Midnight Movie is an old school horror film. In fact, it's two old
school horror films, from two different eras, which have been packaged
together by building the plot around a group of people attending a horror
film. Oddest of all, characters can go back and forth from the film proper
to the other film within! The premise is that the film-within-a-film has
supernatural powers. Whenever it is screened, the on-screen killer can
come off the screen, grab audience members, and drag them back into the
screen with him. While the film plays, the audience magically,
mysteriously loses all contact with the outside world. Cell phones go
dead. The theater doors lock and seal. People who look inside the glass
doors from the street cannot see anyone inside, even if the people inside
are standing right at the door, pounding away to attract the attention of
passers-by. There are only two ways for the audience members to escape the
slasher: (1) they can stop the projector of the film-within-a-film; or (2)
they can outrun him until the film-within-a-film ends.
The film proper, the one we are watching, is an 80s-style slasher film
with a level of splatter and gore appropriate to that era rather than
ours, seasoned by just a tiny hint of modern torture porn. The
film-within-the-film is a 60s-style B&W film called The Dark Beneath, and
it adds a little much-needed comic relief to the package. Although
Midnight Movie is too intense to be classified in the horror/comedy genre,
the B&W film mimics both the filmmaking styles and the culture of the 60s
with comical exaggeration. In fact, both films evoke the styles of the
eras they limn, and they combine effectively to produce a solid overall
horror package. There's really nothing new here. Neither the concept nor
the presentation are innovative, but all the required genre elements are
handled with style and dramatic tension, and the two-film gimmick is used
very effectively.
The characters watching the B&W film comment on the silly nature of
horror films in general, little suspecting that they are also in one. By
having the main film's characters comment on the film they are watching,
all the while saying the kinds of things real teens would say about such a
film, the screenwriters are able to avoid the kind of clumsy
self-referential device used in Scream, wherein the characters realize
they are in a horror film situation and try to create a survival situation
by using the known parameters of the genre.
Early in the film, there's another clever use of the two-film device.
(Minor spoiler of an early murder.) The kids
watching the movie are really impressed when they see their friend being
murdered on screen after he excuses himself to go to the restroom. After
all, they reason, he's an AV wizard, and he has just punked them by
figuring out a way to insert himself into the old-time action. Surely he
just pretended to go to the restroom so he could set everything up, right?
Didn't they assume what any of us would assume? The other teens watch
their friend get slaughtered and disemboweled, all the while laughing at
his plight and talking back to the screen, never realizing at any time
that he has actually been pulled into the movie, and is truly being ripped
apart in gruesome and painful ways. The best part of the situation is our
realization that we would also be laughing and hooting at our friend's
pain if we were in their situation!
Pretty slick!
There are only two minor elements of Midnight Movie that don't quite
work:
(1) Since the ability of the slasher to jump on and off the screen is
ipso facto supernatural and illogical, as admitted by the
characters themselves, the powers of the slasher seem to be
inconsistent, remain undefined, and are theoretically unlimited. In the
universe of the sealed theater, for the duration of time in which the
B&W film is running, the slasher is the God of that time and place. It
is therefore impossible for the prospective victims to have a chance to
survive. He will simply have whatever powers are necessary to counter
whatever strategies they conceive. The nature of that situation limits
the possibilities for escape, or even for creative counter-strategies.
After all, how does one defeat God in his own universe? He can do
whatever he (He?) chooses to do. He cannot be killed or affected by
bullets. He simply does not allow escape from the theater by any means.
He does not allow those outside the theater to enter his universe or
even to be aware of its existence. The sense of certain doom tends to
undermine the ambiguity and uncertainty necessary for an intriguing
storyline.
(2) The last minute or so of the film is clumsy and anti-climactic.
Just before the final scene, the filmmakers did manage to figure out a
pretty nifty way to end the film, but they didn't have the sense to wrap
it up smoothly after that denouement. The film either needed to end
about a minute earlier, or it needed a re-write of the anti-climactic
final scene in which previously unseen characters comment gratuitously
on the action.
With those relatively minor reservations, I'd say you should ignore the
low IMDb rating and go for it if you like 80s-style slasher films. It's an
unheralded and unexpectedly good one. On the other hand, there's almost no
crossover potential. It's an "insider" horror film made for horror film
buffs.
