This article is about the comedy film. For the Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge album, see The Midnight Hour (album). For the Jamie Principle album, see The Midnite Hour.
It is Halloween in the small town of Pitchford Cove, Massachusetts, and five high school friends, Phil (Lee Montgomery), Mary (Pfeiffer), Mitch (DeLuise), Vinnie (Burton), and Melissa (Belafonte-Harper), plan on making it a night they will never forget. They steal outfits from the town's historic museum and come upon other old artifacts, including an old trunk encasing a paper scroll which contains an ancient curse. When the latent sorceress Melissa recites the curse at the local cemetery, things take a turn for the worse.
The town's dead, led by Melissa's great-great-great-great-grandmother Lucinda Cavender (Jonelle Allen), a witch who was put to death 300 years earlier, rise up from their graves and roam the town. As Melissa, Vinnie, Mitch, and Mary enjoy themselves at their annual Halloween costume party, Phil encounters a mysterious girl, named Sandra "Sandy" Matthews (Jonna Lee), dressed in a vintage 1950s cheerleader outfit, who warns him that the whole town is in danger.
Meanwhile, Lucinda and the various undead crash the costume party. At first, nobody pays much attention to them since everyone is in costume. However, Lucinda begins turning the party guests into vampires, starting with her great-great-great-great-granddaughter Melissa.
When Sandy discovers that Phil and his friends recited the ancient spell in the cemetery, they realize that the whole town is being overrun by the living dead and decide to team up to break the curse. The only way to do so is to find the Grenville Spirit Ring inside the grave of a witch-hunter Nathaniel Grenville - who, coincidentally, was Phil's great-great-great-great-grandfather and slave owner of Lucinda Cavender, her arch-nemesis - and use it to undo the curse. Phil and "good ghost" Sandy must restore the town to normal by midnight before it is too late and the curse becomes permanent.
When the local police do not take Phil and Sandy's warning seriously, Phil manages to get his father's hunting rifle to make silver bullets from his father's silver coin collection so they can use the silver bullets which appears to be effective against the undead. When the couple ventures to the Halloween party, they discover everyone turned into zombies, vampires, witches or other evil creatures. Phil manages to get the Grenville Spirit Ring from Zombie Mitch, after which he and Sandy drive to the town's cemetery. They break into Grenville's crypt and take his bones-and-dust remains to use to seal the scroll, just as Lucinda and the horde of undead attack. Cornered in Phil's car, he and Sandy manage to use candle wax to seal the parchment scroll. After Sandy tells Phil she loves him, every creature resurrected on that night vanishes, the wounds that Phil sustains disappear, and the damage to his car is undone—as if the entire event had never happened.
Phil finds Sandy's grave and finally understands that she had been one of the undead too. As the clock strikes midnight, Phil begins to drive back to town, and as he is pulling out of the cemetery, he hears a music dedication on his car radio from 'Sandy,' implying that she will always be looking after him even from beyond the grave.
The Midnight Hour had its world premiere on ABC on Friday, November 1, 1985, at 9:00-11:00 pm EST.[6] The film later aired on occasion during the Halloween season, with an 8 pm airing on the Lifetime network on Wednesday, October 31, 1990.[7] Lifetime continued to air the film on numerous occasions during afternoon time slots, including showings on December 27, 1990,[8] June 19, 1992,[9] and October 31, 1992.[10]
Critical response
Contemporaneous
Rick Sherwood of the San Bernardino Sun deemed the film a "less-than-satisfying teenage monster movie," adding: "The two-hour made-for-TV movie is billed as a humorous horror romp, but The Midnight Hour is really a campy monster bash in which revived corpses break into song and dance. Expect neither tricks nor treats, just lots of rock music, fake-looking special effects, and slow-moving scenes."[1] A review published in The Des Moines Register noted: "The plot is contrived and simple, but the special effects, makeup, and costumes (done by the same person who staged Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video) may be worth the watch,"[11] while a review in The Tennessean described the film as "a sophomoric concoction about a bunch of teenagers who conjure up a gang of goblins."[7]Leonard Maltin wrote in his 1987 film guide that The Midnight Hour was "below average...[a] bland concoction of teen comedies, music videos, horror spoofs, and monster mashes."[12]
Retrospective
Of retrospective assessments on the film, Gary Militzer of DVD Verdict called it "a mediocre made-for-TV horror/comedy" unworthy of a DVD release,[13] while the 2004 DVD and Video Guide deemed it an "enjoyable cross between Night of the Living Dead and An American Werewolf in London, helped along by humor and a lively cast."[14]AllMovie's Robert Firsching wrote: "Cultists and completists may find it worth a look for camp value alone, but most will want to give it a wide berth."[15]
In Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide (2012), Glenn Kay called the film "lavishly produced, but not particularly thrilling," adding that it "has a sickening cuteness to it."[16] Vampire fiction scholar John L. Flynn referred to the film as "a hodgepodge of horror film cliches."[17] John Stanley wrote in Creature Features (2000) that the film was a "violent TV-movie vacillating between graveyard humor and shock thrills."[18] Academic Peter Dendle noted in The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia: "Even zombie movie completists will have a hard time stomaching this lame made-for-TV drivel," also comparing elements of the film's dance sequence to that of the Jackson "Thriller" video, and likening other elements of the film to those of Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (1972) and Grease (1978).[19] Similarly in Cyborgs, Santa Claus and Satan: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films Made for Television (2009), media scholar Fraser S. Sherman wrote: "This pointless film spends far too much time with teens partying and dancing, and pays much more attention to visuals than to plot."[20]
The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires is a 1974 martial arts horror film directed by Roy Ward Baker. The film opens in 1804, when seven vampires clad in gold masks are resurrected by Count Dracula. A century later, Professor Van Helsing, known in the world for his exploits with Dracula, is recruited by a man and his seven siblings after giving a lecture at a Chinese university to take on the vampires. The film is a British-Hong Kong co-production between Hammer Film Productions and Shaw Brothers Studio.
Children of the Living Dead is a 2001 American direct-to-video zombie film written by Karen L. Wolf, directed by Tor Ramsey, and executive produced by John A. Russo.
Commander USA's Groovie Movies is an American movie showcase series that ran weekend afternoons on the USA Network.
The Video Dead is a 1987 horror film written and directed by Robert Scott and starring Roxanna Augesen. The screenplay concerns a paranormal television that causes zombies from a never-ending film to enter the real world. The film was released direct-to-video and has been re-released several times since then.
Tombs of the Blind Dead is a 1972 Spanish-Portuguese horror film written and directed by Amando de Ossorio. Its original Spanish title is La noche del terror ciego.
Night of the Seagulls is a 1975 Spanish horror film written and directed by Amando de Ossorio. The film is the fourth and final in the Blind Dead series, being the sequel to The Ghost Galleon (1974).
Flesheater is 1988 horror film directed, written, produced, and co–edited by Bill Hinzman. An independent production, the film also stars Hinzman, best known for playing the cemetery ghoul in George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968).
Sugar Hill is a 1974 American horror blaxploitation zombie film, directed by Paul Maslansky and starring Marki Bey as the title character who uses voodoo to get revenge on the people responsible for her boyfriend's death. It was released by American International Pictures. According to the film, the zombies are the preserved bodies of slaves brought to the United States from Guinea. AIP had previously combined the horror and blaxploitation genres with Blacula (1972) and its sequel Scream Blacula Scream (1973).
Messiah of Evil is a 1973 American supernatural horror film co-written, co-produced, and co-directed by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, and starring Marianna Hill, Michael Greer, Anitra Ford, Royal Dano, and Elisha Cook Jr. Its plot follows a woman who travels to a remote coastal town in California to find her missing artist father; upon arrival, she finds herself in the midst of a series of bizarre incidents.
Zombie Bloodbath is a 1993 American horror film produced, directed by Todd Sheets.
Garden of the Dead is a 1972 horror film directed by low-budget film director John Hayes and stars Phil Kenneally, Duncan McLeod, Lee Frost and Susan Charney.
Curse of the Maya is a 2004 American horror film written, directed by and starring David Heavener.
Curse of the Undead is a 1959 American Horror Western film directed by Edward Dein and starring Eric Fleming, Michael Pate and Kathleen Crowley.
Zombies of Mora Tau is a 1957 black-and-white zombie horror film directed by Edward L. Cahn and starring Gregg Palmer, Allison Hayes and Autumn Russel. Distributed by Columbia Pictures, it was produced by Sam Katzman. The screenplay was written by George H. Plympton and Bernard Gordon. Zombies of Mora Tau was released on a double bill with another Katzman-produced film, The Man Who Turned to Stone (1957).
Zombie Undead is a 2010 British horror film directed by Rhys Davies and starring Ruth King, Kris Tearse, Rod Duncan, Barry Thomas, Sandra Wildbore, and Christopher J. Herbert. It was written by Kris Tearse. After a terrorist attack in Leicester, survivors take cover from zombies.
Virus Undead is a 2008 German horror film directed by Wolf Wolff and Ohmuthi, written by Wolf Jahnke, and starring Philipp Danne, Birthe Wolter, Anna Breuer, Nikolas Jürgens, and Marvin Gronen. The screenplay concerns a group of medical students and locals in a small town who suffer an outbreak of a mutated H5N1-like virus that causes people to turn into zombies.
Kung Fu Zombie is a 1981 comedy-themed Hong Kong martial arts film written and directed by Hwa I Hung. It stars Billy Chong as a martial artist who must fight supernatural foes.
Dead Men Don't Die is a 1990 American horror-comedy film written and directed by Malcolm Marmorstein and starring Elliott Gould and Melissa Sue Anderson.
Flynn, John L. (1992). Cinematic Vampires: The Living Dead on Film and Television, from The Devil's Castle (1896) to Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). McFarland. ISBN978-0-899-50659-3.
Kay, Glenn (2012). Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide. Chicago Review Press. ISBN978-1-613-74425-3.
Martin, Mick; Porter, Marsha (2003). DVD and Video Guide 2004. Ballantine Books. ISBN978-0-345-44994-8.
Sherman, Fraser S. (2009). Cyborgs, Santa Claus and Satan: Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films Made for Television. McFarland. ISBN978-1-476-61101-3.
Stanley, John (2000). Creature Features: The Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Movie Guide. Berkley Boulevard Books. ISBN978-0-425-17517-0.
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