Midnight (1981)


REVIEWER RATING: 
5/10


I heard a lot of good stuff on this early 80's horror flick from members of my message board, so I decided to look for it in my local video store. Sure enough there it was, so I quickly grabbed it and rented that sucka. The movie has its moments, but overall it wasn't as special as some made it out to be. For starters, the lead chick that was supposedly a 17-year-old looked like she was hittin' thirty. If you horror afficionados are wondering why the name John A. Russo sounds familiar is because he co-wrote the original Night of the Living Dead as well as Return of the Living Dead. Sadly other than those films, the rest of the movies he's associated with are a mess.

The movie centers around a young "17-year-old", who fights back one day against her abusive and incestuous stepfather. After knocking him out (funny scene), she flees with a bag and gets a ride with a couple young college guys on a camping trip. After the three rob a convenience store they're hunted down by the local fuzz, so they hide out in the woods. With no choice but to stay hidden, they camp there for the night. Eventually the three young people are left to fend off against crooked cops and a family of satanists.

Like I said before, the movie does manage to have its moments, like those involving the family of satanists, who seemed to have a little in common with another famous crazy family I.E. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but the similarities are slim-to-none. When the man who plays the alcoholic stepfather/cop is introduced in the beginning, I noticed the actor looked and sounded familiar. He turned out to be late veteran actor Lawrence Tierney whos been in many films over the decades, and who also had a voice-cameo in a Simpsons episode (which is why I thought his voice sounded familiar). One thing I really didn't like about this movie were the very long scenes involving the group driving down the isolated roads in their van with really silly music playing in the background. After 30 seconds of that crap, I immediately hit the FF button on my remote.

Originally I was thinking of giving the movie a 6-rating, but then I realized there wasn't much positive I could think of aside from it being interesting, and sometimes even hilarious (hilarious being the serious scenes which ended up funny due to poor acting). I believe Russo also wrote and directed the sequel, which came out sometime around the early 90's, but supposedly it really sucks, so I wont be touching that one.

A decent effort from NOTLD and ROTLD co-writer John A. Russo, but thanks to a poor story and silly acting, it failed to be anything good. Still a decent rent if you're looking for a cheesy no-brainer 80's horror flick.
OVERALL: 
A decent effort from NOTLD and ROTLD co-writer John A. Russo, but thanks to a poor story and silly acting, it failed to be anything good. Still a decent rent if you're looking for a cheesy no-brainer 80's horror flick.


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