The breaking down of the "fourth wall" in horror movies isn't really a new idea as we saw it in Lamberto Bava's Demons, Bigas Luna's Anguish and Mark Herrier's Popcorn, the only difference here being that the makers of Midnight Movie have put so much effort into making an entertaining film that not only has plentiful, witty, nods at past genre films but also packed in a lot of the things fans of the sub-genre crave: a cool looking killer who sports a corkscrew looking weapon and numerous, pretty impressive, death scenes. This is a movie that came out of nowhere and won me over within the first fifteen minutes - when I wasn't digging all the references, enjoying the interplay between the characters, or just grinning about the bloodshed, I was impressed with what director Jack Messitt and his co-writer Mark Garbett pulled off on a lower-budget.

The movie opens up in an asylum where a old man is being taken by his doctor into a room where a screening room has been set-up so the patient, who we learn is former writer-director-actor Ted Radford, can watch the horror movie he made in the 1970's (where he killed his cast members) as a form of therapy. Things quickly go wrong though when Radford starts chewing his arm and scrawling words on the floor in blood before he not only kills off the good doctor but everyone else in the place.

Fast forward to five years later where Radford's film, "The Dark Beneath" is about to be the subject of a midnight showing at a small town theatre. We meet Bridget (Rebekah Brandes) who is the acting manager for the night as well as the generally stereotypical cast of characters from her two disinterested teen co-workers, to the biker couple there to see the movie, her little brother who wants to sneak in, and her boyfriend Josh (Daniel Bonjour). Also on hand is Detective Barrons (Jon Briddell) who is convinced that Radford might show-up since it's the first screening of the movie since the murders.

Our movie begins, which is a perfectly staged exploitation movie in the Texas Chain Saw Massacre vibe shown in black and white with film damage, and tells a gruesome tale of hippies being killed by a weirdo mother/son combo, but soon the viewers become the victims when our skull-masked killer starts jumping between the real world and the celluloid one to prey on the audience. At first a lot of them think it's an elaborate prank because their horror movie geek friend Sully (Michael Schwartz), who left to go to the toilet, shows up on screen getting stabbed. In fact, they believe it so much that they even kick around his body parts when they discover them in the bathroom. But they'll soon learn differently when they're locked in and they start getting picked-off - which all shows-up in POV (point-of-view) footage on the movie screen for them to see.

While the set-up of Midnight Movie isn't anything new, the way it's presented here is too much fun to ignore. As a long-time slasher film aficionado, I appreciated the efforts made to give fans something that not only pokes fun at conventions but also respects the reason we watch these types of movies in the first place. We're not looking for a particularly deep story; we just want to get a few cheap thrills, enjoy some wholesale slaughter, and maybe get a few chuckles along the way. It also doesn't hurt if your main villain is memorable and that's certainly the case here. The cast also seems to understand this and all of them turn in solid performances. Brandes makes for an acceptable heroine, Stan Ellsworth exudes burly charm as imposing biker Harvey, and newcomer Shaun Ausmus is decent comic relief before he's knocked-off early on.

If there was one thing I had to pick-out here that didn't really gel to well with me it would have to be the "alternate reality" of the finale as things got a bit too sketchy to work. I could buy all the jumping in-and-out of the film world, but the entire "now the movie is the reality" hokum didn't do it for me and things feel like they end a bit too quickly - perhaps to keep it to its agreeable running time of eighty minutes.

Midnight Movie was a refreshing break from my genre diet of the brutally unsettling (Inside), bland remakes (Prom Night), and horrible sequels (Lost Boys: The Tribe) that have passed my way in 2008 and deserves your attention if you're looking for an unserious and highly entertaining night of slice 'n' dice. (Chris Hartley, 1/6/09)

Directed By: Jack Messitt.
Written By: Mark Garbett, Jack Messitt.

Starring: Rebekah Brandes, Daniel Bonjour, Greg Cirulnick, Mandell Maughan.