Small Town Monsters

 This was a nice little revisit to The Midnight Hour (1985)--here's my past review--after a few years. I didn't grow up with the film, or at least I don't recall seeing it back in the mid-to-late 80s or early 90s. It's possible I might have. It's possible. Nonetheless, this is for the most part a decent horror film for the family, a "starter" flick for kids needing a gateway into the genre. An enchantment setting loose zombies, vampires, werewolves, demons from hell, and ghosts when high school teens (all the cast are in their 20s) read from it once a seal is broken on Halloween after an opening that shows an ordinary day at a small town as a kid on his bike is on a newspaper route as Brad Fiedel's ("Just Before Dawn"/"Fright Night"/"The Terminator") quaint, whimsical score establishes that very little dangerous or scary ever happens at Pitchford Falls. I still think the film offers a lot to horror fans of a certain era. Not necessarily the last two generations but I think as a piece of nostalgia (if you watched it in 1985 on ABC as a kid or young adult, or perhaps grew up with it after some subsequent showings later on) for those familiar with it or with a fondness for this kind of 80s camp might. With names like LeVar Burton ("Reading Rainbow"/"Roots"/"Star Trek: The Next Generation") Peter Deluise (consummate television actor), Kevin McCarthy ("Invasion of the Body Snatchers"), Shari Belafonte, Dedee Pfeiffer ("Vamp"), Dick Van Patten ("8 is Enough") Kurtwood Smith ("That 70s Show"), and Mark Blankfield (under heavy zombie makeup), "The Midnight Hour" was certainly destined for cult status. There is a good bit of "small town besieged by monsters", too, sort of falling in line with that era of 80s horror. This film might also win some hearts over a rather charming if sad romance over a single evening as Lee Montgomery (Bobby in Dan Curtis' memorable tale in "Dead of Night"), who has failed to gain the attention of Pfeiffer (she focused on some stud painted up like Frankenstein's Monster), encounters the ghost (she does have form, though, but she's not a rotted zombie) of a teenager who died too young in the 50s, Sandy (the blond, blue-eyed beauty, Jonna Lee). Sandy was a cheerleader who realizes that she's of another time, awakened by the parchment that brought her back, with her home "updated" with no "malt shop" or drive-in, and the lover's lane is just an empty spot near a bridge. She helps Lee's Phil coordinate a plan to stop all the monsters' onslaught but the parchment will need to be sealed with wax through the ring around Deluise's finger. The raid of the local museum, mischief at the local cemetery, and enchantment read by Belafonte (ancestor to a witch hung by the township's witchhunter) setting off a town soon laid waste by all the aforementioned creatures of the night does provide Phil and Sandy with incentive to correct the mistakes made by the teens. Though LeVar Burton and Shari Belafonte were clearly too old for high schoolers, they were still fun, I thought. Pfeiffer was a bit snobbish, a far cry from the cute waitress I was smitten with from "Vamp" (1986)...she just ignores Lee's Phil, who tries multiple times to ask her out and to dance. Jonna Lee as Sandy is probably my favorite member of the cast, and her sacrifice to save Phil, while laudable, was still bittersweet because it cost her any further time with him. It was treated as a sort of "vacation" for Sandy, and she urges Phil to "race" another car (he speeds off with smoke leaving behind two buddies), make out a bit, and hang out. The Sandy/Phil "courtship" is an obvious temporary one, but Lee and Montgomery have good chemistry, even if some viewers might go eww as others go aww. It was just hard for me not to like those two, I freely admit. Although the plot to this little Halloween movie in 1985 is nonsense, it does include some dark moments such as a werewolf attacking a guy on a sidewalk (turning him into a werewolf), McCarthy (as a zombie) strangling his own son on the hood of a car, and Jonelle Allen's vampire attacking Belafonte in the wine cellar as bottles break and wine spills (like geysers of blood) all over the floor. I liked the vampire fangs and "necking". The music setpiece I could do without, but I get that "Thriller" was a huge "monster" hit so its influence is understandably going to inspire others to mimic it. I LOVED the scene towards the end where Phil and Sandy are in his car, driving throughout the town as all the locals (and those resurrected or unearthed by the parchment) are now vampires or ghouls...it's quite apocalyptic and atmospheric. And Sandy telling Phil she loved him (earlier she hinted to him that she was in love with him) while his attention was diverted by the monsters outside the car trying to get at them, as she disappears once the parchment as been officially sealed leaves a real feeling of melancholy...Phil sees her tombstone and lipstick declaring their names as one, knowing she loved him, while also realizing who and what he briefly had and lost for good. What a great soundtrack...The Smiths can even be heard at the big Halloween party hosted by Belafonte, with Wolfman Jack a radio DJ. Cindy Morgan dressed as Bowie alone gives this film my stamp of approval; her substitute teacher and Death accompanying her is just a treat. Certain comedians like Blankfield are forgotten today but in the 70s and 80s were quite prominent...his zombie makeout with a rotting female zombie is wonderfully surreal. The Halloween party offers plenty of costumes/makeup horror fans might enjoy. This is very much a timepiece from the 80s. I think that is why it has a cult following. You get the Halloween night in a small town feel and lots of monsters. And the Halloween Party house by the end is a haunted wreck where all the folks there are of the undead.