The Dark Stormy Night: After Midnight (1989)

While I think the film is merely okay (I have a write-up for the film forthcoming), I do think there’s some good stuff in “After Midnight” (1989). The preparation for the storytelling at the professor’s house, for example, is lit to exploit that old mainstay: the dark, stormy night. The thunder and lightning pick up, and soon the rain. The students gather at their rather creepy professor’s home to swap tales that bring a gulp to the throat (well, supposedly. I guess it all depends on whether or not this film’s tales will do that for you. Time will tell). The lighting is so that it hues faces and establishes the ominous confines of a man with a presence quite sinister. That’s the point of Jim and Ken Wheat’s casting of Ramy Zada. He is supposed to look and act like someone who could slit your throat and smile afterward. While I didn’t think much of Jillian McWhirter as the lead with a “bad feeling”, she does share this odd attachment with Zada that is palpable. She has a secret that she can’t put a finger on while he has the agenda of seeing those in his attendance scared. Perhaps they will have something that converges at the end, illuminated slightly when gathered in his home. It is an air of mystery that the film does through a dance of visual cues and lighting.