Review of Midnight Movie (2008) by Zac H — 10 Aug 2009

Going into Midnight Movie I'm not going to lie, I expected it to be a low grade unoriginal slasher flick that wouldn't be anything more than an ok way to kill a couple of hours, but to my surprise Midnight Movie turned out to be a fun original movie that surpassed all of my expectations in a big way.

Ok so the plot is based around an old movie theater that is having a midnight horror movie showing, of a movie that is presumed to be cursed. As the legend goes the director and star of the movie actually killed all of the people staring in his movie, and now whenever it's played the killer will return taking the members of the audience and putting them in the movie.

So the plot might sound a bit done, I was really surprised at how original this really was. Acting, you don't get terrific performances but name one slasher movie without Jamie Lee Curtis were you do.

For the most part you get enjoyable performances, although they might not all be completely believable I still found them to be rather good. Gore, this one has the gore; you get a throat being slashed, lots of guts and stabbings, fingers being ripped off, an impalement, and a bit more, some great stuff.

Directing, after watching this movie I liked it so much that I decided to Google director Jack Messitt to see what some of his previous films were, only to find out that this was his directorial debut.

This movie looks completely professional and not at all like a director first film, so I am most excited to see what Messitt brings us in the future. Like I said the movie looks like it could have been a big screen horror flick, the visuals are stunning, and the angles that were used were absolutely brilliant.

As all movies Midnight Movie did have a couple of flaws. It takes a while to get going, the first twenty minutes or so are a bit dull and lead you to believe that you are going to be stuck spending the next 85 minutes watching rubbish, but thankfully that did not happen, and even with a slow start the film still manages to keep audiences intrigued.

Another thing was that there were a few questions left unanswered. This is one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to movies, although the questions are not huge the film still would have felt more complete if they were answered.

As for the soundtrack, I loved the music in this one, at some points you get some fun heavy metal and at others you get great suspenseful mood music that fits the tone perfectly. And although some might find him unoriginal, I actually enjoyed the killer in this film; don't get me wrong here I don't think he's the next Freddy Kruger or could go down as one of the best, but he was still unique and fun to watch.

Bottom line, Midnight movie was one of the best slasher films to come out in the last couple of years. With a fun vibe, that doesn't take the film to horror-comedy territory just makes it more enjoyable, good acting, some great ore, and some of the best directing I've seen in a while I say do yourself a favor and check out the can't miss slasher flick of the year.