Follia di mezzanotte

Somewhere in the dark recesses of my brain cells a song plays in my head. I can't forget it no matter how hard I try. It's MIDNIGHT MADNESS and it's gonna get to you! Wish i could find a copy of this on a 45rpm record. Five disparate teams head out one night in L.A. for a scavenger hunt for clues instead of physical objects. An unkempt game-master with two gorgeous assistants is the mastermind of all this insanity that's about to be unleashed on L.A. All the teams are stereotypes (this movie being from 1980, before political correctness screwed everything up): the "good guys", the "nerds" led by Eddie Deezen, the dumb beer-loving "jocks", the "we-don't-need-a-man-type ladies", especially the redhead. The giggling twins are a scream, too. And finally, the "bad guys" with Stephen Furst as the leader. Furst is hilarious as the overweight slob Harold, whose attempt to use a computer to decipher the various clues leads to a gooey mess. Movies like this aren't made anymore. These days, movies have to have an "edginess" to them with some dark characters and other nonsense. Go back to the days when the "good guys" led by David Naughton were still good and not hopelessly conflicted. So dump all serious pretensions and go back to 1980. It's MIDNIGHT MADNESS . . .

I saw this movie a few days ago for the third time. Boy that movie is such a riot! Leon sure knew how to make a great game with his two girls Candy and Sunshine. I loved it when his apartment kept filling up with nosey tenates who keep complaing about the noise and they wind up joining the fun listening to the results of the game. The teams were pretty cool even though they were stereo types. I now use that new word all the time that Barf made up "faga beefe" to aggravate my brothers. This movie has no sex or terrible violence Very few swear words are heard. Plus they great gags that were new in the 80's thats still funny today. I have a lot of comments to say about this film. I just love the two twins Peggy and Lulu,when they were dancing, eating a man out of business, stealing a man's tow truck and giggling all through out the movie made me laugh and cry. The white team Aka the Nerds were very histarical when they got into a food fight and dressed as bellhops. The Green Team aka the Meat Machine were funny too when they destroyed the arcade and had a run in with the Paps Beery. The Blue team was the best in the movie since they were the crooked team. The yellow team turned out to be the most boring team and also caused most of the cheesy scenes to happen. I'm not going to tell you who wins though, thats the secret of the movie which is sort of expecting. Still over all if you want to make milk come out of your nose buy this film before its too late. I give it nine out of ten stars because of the cheesy parts and the end was too expecting.

Well I just discovered IMDb from my twin sister, Carol. Carol and I played the "Fat Identical Twin" in Midnight Madness. We didn't have to prepare much for the fat part, that came with us, and well and the rest was natural. ;) It was our first major film role and we had a blast making it. We were 21 at the time and lived about an hour and half from The Disney Studio in Burbank and the Hollywood, California area. We grew up in front of the TV and probably some of the first generation of latch-key-kids. Twenty years later, we still have lots of fun and are still 'heavy' or what ever is politically correct these days. We don't pursue acting any more but have been know to 'come back' when the right opportunity arrives. Carol is a Chiropractor in our home town of Southern California and I am in the Information Technology field in Georgia.

I maybe bias, but I thought the film was cute, clean and fun. We knew it wasn't a master piece or an Oscar nominee, however, it was and still is a movie the whole family can watch and have fun together. It's nice not to have to worry if your young children can watch a video without having to fast forward certain parts. And no one was more exited when it was released on video as Carol and I were. Carol found it at Kmart for $6.99! Now that's an inexpensive way to capture one's memories and share it with others.

Sincerely, Betsy Lynn and Carol Gwynn; The Thompson Twins

It doesn't quite deserve the disproportionate number of "10" votes it's received on this web site, but "Midnight Madness" is still a lot of fun. The eccentric Leon (Alan Solomon) organizes a cross-city scavenger hunt for five groups of college students ranging from nerds and jocks to babes and good guys. Each team must decipher a series of clues ("Mr. Carson's obese male child" leads to Johnny's Fat Boy Restaurant, and so on) before racing to the next location to do it again, all the while battling some occasional dirty tricks from rivals. The actual laughs few and far between, but you can't deny "Midnight Madness" carries heaps of cheesy '80s appeal. Look for Michael J. Fox (billed without the middle initial) in his film debut.

I always used to say that Weird Science was my favorite movie until I found this movie. I grew up in the 80's but had not seen this movie since we didn't have HBO or cable TV back then. By the time the late 80's hit we (my brother and my friend down the street) were all watching horror movies at sleepovers so I missed seeing this somehow. Fast forward to the days of the Internet and I found this movie for free on YouTube but broken into parts and I was delighted to find the perfect movie. There's no cuss words or bloody violence, no nudity or sex, and no drug use. (except for when Blaylak jumps into the vat of beer at the Pabst Brewery, but I give it a pass). This movie transports me back in time to a time when I was still watched over by my parents and older brother and sister only being 4 years old in 1980. This was a time when if you went out to eat at a restaurant it was with your whole family. There was no one speaking about reptilians back then, however Land of the Lost had come out, so people did know about Sleestaks. I love the whole progression of the scavenger hunt, and especially at the beginning when they're looking up at the stars, knowing that the sky wasn't polluted with as many satellites as there are today. I still like to go outside and look at the stars and pretend that I'm under the protection of this movie. You know when people check up on you and ask if you've been keeping it PG? I think this would have been the movie that they had in mind, as this movie can't really be faulted for too much, no matter how bad the Siskel & Ebert review is of this movie. Midnight Madness truly is good clean family fun in an old school way. I need the same protections today that I would have had back then when the movie came out, being watched over, cared for and loved.