By Geno McGahee
Watching the 1985 made for TV horror movie, THE MIDNIGHT HOUR, has brought back some memories. I remember watching it when it originally aired and loved it. It was pretty family friendly with some scares along the way and it had a mixture of that 1980’s cheese and New England horror feel. It’s hard to lose that way. After watching it again, I must say that I still dig it, but there are certainly some things that kept me scratching my head.
The first thing that really stuck out as strange in this film was the high school kids being in their mid thirties. You saw that a lot in the eighties. Watch THE BREAKFAST CLUB. Those crazy 15-year-olds are in their late twenties. I guess there’s a lot less bullshit to deal with if you’re not dealing with a minor, but you’d think that they would get 18-year-olds instead.
Phil Grenville (Lee Montgomery) is a nerd that is doing a project on the witch trials and how his great, great, great grandfather put down the demons of hell. He presents the project via slide show but one of his friends, Vinnie (LeVar Burton) slams a book on the floor to disrupt him. I was very disgusted. First, Burton pushes this READING RAINBOW thing and then disrespects a book like that? Hypocrite.
Phil’s best friend, Mitch (Peter DeLuise) is the cool jock guy… I guess. When he hears Phil’s report, he comes up with a great idea to steal the old clothing of the witch hunter and others from the local museum. Melissa (Shari Belafonte), Vinnie’s girl, and Mary (DeDee Pfeiffer), the chick Phil digs, make up the rest of this group.
They break into the museum and find a chest with all sorts of old things. They take it to the cemetery and find read from an old parchment they found in the box. Melissa, the great, great, great granddaughter of the witch Phil’s great grandpa put down elects to read it because it was “in her blood” or whatever. Amazingly, they actually bring the dead back to life, and this is when it gets really, really strange.
In most zombie movies, they mix it up, showing different stages of decomposition. In THE MIDNIGHT HOUR, we see a lot of new and strange shit. Let me start with the straightjacket guy. First, how does a zombie climb out of the ground if he’s wearing a straightjacket? Secondly, why would they bury him in one? Third, if they buried him in one because they thought that he might come back, why didn’t they prepare better and tie up his legs too?
There’s a married couple in their suit and gown walking around holding hands. I’m guessing they both died on their wedding day, but would they bury them in their wedding gear? I don’t think they would especially if they died a bloody death on their wedding night. A lot of the zombies are in rags. Did they bury them like that? How disrespectful is that? The only thing more disrespectful, in my opinion, would be if they put them in straightjackets.
They add in werewolves and some midget zombies to the mix. You can also tell that they didn’t put the actors through zombie walk class. One of the zombies walked as if the other zombies ran a train on him. Others just trudge along and made scary faces. There were so many zombies, I’m sure that it was tough to watch them all. There was nobody there to say “why the fuck is that zombie in a straightjacket?” Or “why the fuck is that zombie walking like he was plowed six ways to Sunday?”
Another note to be made is that two of the zombies came back in perfect shape. One, I understand. Lucinda (Jonelle Allen) was the queen witch that was put down by Grenville, looked great…even her clothing. I get that. She was a witch and had that evil in her veins that preserved her for her moment of sweet revenge. Now, let’s talk about Sandy (Jonna Lee). Sandy is from the 1950s and was buried in her cheerleading costume. What is it with hot chicks dressed like cheerleaders? That’s freaking hot. Anyway, she is perfectly preserved too! She’s been buried 30 years, but has not decomposed. How strange. Stranger is the fact that she is walking with the zombies, but then seems confused as to what is going on.
Melissa is having a huge party and it’s open to everyone and that includes the zombies that are showing up for some reason. Phil’s hope to score with Mary is gone when she ignores him and gets focused on another dude. He leaves and runs into Sandy and the sparks fly, but it leads to more confusion. She knows that there is something going on. At one point, she says “Halloween, that explains a lot,” or something to that effect, but then she can’t understand why there is no malt shop and why her family home is gone. Now, I can go with the idea that she saw the zombies and then thought that they were dressed for Halloween and made that comment, but then she followed up later on with information about the dead rising and how to put them down. She even mentioned that she heard the chant to raise the dead once before. Why wasn’t that noted in Phil’s report? Obviously, there was a zombie problem between the 1950s and the 1980s that Phil blatantly ignored in his report. I call that an F.
To further confuse things, Lucinda, the queen witch, is a vampire. She bites Melissa and then we get a mix of vampires and some werewolves and then some zombies as well. There must have been a big meeting at ABC and they just couldn’t agree on terms so they added every idea into the film.
Phil and Sandy must now put the dead and the demons of the night down before midnight or everyone that is touched by evil will remain evil and the zombies, ghosts, ghouls, werewolves, zombies in straightjackets, and midget zombies will be free forever to roam and be destructive. (Spoiler) They do it.
Now, here we go. I have another observation here. Sandy asks Phil to go to lookout point and notes that “you never know what could happen,” implying that Phil is going to get lucky. BUT she’s been buried 30 years and you know that they pumped her full of formaldehyde. How can Phil get laid under those conditions? She was super hot, granted, but fucking a dead person has to be strange, even if they are back from the dead and hot and want it. Then again, I won’t judge. There is the possibility that Sandy was brought back and the force behind it allowed her to have a normal body again, but this movie never goes into it.
THE MIDNIGHT HOUR is silly and fun and I still enjoyed it after all of these years. Hey, wait! I have one more observation. One more odd thing. At the party, Melissa begins singing this song “I’m dead, you’re dying” and everyone at the party knows the choreography and dance together. How would they all know the moves? I have a hard time believing that they had any time to practice and this raises another point here. Why the fuck are they spending so much time on the dance routine and none on the zombie walk? Get your priorities straight!
In the end, I recommend this film. It’s on YouTube. I put the full movie link below (until they get rid of it).
Rating: 6/10
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