Midnight

Extremely low budget, which shows and can be off putting but this film moves with confidence. Scenes may be a little dark or slower than we would like and the dialogue somewhat less than snappy but we have a terrible feeling the tale that is told may not be too far off the mark. Filmed in the backwoods northwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, this is bleak looking country and pretty bleak people seem to lurk. There is gleeful and brutal killing for the sake of it and then as we proceed more serious devil worship based cult killing involving the kidnap of girls and their being held in cages awaiting their sacrifice. These later scenes are particularly well done and the lighting, dialogue and performances all seem to be upped a gear as we head to the ending with Lawrence Tierney lumbering across the screen to attempt an heroic rescue after all his own misdeeds.

I first saw this in the early 90s on a vhs.

Revisited it recently.

The movie has lots of stupidity but it is creepy n atmospheric at times.

One of the best part is that most of the movie is shot in broad daylight n the night scenes r well shot.

The director of this movie John Russo is the writer of NOTLD (1968), n he incorporated the cemetary scene in this one too with almost the same atmosphere.

Some really wtf moments - A stupid girl hides in the shower n can't even out run a fat slob killer.

Check out the scene at 1:30:52.

The guy who is shot is standing as if he is like a mannequin.

Luke the big, bald guy conveniently stands on the place where kerosene has been sprinkled by the final girl.

The book of John Russo's 'Midnight' is a very taught, brief little thriller. The premise is an exciting one though. A young runaway, whom takes up with two college frat boys travelling cross country, runs into trouble with a satanic batch of siblings. This one line premise has all the makings of an excellent drive-in spectacular in the vain of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Race With the Devil, and The Last House on the Left. Not so surprising that it falls in line with such films as Russo was a co-writer of Night of the Living Dead, which set many genre standards in that period of time. Thus it further exemplifies the promise it does NOT add up to.

Sometimes the author has no business taking his material to a new medium, in this case novel to screen. Stephen King fared none to well with 'Maximum Overdrive' as well. 'Midnight' was probably around the time when producers were managing to get their hands back on final cut after the paramount decree, and with this film in particular, it's not hard to see why. The budget here is so non existent that it looks to have been filmed in someone's garage, and I guarantee you some of it probably, quite literally was. With more money, and some bigger producers putting some elbow grease into it, this could have worked much better. The novel wins you over right away, but here, Russo has no creative aspect to his direction. Just setting up a camera and filming. No tension to build up on, and without that, the shock moments are just as dull as the rest of the film. Also, he sets up a very poor and ineffective atmosphere. There is a total lack of vision for what the novel provides as an after school special gone to hell. This needed someone to oversee it on a more end-result basis to assure it was delivered properly and to the completed satisfaction of all parties involved.

The casting is WAY off save for Robin Walsh to rises emotionally AND physically to Cynthia as we are introduced to her in the book. Everyone else, including Romero alumni John Amplas, are simply thrown in and directed to move about as they're told, but with no clear motivation or actions driving what they're doing onscreen. The direction with them is totally uninspired and everyone looks like they'd rather be reading the original novel at the beach instead. Two or three of them (Ellie Wyler as Gwen) are downright horrendous to watch as they clearly have NO talent in this regard. I point out Ms. Wyler in specific because her character is supposed to be defiant and strong willed against the tormentors (Think Phyllis Stone in Wes Craven's 'The Last House on the Left). Here, the uncharacteristic Wyler is simply in a cage saying her lines to no distinction or direction. Very bland and embarrassingly cheap. More so obvious than anything else.

The film DOES have ONE thing going for it, the soundtrack! It features eerie organ music and a soft dark vocal Mass for the satanic rituals that fit quite properly. There is also a fun chirpy pop tune used repeatedly throughout as the theme, known as "Midnight Again". It is VERY addictive to hear and suits the novel much better than the film. Almost too good a thing to be heard here. Alas, moments with the score in tow are actually arousing and engaging enough but they are far and few in between the bad bland acting the the overall lack of proper direction.

It says, here , that a remake is in the works. It's definitely in need of one, but better yet...GO OUT AND READ THE DARN BOOK INSTEAD! The movie in your mind will far outweigh what has been provided here, and what might ever be provided again, if it is to be provided again.

When drunken cop Bert Johnson (Lawrence Tierney) makes sexual advances towards his teenage stepdaughter Nancy (the rather boyish Melanie Verlin), she packs her bags and sets off to see her sister in California, hitching a ride with Tom and Hank (John Hall and Charles Jackson), two college students on their way to Florida (!?!?). After a night camping out under the stars, the trio fall foul of a family of redneck Satanists who are ritually sacrificing young women to try and resurrect their dead mother.

With a screenplay and direction from John A. Russo, writer of seminal horror classic Night of the Living Dead, and make-up effects from genre legend Tom Savini, one might reasonably expect Midnight to deliver the goods in terms of terror and gore, but sadly it fails to deliver on both counts: Russo's script, based on his own novel, suffers from a dreadfully dull first half and the guy is clearly no Romero when calling the shots behind the camera, consistently failing to deliver the requisite chills; Savini also disappoints, his gore FX on this project being far from his best work (I can only presume that he knocked them out on the cheap as a favour to Russo).

It's not all a total loss though: the film's pace picks up considerably once Nancy and pals meet the devil-worshipping backwoods clan (a memorable group consisting of two nutters posing as cops, a demented babe, and a fat guy in dungarees who can't stop laughing), and bonus points are scored for a willingness to tackle the taboo, a few surprisingly brutal deaths, and a cool grind-house vibe achieved through cruddy picture quality and a menacing, lo-fi synthesiser score (the horribly dated theme song, on the other hand, is simply atrocious and only serves to irritate).

5.5 out of 10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.

A young girl who has just ran away from her stepfather after he attempts to force himself onto her runs into a family of backwoods crazies after she hitches a ride from two guys. Better acted then you would expect, with some good scare scenes and some exciting moments, still it suffers from an extremely low budget and starts to run out of steam in the second half. By the time it has reached the finale, it feels cold and by the numbers.

Rated R; Nudity, Graphic Violence, and Profanity.