If it’s true that ‘the Devil has all the best tunes’, then what does that tell us about unholy forces on our cinema screens? Well, it appears that Satan not only sells, but has found himself a comfortable niche in horror and exploitation movies. The results of this can be great; I’ll admit to a real soft spot for trashy takes on the dark arts, but what do you know – I’m also picky, and so far as John Russo’s Midnight (1982) goes, I get the feeling that Old Nick was merely drafted in to add a dash of something extra to a familiar formula. Folks, this is The Texas Chain Saw Massacre with horns. There’s more than that, though: Russo has effectively managed to make a film which checks nearly every exploitation box imaginable – cramming in everything from racism to murder to rape – but nonetheless tension is hard to come by here. Midnight is definitely grim, but it’s also a rather bleak trudge through its subject matter.
The opening scenes seem to be setting up a group of lunatic fundies too, rather than folk at the other end of the spectrum. A mother and her children find a girl in an animal trap but they refer to her as a ‘demon’ before knocking her out. Who is she? Who are they? We don’t know, because we’re moved along to meet a teenage girl called Nancy (Melanie Verlin). Nancy runs away from home when her drunken stepfather tries to force himself on her, and finds herself joining up with two petty criminals called Tom (John Hall) and Hank (Charles Jackson) who are road-tripping down to Florida.
Another pair of travellers – Reverend Carrington (Bob Johnson) and his daughter – get a lift part of the way, and when Tom and Hank talk about their route onward the Reverend warns them that there’s trouble in them there woods: people going missing, racist locals, the sort of thing you’d associate with such a quantity of plaid in any given area. So much for his advice, though, because when a grocery heist (!) goes awry, the van ends up right in the place it shouldn’t.
The main problem I had with the film was that its most entertaining scenes seemed to be that way accidentally. For instance – and if you’ve seen Midnight then you may well know which scene I mean – there’s a killing fairly early on which is done so clumsily that you could believe, as per how it sounds, that it’s the victim cackling, not the murderer. For a horror movie, the quality of the action (specifically murder) scenes here is inexcusable, totally unbelievable and ham-fisted. For some viewers this’ll all be part of the charm and if you like your grimy 80s cinema then Midnight certainly has a lot to offer, but even in the most warped internal logic of a low-brow movie I cannot see how you can kill someone by running a tap on their head…otherwise, the bulk of Midnight is somewhat jaded, plodding in pace and pretty seedy. All the male characters are bullies and perverse shits, and the teeth-clenching race references along the way really underline the film’s age. Of course this is trash cinema and I don’t therefore expect the characters to be ambassadors for good conduct, but the experience overall was more depressing than diverting. This effect was increased by the washed-out, drab colouration of the film: Arrow have, as always, done their utmost to present the film well, but I suspect the original format was this way and there ain’t much you can do about that.
It’s not my favourite of Arrow’s new batch of releases, then – though it’s by no means all bad, and the occult sequences are worth waiting for – but where this will probably sell is as a nostalgia piece for those who saw it on VHS in the 80s. There’s no substitute for revisiting films you discovered way back when; this happens not to have been one I ever persuaded my parents to rent out for me, but were this the case then I might be a lot more enthusiastic here and now. As it stands, I will say that Midnight is an iniquitous little oddity, albeit too much road movie and not enough Satan. Oh, but – hey, you might also enjoy the chance to see some early Savini SFX and an appearance by John ‘Martin’ Amplas here, as well as some in-depth ‘talking head’ extras from Amplas and Russo after the main feature.
Distributor: Arrow Video
DVD Release date: 5th September 2011
Director: John Russo
Starring: Lawrence Tierney, Melanie Verlin, John Amplas, John Hall