Midnight Movie (2008) Review
Low budget horror films often lack two things – Original ideas and a decent ‘finish’.
The latter incorporates cast and visual effects. In theory, if it looks good and your idea is good enough, people will be willing to watch.
So initially Midnight Movie didn’t seem like the worst movie in the world.
It follows a deranged psychopath who escapes an asylum driven by his obsession with a film that he made back in the day.
This film is said to contain real death, and the whole experience of making it got this psycho so excited that he will do anything to watch it again.
He escapes the hospital leaving a trail of blood and body parts in his wake, and somewhere nearby a small cinema is preparing to screen his film, now known as a classic slasher movie.
What follows, for a while at least, is a predictable chain of events – people turn up to see the movie, people die while at the cinema and the person doing the killing is the film maker, dressed in the costume from the film that he loves so much.
But when the cinema goers attempt to fight against this masked killer, it becomes apparent that we’re not dealing with a normal old man with a blood lust. Somehow the murders are being transmitted onto the big screen in the cinema, meaning that the audience gets to watch live footage as victims are murdered with a strange corkscrew type weapon. At first, they think that they’re watching the original film or that it’s a practical joke of some sort, but soon the hideous truth hits them.
How does the killer get the murders onto the screen? Camcorder right? Somehow wirelessly connected to the projector for live streaming? Is that even possible?
Of course it isn’t. It’s actually a lot simpler. See the killer isn’t actually real, and he comes out of the film (it’s like another dimension) to take his victims back to his world where he can torture them forever.
It’s kind of Freddy Krueger with films instead of dreams.
Confusing and weird? It is a bit.
Things do get frustrating when the cinema turns out to be impossible to leave though. Everything’s locked, and even the main doors seem to have a crazy spell cast on them, meaning that people on the outside can’t see or hear anything on the inside.
Midnight Movie is strange. It’s bad, a bit stupid and some of it really doesn’t make sense. But for such a low profile film, it’s curiously watchable and memorable.
The cast aren’t terrible, the effects are surprisingly good and the weirdly surreal bits are likely to keep you interested enough to keep watching.
For a ‘made for tv’ production, Midnight Movie is surprisingly original, well played and good looking.
Movie Rating:
Trailer: