Midnight Movie

"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+

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

In MIDNIGHT MOVIE, man escapes a mental institution through mysterious means in order to attend a screening of his 40 year old horror film. At the theater, a handful of patrons, including the world's biggest biker, await the movie.

Uh oh!

This is no ordinary movie! The main character, a murdering maniac in a skull mask, somehow emerges from the screen to cause bloody mayhem! Annnd, he's got supernatural abilities!

If this all sounds eerily familiar, it could be due to the fact that this is similar to the setup of the movie DEMONS. Here, as in that movie, the audience is stuck in the theater, which has become a deathtrap.

Thankfully, the similarities end there, and MM manages to forge its own ghoulish path. The killer is frightening, and there's a nice payoff at the end...

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.

I can see why some of you would turn this off pretty quickly. Midnight Movie obviously was not blessed with a big budget or the best actors. A couple of time in the beginning the thought, "Oh man, I think I may have wasted my money on this one" ran through my head. With nothing to lose, I continued to watch the film and slowly but surely was won over by the spirit of this film.

The premise of the film itself is somewhat original. After a director of an old low budget cult film becomes dangerously obsessed with his film, he is locked up in an insane asylum and is forced to watch his film on the idea that him watching this may somehow relax his growing obsession. He disappears in a bloodbath and all the remaining people left in the asylum are slaughtered.

Several years later, the film is shown again at an Indy move theater in a small town. Convinced that the missing director will show, the two police officers wait patiently while the movie begins to play. As the small crowd in the theater and the few workers start showing up in the scenes and being brutally murdered, the crowd quickly finds out that this is no ordinary movie.

There are, as with most current low budget slashers, several problems within this film. However, most of them seem to stem from the budget and I really felt that this film was directed and ultimately done the best possible way considering the low budget and the range of the talent. Our creepy cinema slasher is truly a horrifying creature complete with amazing mask and gimp leg. The director shows he has definitely done his horror homework and provides his audience with "Scream" like clichés to keep the flow consistent and of course, all of us viewers consistently entertained.

If you a true fan of the horror genre and are not particularly bothered by the downfalls of a current low budget slasher film then I say give this a try. I am certain that many of you will be as pleasantly surprised with 'Midnight Movie' as I was.