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Some seriously deranged college professor is teaching
his students the secret of fear and literally makes a
cocky guy piss his pants. The prof later holds a private
class at his home to share some scary tales with a
bunch of geeky students, while the (literally) pissed-off,
cocky guy is luring outside with an axe ready to strike
for revenge. And here goes three spooky tales, told by
the Prof and his students about 1) two lovebirds
conveniently getting flat-tires on their car outside a
supposedly haunted house, 2) some underage high-school
bimbos' encounter with a psycho and his mad-raging dogs,
and 3) a phone-operator, with a broken leg, terrorized
by a serial killer, before the film goes for its conclusion.
This is one of those episode-horror-flicks, a fun
trend started during the 80s by the popular Creepshow
and followed by things like Tales from the Crypt. This
is a pretty forgettable piece of horror tales, on a
typically brainless level, but like many B-flicks it's
wildly entertaining and surprisingly well made. The
stories are predictable, and somewhat pointless, but the
film has an offbeat twist ending linking the tales together.
The cast is pretty much unknown, with exception for
Marg Helgenberger, later a recognized face on TV series
"CSI" and sci-fi flicks Species and Species II.
She plays the stalked phone-operator in this one and
provides the best (and most believable) performance in
the film. Otherwise, you might recognize small-part B
movie actresses like Penelope Sudrow (A Nightmare on
Elm Street 3) or Nadine Van Der Velde (Critters) but
their roles (and acting) ranges from bad to laughable.
Of the stories the third and last one, with the phone-
operator, come off best. It's pretty obvious, with no
real surprises but the situation of a lonely woman,
with a broken leg, trapped in a high-rise building
with a psycho, is creepy, and it has a good climatic
twist, just like Tale Number 1. The second story
with the dogs is just plain stupid though, with the
characters being annoyingly stupid and the ending a
complete anti-climax. Doesn't hold a candle to Cujo,
that's for sure.
This is no gore movie, and the budget isn't exactly
over-sized. Many effects, like a slow-motion decapitation
and a woman killed by dogs, look pretty cheap but the
film starts off with a fake shoot-your-brains-out
suicide, providing a great shock effect and some blood
splattering on the wall. The climax has a skeleton
chasing a woman with an axe, but everyone who've seen
Army of Darkness really can't take that seriously -
especially when it's hissing "You're next..."
Being a late 80s flick, the score is just your plain,
old soft-rock synth-guitar horror soundtrack with no
apparent title theme or featured songs.
After Midnight isn't really a good movie or even a
good horror film - but it's entertaining and often,
that's just what you need. It's not even close to a
classic, but hey - at least it's better than Creepshow 2...
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