suprirsed to see how many people ask for the movie's title on the Horror board. It has generated a somewhat cult status.

Not the best horror anthology in the world it is interesting in one aspect...using a class in fear be the set up for the stories. Basically, a professor with a very unorthodox way of teaching has to invite those willing to a special story telling event at his house or something. Been awhile since I saw this one, so I am not all that clear about the details. They mainly have to go to his house thanks to a very shaky first day of class where the professor proceeds to show everyone how nuts he is. Well they go and exchange stories, the first one being about a couple stranded near an old house that looks typical, but has the best ending of the three stories presented. The next story has these girls getting stranded in the wrong part of town and being terrorized by a guy and his Doberman. Granted, nothing really special about it overall, but it did make for the most tense story of the three and my favorite. The final one for the most part is highly forgettable to say the least. I only remember a woman who has some sort of answering service and there was no being stranded involved here, though the female did have a bum ankle. Then the movie wraps up in a somewhat interesting and somewhat absurd fashion. Not the best, but it is entertaining enough to pass the time quite nicely.

I saw this on The Movie Channel yesterday, and I really liked it. The stories weren't great, but they were all entertaining, and I liked how the frame story was more than people sitting around telling stories, and despite the fact that the climax of the frame story was a little extreme (though, quite creepy with that skeleton!) it's still a good horror movie.

The film comes together with Allison (Jillian McWhirter) and Cheryl (Pamela Segall) starting college, and their first day of a class on the psychology of fear. After their professor (Ramy Zeda) goes too far with one lesson (scaring a macho frat guy to the point of wetting himself), he is forced to tone his class down, but opts for anyone who wants to get a better understanding of what he's teaching to come to his house the next night for a private lesson. A handful of students show up, including Allison and Cheryl, yet Allison has a bad feeling about it all (well, we haven't heard that one before!) and almost seems to be a bit psychic about it. (Believe me, it gets old quick.) Yet, that night, as a few students take turns telling stories to scare each other, the angry frat guy decides to get his revenge, and closes in on the party, as each story is told.

There are three stories told:

1: "The Old Dark House"- This one was really clever. It starts off and gets going with what seems like every cliche in hand. A couple takes the scenic route home, pass an old mansion where murders were committed, get a flat tire, and decide to go up to the house to call a tow-truck. We've seen all that before. But then, towards the end, the story takes a really creative twist that ties it all together perfectly, and actually proves to be a genuine surprise and thrill.

2: "A Night on the Town"- This one was a little thin, and could have used a few twists, yet it didn't surprise you like it should have, which would have helped the flimsy plot. Four girls looking for some fun (one of which, Amy, I knew I recognized, and finally realized was the teenage girl in "Mr. Belvedere"!) and end up in the warehouse district of town with little gas. They stop at a gas station, and meet the gas station attendant from hell and his dobermans, which all proceed to terrorize the girls in a sometimes tense, sometimes cheesy chase through the wrong part of town. This one was not as good as the others, but still entertaining.

3: "All Night Messenger"-This one was pretty good, though a little typical. A woman, Alex, who works for a telephone messenger service (I didn't get it, maybe this is pre-answering machine employment) comes home early from a ski trip with a broken ankle (hmm, will she have to run at some point?) and takes the late shift that night. She begins getting calls from a creepy caller for one woman, and when the woman comes home and calls for her messages, Alex tries to warn her before it's too late. Of course, the caller eventually catches on, and makes his move, and you can sort of see where it all goes from there. Though, this one was pretty good, and the ending was creepy.

The frame story eventually wraps up in this very bizarre climax that makes little sense at times, but it's still creepy. And to wrap all that up, the movie does the only thing that might make some sense, but will surely make you groan with annoyance.

Overall, I liked this. The main and end title music was creepy, and the whole atmosphere of the movie was that 80s horror movie feel that just sort of makes everything entertaining, and tolerably cheesy. The acting is all fairly typical. Jillian McWhirter sort of got on my nerves with all her damn premonitions, and she always looked really creepy, almost drugged. Ramy Zeda was a bit over the top, but creepy. I thought Pamela Segall was likeable, though, except, what was going on with her and the ending? (You'll know what I mean if or when you see this, and if you have, tell me what was going on.) All the other actors were forgettable, and basically playing the roles expected of them in a movie like this.

I recommend watching this if you get a chance. It moves quickly, and is really entertaining.

"After Midnight" appears to be a passable and insignificant late-80s horror anthology, and it really is to be honest, but I would definitely still encourage enthusiast genre fanatics to seek it out! The writers and directors, siblings Ken and Jim Wheat, are mostly famous for their scripting of "Pitch Black" and "The Chronicles of Riddick", but they also wrote an impressive number of adequate and versatile 80s horror & Sci-Fi gems, like "Silent Scream", "The Return", "Nightmare on Elm Street 4" and "The Fly 2". "After Midnight" is one of their sole attempts to also direct, and it became a modest but amiable little omnibus with a pleasantly deranged wraparound story and at least 2 out of 3 segments that are far above average.

In the wraparound, which is righteously also considered to be a fully independent segment, cute but worried student Allison reluctantly attends the first psychology class of the unorthodox teacher Edward Derek. He teaches his students about "fear" by threatening them at gunpoint and faking his own suicide in class. Naturally, the school doesn't appreciate this, and thus Prof. Derek invites a handful of students - including Allison - at his home to further plunge into the world of fear via telling each other scary stories. The first story, "An Old Dark House" is a traditional urban legend type of tale, but I liked the atmosphere and crazy ending. "A Night on the Town" is very similar to a contemporary childhood favorite of mine, namely "Adventures in Babysitting" (which was actually also known under the same title "A Night on the Town"), only this short features four yummy girls and a pack of wild dogs. The final story, "All-Night Operator", is the most known because it stars Marg Helgenberger of "CSI"-fame in one of her earliest roles. She's a switchboard operator in an apartment block and becomes the target of a maniacal stalker after refusing to transfer his calls to a famous actress. The tale is good, albeit derivative, and in this very brief episode Ken & Jim Wheat surely demonstrate they are capable of mounting suspense and generating a claustrophobic atmosphere.

The primary reason to watch "After Midnight" remains the demented wraparound tale, for sure. The classroom sequence is so incredibly surreal and bonkers that it literally has to be seen to be believed! Just imagine the lawsuits an act like this would spawn in real life! During the climax, the Wheat bros' scenario goes tremendously over the top, and it doesn't really fit in with the rest of the film. Who cares, though, as it's great fun!

Yeah, the other reviews basically sum up the details on this one. However, nobody picked up on the awesomely 80's aspects of this movie.

Number one: the wraparound story: the killer has a mullett!!!! horrors! Number two: the haunted house story, shoulder pads!!!! ahhhhhh Number three: the lost girls: mini skirts, spandex dresses, teased bangs, sweaters, and yes, bangles. Terrors upon terrors! Number four: okay there wasn't anything particuarly awful about the late night caller one, well the main character's hair was pretty bad.

So all in all, After Midnight is cheesey, cliched, and not very scary, but it is lots of fun, and it was made in a decade of horrid fashion trends!