Midnight Movie: The Killer Cut
Despite having never seen the original "cut" of this recent low-budget cult hit, I feel as if the changes made to the film were minimal at best. "Midnight Movie" is a straightforward slasher with an atypical finale. The plot centers around this idea of a film within a film. Infamous filmmaker turned serial killer Ted Radford hacked down the entire cast of his 1970s cult film, "The Dark Beneath." Nearly three decades later, the movie is now taking on a life of its own. The film begins with Radford in a psych ward being shown a cut of his own work, which ultimately leads to a widespread massacre in the facility and Radford's disappearance. Fast forward to the present day, where we find Radford's film has come to life yet again unbeknownst to a small group of unsuspecting moviegoers.
Rebekah Brandes plays Bridget, the lead girl (also known as "the final girl"). She and some friends are attending a special screening of "The Dark Beneath," along with two detectives who are still on the hunt for Radford and a rowdy motorcycle couple. Once the onscreen killer starts cutting down the audience members one by one, the group must ban together in order to survive the night. Unfortunately for them, the killer seemingly possesses supernatural abilities that allows him to jump from the screen into their reality and vice versa.
Given all the trappings of low-budget horror, "Midnight Movie" still manages to be dreadfully mundane and unoriginal. If you haven't seen a slasher film before in your life, I believe you could still piece together a good portion of this film within the first 15-20 minutes. The overall look of the killer is reminiscent of the title character in "Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon," so much so that it's in fact bothersome if you're at all familiar with that movie. I'm also not a fan of a killer whose main attribute includes a debilitating limp. The killer prances around like a zombie extra from "Thriller," and I mean that with the utmost sincerity. It's difficult to watch perfectly healthy individuals being taken down by someone so feeble. Moreover, there were a multitude of questions that went unanswered. Specifically, the undertones of child abuse faced by both Bridget and her little brother. Looking back, it's a complete headscratcher as to why this was ever included ... possibly to give the lead girl more depth.
The film also struggles to follow its own rules. As mentioned, the killer has a comedic limp but is still able to run at his convenience. Building upon that, it's also revealed that the killer feeds on fear — that is to say, he can't kill you if you're not afraid. Yet, Bridget's boyfriend is killed despite his exhibition of bravery. I can usually look past inconsistencies especially in terms of a movie such as this, but certain glaring paradoxes are hard to forgive. It isn't all bad though, in fact there are plenty of positives to note.
The acting is definitely of the low-budget variety, but each character has very distinct personalities. Also, aside from the laughably bad electrocution sequence, the kill scenes are extremely well done. I was actually surprised at the quality of the special effects. I also applaud the rather unorthodox ending; if only the first hour of the film mirrored the glimpses of brilliance exhibited in the final sequence. This killer cut also happens to have some killer special features as well — most notably a behind-the-scenes documentary called "Destroying the Illusion," which offers an in depth look at the making of the film. There is also a commentary with director Jack Messitt unique to this special cut of the film. A deleted scenes and storyboards comparison rounds out the loaded features of this DVD. For fans of the original cut of the film, you will not be disappointed with the extras portion of this disc.
Film: 2 Yaps Extras: 4 Yaps