There is The Midnight Hour (1985), Midnight Offerings (1981), and The Dark Side of Midnight (1984). One will have its share of witches, vampires, zombies and Halloween; another puts teenage witches in suburbia; the third has a serial killer making trouble for a small town. Three films but they are all asking the same thing: what when the horror is not over there? What if it is in your town?
The Midnight Hour (1985)
This made-for-TV Halloween affair concerns some teenagers in the New England town of Pitchford who put their hands on some old costumes and artifacts from the local museum. In the course of a prank they inadvertently bring back Lucinda Cavender, a witch put to death centuries ago, and an assortment of monsters including vampires and zombies. A Halloween party runs amok.
It is not a very good movie, but it has a peculiar charm. It knows exactly what it is: television Halloween horror with its requisite teenagers, graveyards, curses, and a soundtrack yearning for a bit of Thriller magic, with some of the same special-effects people.
And then there is that cast.
Shari Belafonte is Melissa Cavender, the original witch’s descendant. LeVar Burton (Star Trek:TNG) plays Vinnie, Peter DeLuise (21 Jump Street) plays Mitch, Dedee Pfeiffer plays Mary, and Cindy Morgan (Tron) plays Vicky. Dick Van Patten and Kurtwood Smith as parents, Kevin McCarthy (at his Kevin McCarthyist!) is Judge Crandall (he even gets a 'those damn kids and their loud music!'), and Wolfman Jack as a radio DJ. Macaulay Culkin is here in his first role, uncredited, as a kid for Halloween. I mean seriously? Did they all have contract obligations to ABC?
Then Shari Belafonte as a witch? OR at least witch-adjacent.
I had a massive crush on her then. Seeing her as a witch felt like she was reading my letters to Santa.
What I like best about the small-town horror in The Midnight Hour is Pitchford. The whole town has a history regarded as civic trivia until it isn't. The old witch is legend, the museum has the artifacts, and everyone knows the stories but doesn't believe them. Then comes Halloween and the dead come home.
That is the kind of small-town horror I prefer. There are always tales of the old cemetery or the house left to rot or the woman said to be a witch or the road one should not be on after midnight. They are just stories. Unless they are not.
If there is one gem in this movie, it was Jonna Lee as the undead cheerleader Sandy Matthews. She feels like she walked straight out of Jackson for me. I would do the same for Keely, but in truth I can't bring myself to do that to her.
The movie isn't good, but it does have charm. It also has a great soundtrack.
Yes, that was The Smiths' "How Soon Is Now" playing when Sheri Belafonte's character talked to her witch-turned-vampire ancestor. See, this movie does have some redeeming value!
Midnight Offerings (1981)
I reviewed this in 2019, and I still have a soft spot for it. Another made-for-TV piece on teenage witches from the early 80s is precisely what I am in the mood for.
Melissa Sue Anderson (Little House on the Prairie) plays Vivian Sotherland, a young witch with no qualms about using her powers to harm or kill anyone who stands in her way. The new girl in town, Robin Prentiss, played by Mary Beth McDonough, discovers she has magic too. Patrick Cassidy plays David, the boyfriend caught in the middle. And you have Marion Ross, Gordon Jump, and Cathryn Damon in a cast that makes you think someone went through the 1981 TV listings and called every name they could think of.
My 2019 review described the plot as simple and, to some extent, weak, but very entertaining. I would stand by that assessment today. Juanita Bartlett is intent on putting in nearly every well-worn notion of witchcraft she can into a television movie, and for the most part it works.
What I find more to my liking these days is the normality of everything surrounding the witchcraft. Vivian is not ensconced in a dilapidated mansion at the town’s edge. She is a teenager with a boyfriend, parents, teachers, and classmates to deal with, along with the standard high-school troubles. She just has a way of resolving them with witchcraft.
A fine model for small-town horror. The supernatural need not be sequestered in a distant Gothic setting; it can be beside you in chemistry. Jackson no doubt sees the appeal.
.jpg "The Dark Side of Midnight (1984)")
The Dark Side of Midnight is a different matter altogether.
With an estimated price tag of $10,000, this one has a detective on the trail of "The Creeper," a serial killer making short work of people in a small town. You will not find any witches, psychic youths, or zombies here (I didn't know that when I started it). Only a killer and a community slowly realizing danger is among them.
It is regional filmmaking on a shoestring, and you can tell. The acting is unrefined, the pacing worse for wear. At times, the film feels less like a finished feature and more like someone put down a camera and some friends in a town willing to be filmed.
I appreciate that sort of thing. We did a fair share of that back in the 1980s ourselves.
Would not go so far as to say it is a good movie. In fact, it is fairly bad, but it has its moments.
Slicker productions often lose what regional horror has as an advantage. The streets are real, the houses look lived in, and the police station doesn't have the air of a set because it wasn't one. That ordinariness makes a small-town killer all the more effective, since it blurs the line between horror and daily life.
I can forgive the movie for any shortcomings with this layer of authenticity. Plus it is a Troma movie, so that has to count for something.
Small-Town Horror and the 1980s
Put the three together and they are three takes on the same 1980s premise.
In The Midnight Hour the town’s old supernatural past is something no one remembers to be afraid of. In Midnight Offerings it is part and parcel of a teenager’s existence. The Dark Side of Midnight requires no such things. The town affords the isolation and false sense of security needed for the horror to take hold.
That comes back during this marathon. Small towns feel safe because everyone knows each other.
Horror inverts it.
Everyone knows where you live, which means the monster does too. Everyone knows your car, the road you take home, and when your parents are away. And in a town of some age there is an old story nobody puts much stock in anymore. Hell. Growing up, we memorized everyone's license plates so we could recognize them. Something my kids have never done. That is small-town logic.
This is Jackson.
It is not a cursed hamlet cut off from the rest of the world that is scary. It is the fact that it is utterly ordinary: the schools and diners and churches, the record stores and football games and old homes and the local legends and the people who have been around for years.
And then the impossible occurs.
Good small-town horror doesn't obliterate that normality; it shows what was there to begin with. All three of these movies get that, even if they aren't all that good on their own.
October Horror Movie Challenge 2026
Viewed: 38
First Time Views: 25
No comments:
Post a Comment