Midnight Movie

Director: Jack Messitt

Stars: Rebekah Brandes, Daniel Bonjour, Brea Grant, Greg Cirulnick, Mandell Maughan, Stan Ellsworth, Melissa Steach, Jon Briddell, Michael Swan, Michael Schwartz, Justin Baric

Synopsis: An obscure 70's slasher flick is being screened as the midnight movie of a theater. Little do the patrons know but the celluloid baddie is stalking the hallowed halls of the popcorn palace picking them off one by one.

Thoughts: "Midnight Movie" is a decent enough slasher. It has an interesting approach to the killer and a rather cool weapon of choice (a custom made corkscrew device) not to mention plenty of the beautiful people to stack next to the projector. The visual presentation is fine as is the audio design. The production is a typical presentation for this kind of offering not too boring but not too challenging either. The script revels in the usual clichés of the slasher genre and is quite vague as to reason for the action but grab a bit of popcorn and have a kill and a smile.

3.5 / 5

It's 'count the cliché' time with Midnight Movie, a derivative supernatural slasher which looks and feels just like any one of a hundred other films you might find clogging up the horror section in your local rental outlet.

Undemanding teen audiences may possibly enjoy this film's easy-on-the-eye cast, MTV-style editing and some unexceptional gore, but seasoned horror fans will no doubt find themselves rolling their eyes and groaning in disbelief at what amounts to nothing more than yet another admittedly-slick-but-totally-logic-free piece of popcorn horror packed with cookie-cutter characters, cheap scares, unanswered questions and glaring plot-holes.

The story, for what it's worth, goes something like this: five years after horror director Ted Radford disappears from a lunatic asylum, leaving 70 dead in his wake, a cinema decides to present a midnight screening of his cult movie The Dark Beneath. Before you can say 'surely Radford doesn't emerge from his film to kill members of the staff and audience', Radford emerges from the film to kill members of the staff and audience. Yawn!

Glossing over such trivial details as exactly how the director achieves his magical return to life and why he is so obsessed with scaring people in the first place, the weak script concentrates instead on presenting a myriad of predictable scenes in which the scared occupants of the cinema at first attempt to escape, but then begin to fight back.

Midnight Movie hits a 'cliché all-time-high' when it is revealed that the killer—a bargain-basement Leatherface wannabe armed with a custom-built corkscrew—can only hurt those who are afraid of him (gack!). At this point, the script becomes completely nonsensical, with final survivor Bridget (Rebekah Brandes) drawing on past painful experiences to help her overcome her fear, and trying to save her brother from within the movie.

Go see this if your idea of a good horror film is a Saw sequel or a remake of something 'old'. You'll probably enjoy it.

"Midnight Movie" is the type of movie that I love to come across because it seems to rare these days to find a movie like it. First, it is a pure slasher flick through and through. There is no tongue-in-cheek horror or comedic undertones that seem so prevalent in a lot of today's horror. More importantly, it plays out like a 80's slasher film and captures the spirit and essence of 80's style horror perfectly.

The film centers around the first showing of a horror film called "The Dark Beneath," since several people were murdered while watching the film. Only a handful of people show up for the showing, including the boyfriend and a couple friends of the high-school aged theater manager, a redneck, motorcycle riding couple, and a couple of cops who think the film's director may show up to cause some trouble. The film shown on screen is a 70's style "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" type film about a group of friends who experience car trouble and seek help at creepy farmhouse, only to be butchered by a killer in a creepy mask whose weapon of choice is a sharp, spiral tool. Somehow, though, the killer is able to transfer himself out of the screen and begins stalking and killing the movie-goers.

The Good: The film looks great. It is competently directed and in lesser hands the whole movie-within-a-movie element could have been a real mess. The killer is pretty cool as well, and definitely reminded me of a Michael Myers, Jason, or Leatherface type killer. My only qualm with him is the weapon of choice, which does manage some good kill scenes, but becomes boring, repetitive, and not at all intimidating. As I mentioned,the film really has the classic slasher vibe going on and is quite effective. Once the action gets going, it is truly a fun ride and doesn't let up until the last frame. There are also some surprises in who lives/dies that took me by surprise, which is always a good thing in a slasher because generally they are so predictable with who lives/dies. Though it initially turned me off, I actually ended liking that there were so few characters in the film because it allowed us to get to know each of them a tad more. I was actually upset to see a couple of them get offed.

The Bad: The acting is a mixed bag. I know it is nit-picky, but the film REALLY could have done WITHOUT the younger brother character. First, the kid is a bad actor, second, his presence serves absolutely zero purpose and actually becomes a distraction to the plot. There is also no real backstory to the killer and why/how he is able to come out of the screen and kill in real life. Some parts were indeed cheesy, particularly the opening scene with the film's director in a mental institution.

Overall, this is a decent horror film and certainly one of the better DTV slashers I have seen in awhile. Everything about the film looks great and it is always refreshing to see a contemporary slasher film successfully pay homage to early genre films.

My Grade: B+

After reading some reviews stating it was going to be a scary slasher movie I had high expectations as slashers are very rarely scary. It's normally just about bloodshed, preferably the most possible blood, lethal injuries inflicted in the most creative way possible. Midnight Movie wasn't scary. On the contrary it was the usual slasher story, where the group of characters get murdered one by one. Stupid decision-making like we're used to in these stories. If the acting is good it passes but unfortunately some of the actors were just not that great. Well with a low budget you get the actors you get, in this case mediocre at best. It's just an average slasher, not really worth your time.

Growing up, the movies I loved were The Lion King, Back to the Future, Star Wars, Ghostbusters, and pretty much any horror movie I could get my hands on. Especially slashers. My dad introduced me to Halloween and the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I used to catch unfortunately-edited TV marathons of the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street films all the time, and when I turned 10, a little movie called Scream was released. Obviously, I wasn't a sheltered child. So it wasn't difficult to finally have a theatre experience with my favorite genre, and I really cut my teeth on the postmodern wave, debating with my friends the superiority of Scream versus I Know What You Did Last Summer. Now, the smugness of these gets hated on today. But I knew the conventions and clichés, and it made sense to me that the characters would be equally informed, acting accordingly when being chased down. Eventually the tide of horror shifted though, to Japanese pseudoghosts and zombie everything and splatter flicks, and the slashers were resigned to remakes/reboots that upped the gore but brought nothing new to the table. It is here that the low-budget gem Midnight Movie (The Killer Cut) really shines. It brings back the meta, taking place in a rundown theatre showing a 70s cult slasher film that manages to overlap with the primary reality. Armed with an over-sized corkscrew, the killer fetches his victims from the audience. The premise is both inventive and evocative. As are the kills, which don't rely on gore for impact. As far as scares are concerned, it's pretty tame by my standards, but there were definitely some covered eyes around me. This is a B-movie without question, but across the board the effort is solid and never ceases to be entertaining. The characters are varied and acted out believably, and you'll find delight, concern, and surprise in the fates that befall them. After all, who gets killed and how is what a slasher is all about. There's even room for a sequel, but this isn't shoved down your throat. In my somewhat jaded perspective, I expected another laughably bad modern horror entry here, but was pleasantly surprised to just sit back and feel like a kid again.