By Melissa Antoinette Garza
After Midnight, Missy is gonna let it all hang out! WOOT WOOT. Imma love me some Eric Clapton. I also love me some horror anthologies and the 1989 flick AFTER MIDNIGHT is no exception to that rule. It’s unique, insane fun and keeps the stories kicking from start to finish.
The movie opens with a bunch of college cats attending a class on the Psychology of Fear. I took a lot of psychology courses in college and I have to say, they never had one on fear. I would’ve jumped at that motherfucker. I got stuck with Psychology of Love and some feel-good bullshit that irritated the hell out of me.
The Psychology of Fear class in AFTER MIDNIGHT was not feel-good bullshit. No, son! That course is hardcore! Professor Edward Derek (Ramy Zada) takes an unorthodox approach in teaching and pulls a gun on smart-ass punk bully Russ (Ed Monaghan). Russ pisses his pants and runs out of the room. Derek then turns the gun on himself and shoots himself in the head. The students panic, but he’s fine. It was a practical joke. Ha Ha?
Quiet and shy Allison (Jillian McWhirter) has a serious case of déjà vu and isn’t thrilled with the course at all, but her best bud Cheryl (Pamela Adlon) is a crazy bitch like me and loves this shit.
The next day, Russ complained to the school and Derek is forced to make a few changes. You figure the school board would have fired his ass for pointing a gun at a student and pretending to off himself in front of the whole class, but no. He just had to wear a preppy sweater and go old-school teaching with textbooks. Tenure, man! It lets you get away with everything!
So, Derek tells the students that though he has to change his approach in class, the school can’t dictate what he does in his own home. The professor is a badass rebel and he don’t give a fuck. He tells the kids to show up at his place. Yeah – I don’t think this dude is a good teacher! RUN ALLISON RUN!
Well, Allison, Cheryl and a few other peeps show up to see what Edward has up his sleeve. He tells them that they’ll be sharing scary stories, but not ones with monsters, goblins and ghouls. Instead, it’s going to be REAL horror stories.
The kids are in like Flynn, but meanwhile Russ is plotting revenge for the antics in school. He has an ax and is breaking into the professor’s house. Russ did not find the humor of having a gun pointed at him as a prank. What a dick!
As Russ is lurking around, the first story begins. It follows married couple, Joan (Nadine Van der Velde) and her husband Kevin (Marc McClure), who are out for his birthday. The car gets two flat tires on a near deserted road. They walk to the nearest house, and when no one answers, they break-in. Once inside, the two split up and Russ starts panicking. He comes across human skulls and sees an old guy with knives. The visuals are pretty crazy but very well done and the twist is a fun one.
The second story is about stupid girls. I hate stupid girls, but I love this tale. Amy (Tracy Wells) borrows her dad’s car and is hanging with her gal pals Kelly (Penelope Sudrow), Jennifer (Judie Aronson) and Lisa (Monique Salcido). These girls get off the freeway on a nearly empty tank of gas and don’t notice until they’re fucked in the middle of nowhere. Now for the younger cats out there, this was long before the days of smart phones and GPS, so they are shit out of luck. This really falls on Amy. She’s a stupid bitch! She’s not paying attention to where she’s going, the car gauges and worse – she’s a complete coward.
They make it to a dilapidated closed down gas station and decide to wander in to see if there’s anyone who can help. Bad move, ladies. Amy and Kelly chill outside while the tougher, vamp-ier and sexier gals enter. Jennifer and Lisa are the partiers of the group, but they’re not street. They’re suburban tough. Inside, they run into a slime-ball wannabe rapist (Luis Contreras) who happens to own very vicious dogs. The girls barely get away, but the pups are up for the chase. When the car runs out of gas, and they’re forced out and onto the empty dark streets of an unfamiliar city, the ladies must reach deep and find a resolve to fight back or end up literal dog meat.
The last tale aside from the wraparound follows an all night operator who takes calls at a hotel for high class clients including celebrities. Due to cutbacks, badass fem Alex (Marg Helgenberger) must work alone. She’s annoyed by it, but not worried at first. She’s a tough dame who can typically take care of herself, but sadly she’s on crutches due to an accident.
Enter, Richard (Alan Rosenberg), and FUCK Richard! Richard is a mean ol’ psychopath stalker who keeps calling for a soap opera star that is staying in the building. After his umpteenth call, Alex realizes he’s a nut. She lies to Richard and says that the actress isn’t in her room, but super sneaky sleuth Dick knows that to be false. Soon, he targets Alex, and despite her injury, she needs to fight back against the madman to escape his reign of terror.
I’ve worked alone and dealt with crazies before so this one resonates strongly with me. It’s fantastically done and bears some similarity to the BODY BAGS (1993) short The Gas Station with the great Robert Carradine. Storyline wise they’re different enough, but the tension it builds and the tone of the tale are very much alike, and both equally pack a pretty hard punch.
In the end, the wraparound tale for AFTER MIDNIGHT is one of the best in the history of film anthologies. It incorporates aspects of every other tale and while the stories that came before were told from the perspective that they could exist in reality, the conclusion flips that on its head. Mysticism, magic and spectacularly strange imagery is used to bring in a paranormal aspect to the movie which somehow works perfectly. I take it as the film saying, “there are things that you and I don’t understand, but it doesn’t mean they are any less real than those that we do.” It’s a deep message for a fun popcorn movie and I admire the fuck out of it for doing more than it had to and much more than what was expected of it.
Watch this. It’s awesome. I love it. You’ll love it if you have good taste. If you don’t like it, get better taste and try again.
Scared Stiff Rating: 8/10
