Midnight Movie

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...

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.

I was privileged to see the screener of this one, and came away quite satisfied at what I had seen.

I grew up on horror movies and usually find the gory ones to be nothing more than gratuitous blood-letting, but this one really had me involved. Don't let the first few minutes fool you, this is top quality. What starts out like a B-movie from the 60's soon becomes an engrossing mystery as you try to figure out what is happening, and then keeps you riveted as you start to wonder if the characters will figure it out in time. Unlike most horror movies, Midnight Movie had me caring about the characters. They became real people, not just targets of the horror.

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.