Starring: Rebekah Brandes, Daniel Bonjour, Justin Baric, Stan Ellsworth, Melissa Steach, Jon Briddell

Written By: Jack Messitt

Directed By: Mark Garbett, Jack Messitt

Grade: B-

Midnight Movie isn’t a great film. It doesn’t quite have top notch acting and can be pretty cheesy. These have always been characteristic of midnight or “B” movies though. These elements actually worked in favor of the film, making it a ton of fun to watch. Midnight Movie is a mindless, but fun loose throwback to the midnight movie.    The film begins with Bridget (Brandes), who works at a rundown movie theater in a small suburban town. No one seems to really come to the theater anymore since the owner insists on playing cult movies that the general public have no interest in. When her little brother, Timmy (Baric), comes in to attempt to see the cult 70’s horror film that is playing there that night, Bridget sends him away to go back home. Since their parent’s died, Bridget can barely sit through the horror films herself and can’t imagine Timmy being exposed to it. Her boyfriend, Josh (Bonjour), convinces her to the see the movie with him and their friends though. Aside from Harley, a biker, his girlfriend, and few detectives, we have Sully, who is very in to the film, as he already knows everything that will happen and when. Before long a fight breaks out between Harley and the younger kids who are talking.

When one of the audience members leaves to go to the bathroom, he appears on the screen in the theater. He appears to be in the movie himself, either that or the killer has escaped it and found himself a new set of targets to go after. The director of the film was confined to a mental institution after making this film. The only people in the audience that know this are two of the agents that were on the case of his disappearance 5 years ago. They have become obsessed with the case and as they have been left without answers for so long, they think this might be their last chance at catching the guy. His obsession was this movie and they can’t see him not showing up to the first showing of the film in years. Surely, enough he shows up, but through the film. The killer walks out of the film and in to the theater, murdering each victim on the spot and even takes some in to the film itself where they have a very similar fate. Even when the detectives fill everyone else in on what’s going on, they don’t seem to have much of a chance at escaping the killer. 

The acting doesn’t have that high of a quality, but there are really only one or two bad performances. The others are just a bit comedic, but not in a way that they necessarily take away from the characters themselves. Rebekah Brandes as Bridget probably gave us the worst performance. This was somewhat problematic as she was our protagonist and we were supposed to feel for her. This is where poor writing regarding her character came in since it seems like they almost tried to make her overly sympathetic and pinned her as a victim from the beginning. The whole story with her parent’s tragic death comes in to play towards the beginning she has several very weak moments where she is very upset and nearly comes to tears. This is all before there is even any thought that any of them could be in danger. This also creates a lot of unnecessary drama, that doesn’t make me feel for her character at all, but just made her annoying and overdramatic. Daniel Bonjour as Bridget’s boyfriend, Josh, was a little more likeable and gave us a good medium. He wasn’t easily terrified or breakable but he wasn’t as caught up in everything as the detectives or as mesmerized by horror films as the first guy that got killed was. He had a little better head on shoulders because of this, which Bonjour showed. Justin Baric’s character of Timmy, Bridget’s younger brother, had all of the same tragedies in his past, yet he was a lot stronger than Bridget. He brought out a higher innocence as he was a kid and we were actually able to root for him. A lot of Bridget’s friends were throwaway characters, your stereotypical horny guy and his dumb, narrow minded and eventually defenseless girlfriend. Both of them were very flat character, but the actors brought them out accurately, nothing more and nothing less than what the character description suggests. The best performances/characters actually came out of the biker couple played by Stan Ellsworth and Melissa Steach. They both ended up having heart that was within their tough exteriors. Ellsworth in particular really hit on the comedic timing perfectly and brought out the perfect presence and tone of his character, making him wildly hilarious. Brea Grant of Heroes fame also played a small role as one of the theater’s workers. While she was on screen, she had great presence and charisma and it was a lot of fun to see her here.

The obsessive director who lives through his film was very interesting. The premise that a killer in a horror film could inflict pain on the viewers by making them his victims as well speaks to a certain power in horror films themselves. Also, if you were in this situation it would be a very hard concept to wrap your mind around. You would be in denial until there was already bloodshed, having that on your conscious as well as knowing that believing a little sooner might have saved that life. It at least could have saved that person from being used as entertainment for his ignorant peers while he was being torn apart by a murderer. Through out the film, the murderer goes in and out of the film, even at times bringing others in. He doesn’t have to bring them inside the world of the movie to destroy them; he controls both worlds. This is frightening and very powerful, but it also introduces us to some of the problems the movie has.

There really are no rules or reason within the movie, anything goes and while it does help create a hopeless state for the victims, it becomes a bit chaotic. How is it that the killer goes from completely different time periods and stories and it all appears on the same reel? It would have to be a live feed, within material that was filmed and edited over 30 years ago. There doesn’t appear to be any cameras around or anything linking the kills that happen in the movie theater to the projection room or screen that the film is being shown on. I know it might seem like I am reading in to the technical aspects a bit too much, and it didn’t disrupt my overall viewing of the film too much. However, if we would have at least seen a camera one time when one of these people were being murdered I would have been satisfied and this wouldn’t have been worth bringing up. Also, there are supernatural aspects to the killer, which aren’t really hinted at until the writer wanted to create another blockade for the victims. There is no clue of where this came from or what his limits are, for all we know he can do anything. This is just far too broad and it seemed really spur of the moment, just putting this in to make it more convenient to keep everyone contained rather than adding to the killer’s presence.

Midnight Movie is flawed, but has some powerful themes and elements in it. These things probably could have been explored a bit further, but that is not really what type of movie it is. It really just wants to be a fun, cheesy movie and it definitely achieves that. Most of the characters are pretty flat and throwaway characters, and for the most part the one that they try to make deeper actually ends up the one you want to see die the most. Of course, many of the superficial characters that you look down on, you await their deaths just as eagerly. Really Harley was the main character I didn’t want to die and he wasn’t all that developed, but he was just very amusing and helped create some comic relief just based on how his character was brought out. There was a good amount of gore here and there was an element of creativity in the deaths that made them all a lot of fun. The production values are actually very good here too. Midnight Movie could have been a lot more smart and intriguing than it ended up being, but it is an entertaining B movie, making some of the flaws seem less important as the enjoyment is still there in the end.      

Share this article:
  • Digg
  • Sphinn
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Mixx
  • Google