Anthology fright flicks experienced a brief, but welcome resurgence in the mid 80's up until the early 90's, as evidenced by the lovably chintzy "Creepshow 2," the genuinely disturbing "The Offspring," the wonderfully offbeat horror-Western favorite "Grim Prairie Tales," the enthusiastically gruesome indie effort "Campfire Tales," and this well-done sleeper.
A creepy college professor (a very intense Ramy Zada) and several of his students (which include "Pumpkinhead" victim Kerry Remsen, who meets a similar ill fate here) tell each other a trio of urban legend-style terror tales throughout the course of your standard dark and stormy evening. First and most ironic vignette, "The Old Dark House" - Young married couple Marc McClure (Jimmy Olsen in the "Superman" movies) and Nadine ("Critters") Van Der Velde are forced to spend a night in a spooky, rundown old mansion after their car breaks down. Second and most unintentionally sidesplitting story, "A Night on the Town" - A quartet of screaming, vacuous, wholly deserving bimbettes ("American Ninja" 's Judi Aronson among 'em) are terrorized by a demented homeless lunatic (outrageously overplayed to the sneering fruitbag hilt by the late, great Luis Contreras, who portrayed nasty Hispanic villains in such action items as "Stand Alone," "Extreme Prejudice," "Walking the Edge," and "Dollman") and his pack of vicious wild dogs. Third and best yarn, "All Night Operator" - This taut, gripping little corker features a bang-up performance by the ever-lovely and personable Marg Helgenberger as Alex, a sexy, resourceful receptionist who receives menacing phone calls from and, naturally, eventually gets stalked by some homicidal madman (a finely flipped-out freako turn by Alan Rosenberg).
Writers/directors Jim and Ken Wheat, who previously made the excellent, underrated Hitchcockian suspense thriller pip "Lies" and penned such goodies as the solid slasher picture "Silent Scream" and the fantastic sci-fi/horror knockout "Pitch Black," do a typically up to snuff job with this extremely fun, sometimes thrilling and always entertaining omnibus affair: the brisk, steady pace never falters for a minute, the acting is uniformly good, a suitably eerie atmosphere pervades throughout, each anecdote leads to a reasonably frightening conclusion (the climax to the first tale is especially effective), and the wacky, nightmarish final may be pretty silly, but it still works in a goofily over-the-top hokey carnival funhouse sort of way. Sure, it's no trend-setting, genre-bending innovative masterpiece, but "After Midnight" nonetheless doesn't deserve its current obscure status and certainly makes for a nice, perfectly pleasing late night with the lights out and the shades drawn horror movie viewing experience.
A creepy college professor (a very intense Ramy Zada) and several of his students (which include "Pumpkinhead" victim Kerry Remsen, who meets a similar ill fate here) tell each other a trio of urban legend-style terror tales throughout the course of your standard dark and stormy evening. First and most ironic vignette, "The Old Dark House" - Young married couple Marc McClure (Jimmy Olsen in the "Superman" movies) and Nadine ("Critters") Van Der Velde are forced to spend a night in a spooky, rundown old mansion after their car breaks down. Second and most unintentionally sidesplitting story, "A Night on the Town" - A quartet of screaming, vacuous, wholly deserving bimbettes ("American Ninja" 's Judi Aronson among 'em) are terrorized by a demented homeless lunatic (outrageously overplayed to the sneering fruitbag hilt by the late, great Luis Contreras, who portrayed nasty Hispanic villains in such action items as "Stand Alone," "Extreme Prejudice," "Walking the Edge," and "Dollman") and his pack of vicious wild dogs. Third and best yarn, "All Night Operator" - This taut, gripping little corker features a bang-up performance by the ever-lovely and personable Marg Helgenberger as Alex, a sexy, resourceful receptionist who receives menacing phone calls from and, naturally, eventually gets stalked by some homicidal madman (a finely flipped-out freako turn by Alan Rosenberg).
Writers/directors Jim and Ken Wheat, who previously made the excellent, underrated Hitchcockian suspense thriller pip "Lies" and penned such goodies as the solid slasher picture "Silent Scream" and the fantastic sci-fi/horror knockout "Pitch Black," do a typically up to snuff job with this extremely fun, sometimes thrilling and always entertaining omnibus affair: the brisk, steady pace never falters for a minute, the acting is uniformly good, a suitably eerie atmosphere pervades throughout, each anecdote leads to a reasonably frightening conclusion (the climax to the first tale is especially effective), and the wacky, nightmarish final may be pretty silly, but it still works in a goofily over-the-top hokey carnival funhouse sort of way. Sure, it's no trend-setting, genre-bending innovative masterpiece, but "After Midnight" nonetheless doesn't deserve its current obscure status and certainly makes for a nice, perfectly pleasing late night with the lights out and the shades drawn horror movie viewing experience.