Midnight Movie (2007): Reviewed by BRYAN SCHUESSLER
Midnight Movie (2007) is a slasher film and it follows all the rules, and adds a few of its own. This film is one of the best slasher films that I have seen in awhile. It was really fun watching a film about people watching horror in an old, run down movie theater and not in a multi-plex that has bastardized cinema, taking away any character movie theaters once had. I think the concept for the film is a little bit unique because I really can think of only one film that had things on screen happening off-screen as well and that film is Bava’s Demons (1985).
I believe that Director Jack Messitt’s directorial debut was a smashing success! I really enjoyed seeing the star of Midnight Movie, in my mind anyways, the killer going through the theater slashing anyone and everyone in sight. This was a great slasher film and I could not get enough of the killer and his unique and sinister-looking mask. It sort of seemed like a cross between Skeletor , Jason Voorhees’ hockey-mask, and Hannibal Lecter’s “no-bite” mask. (okay, Jason’s mask is a mighty large stretch, but I still think its the most iconic slasher mask and villain ever!)I think it was very inventive and added to the overall elements of the movie, re-working a thoroughly worked-over genre.
The film was also written by Jack Messitt, along with Mark Garbett. The plot of the film is a semi-unique one. The killer from an obscure B-Horror film comes out of the film and into the real world and starts hacking away at whoever is around watching the film or in the vacinity there of. The cool part is that the film then incorporates the reality of the killing on the big screen and then once the victim is hacked, gutted, chopped, or diced-the movie goes back to its less than inventive storyline ala any slasher flick made within the last 35 years.
The level of gore in this film was very satisfying and I thought that the killer’s tool to kill with was something I had never seen before. It is a screw-like device that stabs and than bores into the victim, shooting the flesh out as waste as it goes deeper and deeper. I loved it! Pure genious! I loved the “death by drill” scene in Fulci’s City of the Living Dead aka Gates of Hell (1980) and the drilling device reminded me of how fun it is to kill people with drills. Sorry, I did not mean to “bore” you with my gore banter! That pun was intended.
For a first time director like Messitt, he did a wonderful job. Messitt also was the director of photography and the special effects were done by Brian Hicks, Dalton Kutsch, and Gil Romero. Visual Effects were created by Tyler Foell, Steven Lloyd, Ray McIntyre Jr. , and Brad Moylan. I mention the teams of effect artists because I felt they added much to the film and were a fine balance of cgi effects and old-school blood and latex. Scenes that had handfuls of guts and organs falling onto the ground to be viewed at scored huge points for me.
Be sure to check out Midnight Movie, a welcomed visit back to the slasher genre with all the blood, guts, and gore that made those films so enticing to me.
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