Wednesday, October 30, 2019

The Midnight Hour




The Midnight Hour
1985
Director- Jack Bender
Cast-Shari Belafonte, LeVar Burton, Lee Montgomery, Peter DeLuise,  Dedee Pfeiffer, Jonna Lee, Dick Van Patten, Kurtwood Smith, Kevin McCarthy, Wolfman Jack
          
     This was a made for TV movie by ABC that premiered  in 1985. It has a good cast with genre favorites LeVar Burton, Kevin McCarthy and Kurtwood Smith.  It combines horror and humor with an outstanding soundtrack of mostly mid 60’s music which helps give it the feel of an old school movie.
          
 
     The New England town of Ptchford (known colloquially as Ptchfork) lives with an ancient tale of a slave, Lucinda, that was hanged for witchcraft.  Melissa, a high school student, is the modern day descendant of Lucinda. One of her classmates, Phil, is the ancestor of the witch hunter that had her executed. The clothes and effects of Lucinda and the witch hunter are kept in the town’s witchcraft museum. Halloween is approaching and Melissa and her friends get the idea to steal the clothes and use them for Halloween costumes. After stealing the clothes they find a scroll with an incantation. Melissa reads it aloud and before long supernatural forces are unleashed. Lucinda the witch returns, zombies rise from the cemetery, a werewolf is stalking the town and a very out of place looking girl, Sandy, is walking around. Sandy is dressed like a cheerleader from the 50s and acts like it too.
            

    The school kids are gathering at Melissa’s house for a Halloween party and zombies begin to crash the party but no one realizes that their rotted flesh isn’t a Halloween costume.  Phil strikes out with all of the girls at the party and leaves, running into Sandy, who seems to be trying to make up for lost time in the fun department. Meanwhile, Lucinda has crashed the party as well and it turns out that in addition to being an undead witch, she’s also a vampire. She bites her descendant Melissa, turning her into a vampire, who in turn bites her boyfriend and so forth.
           
     Phil is having the time of his life with Sandy until they are attacked by a werewolf. Sandy, who we now know has returned from the dead herself, though very hot instead of gross and rotting, lets Phil in on what is going on. She and Phil have to stop it and they only have until the end of Halloween night to do it.
           

     The movie is in cheesey in places and seems very influenced by Michael Jackson’s Thriller video. Never the less it is original and has heart that makes it memorable and enjoyable. There are none of the typical rules that we usually see with vampires and zombies and elements seen to be chosen because they are cool or fun. The classic music makes it seem like a creepy music video at times. A fun movie if you want a light hearted Halloween story.
  




No comments:

Post a Comment