After Midnight

...but it has it's moments. The good things about the first story : -the creepy setting, and the feeling of not knowing what's going to happen, and the shocking ending. The good things about the second story : -Amy is hot!, kinda good acting, a scene where a girl is bitten to death by dogs, and... that's about it. I could swear that Kelly was a young and virgin Reneè Zellweger. It was just my imagination. The third, and fourth stories are O.K. but I won't comment on them because I had to watch the first two that were quite boring, and anyone who watches this film should be bored for 1 hour before the "good" stuff begins.

source: After Midnight

After Midnight

Compilations of horror stories are always appealing, multiple short pieces of diverse monsters - perfect. Most compilations, however are very disappointing, boring, cliched, poorly done. This movie is a very pleasant exception, probably the best compilation of stories. And it gets better with every story (except for the framing story which is pretty lame in comparison). Of course there are clichés, but the good ones, like the haunted house, the girls getting lost in a bad part of town and the telephone killer. (And there is very little dumb, unlogical behavior that helps lazy writers to keep the story going but is nothing but annoying for the viewers). I enjoyed this movie a lot, wished there were more like this.

After watching "After Midnight", I find it hard to believe that a major studio (MGM/UA) picked up this independent production. Though at the same time, I can understand why this major studio decided to not give it a big release. This is an unscary and lazy movie that doesn't seem to fully understand what the audience expects in a horror anthology. Two of the four stories told in the movie have no twists at the end! Two of the stories also start off with the same premise (drivers in a remote area getting car problems.) And each of the stories has things that don't make sense when you think about them afterwards. The only good thing about the movie was some fairly impressive stop-motion animation near the very end, but that only lasts a few seconds. Even if you love horror anthologies like I do, you can safely skip this one.

This film succeeds....in being an excruciating exercise in testing one's amounts of viewing paitence. This 1989 MGM release is one of the few major studio releases in the horror anthology genre and one of the weakest too. Several past and future TV stars (including Marg Helgenberger from "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation") shine some light on some otherwise dark and dull proceedings. Helgenberger is the only bright spot here.

Yeah, the other reviews basically sum up the details on this one. However, nobody picked up on the awesomely 80's aspects of this movie. Number one: the wraparound story: the killer has a mullett!!!! horrors! Number two: the haunted house story, shoulder pads!!!! ahhhhhh Number three: the lost girls: mini skirts, spandex dresses, teased bangs, sweaters, and yes, bangles. Terrors upon terrors! Number four: okay there wasn't anything particuarly awful about the late night caller one, well the main character's hair was pretty bad. So all in all, After Midnight is cheesey, cliched, and not very scary, but it is lots of fun, and it was made in a decade of horrid fashion trends!

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.

This is a great horror movie! For those people who don't favor gore so much but are more interested in hearing scary stories on a rainy night, you'll love it. If you like this movie, be sure to check out Rod Serling's "Night Gallery". Last but, not least, you get to check out that hunk, Ramy Zada.

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