Midnight 2 — Midnight 2(DVD)
Released in the early 90’s Midnight 2 was the sequel to 1980’s backwoods satanic thriller chiller Midnight. It features the only surviving member of the first film's deranged family, who’s now set up in the city stalking victims with a video camera, to take them home and torture them. The film is a low-grade SOV venture, with hamming it up/ OTT killer, fleeting gore, and a fair bit of early flashback footage. Here from SRS Cinema- those saviours of lost, near-forgotten SOV/ ultra-low-budget horror is a DVD release of the film, featuring two cuts of the picture.
Appearing in the year 1993 Midnight 2 (aka Midnight 2: Sex, Death and Videotape) was written and directed by John Russo- who is most known as the writer of Night Of The Living Dead, as well as the first Midnight film. He has nine other directorial credits to his name, and twenty-plus writer credits too. It’s fair to say Midnight 2 is a step down in quality from the first film, which was a well enough made slice of 80’s exploitation. This is a rough ‘n’ ready SOV fare- that switches between video camera POV, talking to the camera monologues, and stalking ‘n’ basement torture.
The film kicks off with ropy and murky flashback footage from the first film, showing the family in satanic ritual gowns tying down and cutting victims in a red-lit ceremony room. Over the top we get a voice-over from the only surviving member of the family- Abraham Barnes(Matthew Jason Walsh) talking about how he stalks and captures victims- he talks about wanting to find love, but carries on killing until he does. After the credits roll we get POV footage of a park, with Abraham chatting in the background about finding his next victim- he approaches one woman, but she has to get back to work. Next, he focuses in on a pair of women sitting at a panic bench- there’s the short blond haired Jane(Lori Scarlett) and longer-haired brunette Rebecca( Jo Norcia), Rebecca soon heads off, so Abraham heads in to talk to Jane- quote lines like “I’m just taping you, not raping you”. Fairly soon the pair are heading back to the hotel, and we objective SOV footage of the pair- seeing Abraham for the first time, and he’s a dark malleted, white high top wearing, and very hairy-chested twenty-something man. He and Jane start making the beast with two backs, before he snaps strangles her- then wraps her in rubbish bags, dragging her out to the dustbins. Next, we get one of the film's monologues- as he starts talking about the past, and here we get an around twenty-plus minute chunk of flashback footage to the first film.
Thankfully after this flashback we do (largely) set down into the story of Abraham in the city- as he captures one person after another, taking them back to his basement torture room. Alongside this, we get the sub-plot of Rebecca trying to find her friend, and she gets help from a very woodenly played cop (Chuck Pierce Jr).
On the whole Midnight 2 is a grimy/ lightly sleazed, if not particularly gory SOV serial killer film. Walsh really hams it up as the killer, at times going a bit too over the top- though we do get some nicely teeth-gnashing, and sly amusing dialogue. There are a few scenes in his torture basement, and these feature a little blood, but largely are all about verbal threats. The film features a keyboard and drum machine score- this moves from too brightly piping easy listening, sub-phantasm cues, and waving creepy moodiness. The released version runs at one hour and eight minutes, and on the whole, it’s a passable enough low-grade serial killer flick.
The disc features two versions- the released version which I watched, and the rough-cut, which I largely forward through. The rough-cut has more flashback stuff, and (I think) a few more extra scenes with the killer- these largely seem to be monologues. On the whole, the picture quality is pretty much what you’d expect from 1990’s VHS, which for this type of thing is fine.
You need to approach Midnight 2 expect a rough around the edges SOV serial killers film, that is not of the same quality as the original film- in either its scoping, acting, or general presentation. I’d been aware of this film for a few years, so it’s great to finally see it on this SRS Cinema release.