After Midnight

Horror anthologies are largely a mixed bag. For every spectacular Tales From the Darkside or Creepshow there is a horrible (and often British) movie like Tales That Witness Madness to drag the genre down.

The first story is a mediocre haunted house tale that didn't really impress me.

The second was about four girls who end up in a bad neighborhood and terrorized by a gas station attendant and three killer dogs. I liked this story and felt that the characters were generally interesting and intelligent, bad choices aside.

The final story is about a telephone operator who is terrorized by a psychopathic stalker. This one was pretty good as well.

The wraparound story is interesting and generally more involved than most other anthologies. It is arguably better than the stories themselves, aside from the ending which I won't spoil.

I saw this on The Movie Channel yesterday, and I really liked it. The stories weren't great, but they were all entertaining, and I liked how the frame story was more than people sitting around telling stories, and despite the fact that the climax of the frame story was a little extreme (though, quite creepy with that skeleton!) it's still a good horror movie.

The film comes together with Allison (Jillian McWhirter) and Cheryl (Pamela Segall) starting college, and their first day of a class on the psychology of fear. After their professor (Ramy Zeda) goes too far with one lesson (scaring a macho frat guy to the point of wetting himself), he is forced to tone his class down, but opts for anyone who wants to get a better understanding of what he's teaching to come to his house the next night for a private lesson. A handful of students show up, including Allison and Cheryl, yet Allison has a bad feeling about it all (well, we haven't heard that one before!) and almost seems to be a bit psychic about it. (Believe me, it gets old quick.) Yet, that night, as a few students take turns telling stories to scare each other, the angry frat guy decides to get his revenge, and closes in on the party, as each story is told.

There are three stories told:

1: "The Old Dark House"- This one was really clever. It starts off and gets going with what seems like every cliche in hand. A couple takes the scenic route home, pass an old mansion where murders were committed, get a flat tire, and decide to go up to the house to call a tow-truck. We've seen all that before. But then, towards the end, the story takes a really creative twist that ties it all together perfectly, and actually proves to be a genuine surprise and thrill.

2: "A Night on the Town"- This one was a little thin, and could have used a few twists, yet it didn't surprise you like it should have, which would have helped the flimsy plot. Four girls looking for some fun (one of which, Amy, I knew I recognized, and finally realized was the teenage girl in "Mr. Belvedere"!) and end up in the warehouse district of town with little gas. They stop at a gas station, and meet the gas station attendant from hell and his dobermans, which all proceed to terrorize the girls in a sometimes tense, sometimes cheesy chase through the wrong part of town. This one was not as good as the others, but still entertaining.

3: "All Night Messenger"-This one was pretty good, though a little typical. A woman, Alex, who works for a telephone messenger service (I didn't get it, maybe this is pre-answering machine employment) comes home early from a ski trip with a broken ankle (hmm, will she have to run at some point?) and takes the late shift that night. She begins getting calls from a creepy caller for one woman, and when the woman comes home and calls for her messages, Alex tries to warn her before it's too late. Of course, the caller eventually catches on, and makes his move, and you can sort of see where it all goes from there. Though, this one was pretty good, and the ending was creepy.

The frame story eventually wraps up in this very bizarre climax that makes little sense at times, but it's still creepy. And to wrap all that up, the movie does the only thing that might make some sense, but will surely make you groan with annoyance.

Overall, I liked this. The main and end title music was creepy, and the whole atmosphere of the movie was that 80s horror movie feel that just sort of makes everything entertaining, and tolerably cheesy. The acting is all fairly typical. Jillian McWhirter sort of got on my nerves with all her damn premonitions, and she always looked really creepy, almost drugged. Ramy Zeda was a bit over the top, but creepy. I thought Pamela Segall was likeable, though, except, what was going on with her and the ending? (You'll know what I mean if or when you see this, and if you have, tell me what was going on.) All the other actors were forgettable, and basically playing the roles expected of them in a movie like this.

I recommend watching this if you get a chance. It moves quickly, and is really entertaining.

Although the stories in this Horror anthology are weak, the film manages to engage the mind throughout. The framing device used is that of a professor teaching the psychology of fear who humiliates a student during a lesson. Because of this, the wilder excesses of the teachers lessons can only be taught out of class at his home. Students relate scary tales during one such session most of which are interesting but have seriously flawed logic. Marg Helgenberger excels as the telephone service operator taking calls from a crazed stalker. The best story is the first in which a practical joke seriously misfires. The ending is surreal but is based on a hackneyed idea. The original music by Marc Donohue is excellent, especially that over the opening credits.

"After Midnight" appears to be a passable and insignificant late-80s horror anthology, and it really is to be honest, but I would definitely still encourage enthusiast genre fanatics to seek it out! The writers and directors, siblings Ken and Jim Wheat, are mostly famous for their scripting of "Pitch Black" and "The Chronicles of Riddick", but they also wrote an impressive number of adequate and versatile 80s horror & Sci-Fi gems, like "Silent Scream", "The Return", "Nightmare on Elm Street 4" and "The Fly 2". "After Midnight" is one of their sole attempts to also direct, and it became a modest but amiable little omnibus with a pleasantly deranged wraparound story and at least 2 out of 3 segments that are far above average.

In the wraparound, which is righteously also considered to be a fully independent segment, cute but worried student Allison reluctantly attends the first psychology class of the unorthodox teacher Edward Derek. He teaches his students about "fear" by threatening them at gunpoint and faking his own suicide in class. Naturally, the school doesn't appreciate this, and thus Prof. Derek invites a handful of students - including Allison - at his home to further plunge into the world of fear via telling each other scary stories. The first story, "An Old Dark House" is a traditional urban legend type of tale, but I liked the atmosphere and crazy ending. "A Night on the Town" is very similar to a contemporary childhood favorite of mine, namely "Adventures in Babysitting" (which was actually also known under the same title "A Night on the Town"), only this short features four yummy girls and a pack of wild dogs. The final story, "All-Night Operator", is the most known because it stars Marg Helgenberger of "CSI"-fame in one of her earliest roles. She's a switchboard operator in an apartment block and becomes the target of a maniacal stalker after refusing to transfer his calls to a famous actress. The tale is good, albeit derivative, and in this very brief episode Ken & Jim Wheat surely demonstrate they are capable of mounting suspense and generating a claustrophobic atmosphere.

The primary reason to watch "After Midnight" remains the demented wraparound tale, for sure. The classroom sequence is so incredibly surreal and bonkers that it literally has to be seen to be believed! Just imagine the lawsuits an act like this would spawn in real life! During the climax, the Wheat bros' scenario goes tremendously over the top, and it doesn't really fit in with the rest of the film. Who cares, though, as it's great fun!

With the 3 stories and the wrap around this horror anthology features a couple of familiar faces including CSI veteran Marg Helgenberger.

Including an elaborate prank gone wrong, crazy homeless man and his attack dogs, a celebrity stalker and a jocks vengeance.

None of the stories are great but are at least competently made.

The wrap around though interesting all falls apart in the last act which damages the film.

There are a lot of horror anthology's out there and though this one isn't bad it's shadowed by considerably better ones.

The Good:

The teacher was suitably hammy

Intense opening

The Bad:

Rather clichéd

Awful ending

Things I learnt from this movie:

This prank thing is really get out of hand

If attacked by rabid dogs it makes more sense to be on foot than safe in a car

Abandoned derelict buildings are logical places to seek a working phone