Midnight Movie (2008)

(In French, On Cable TV, May 2021) The only way to get me interested in a slasher film is if the slashing is supernatural by nature, and that’s exactly what Midnight Movie goes for in a bit of metatextual invention. Here, a midnight screening of a slasher film gets more interesting when the killer escapes the film and begins slaughtering people in the theatre. But what could, maybe, have been developed in a comedy poking fun at slasher conventions remains bargain-basement slasher horror in execution: there isn’t much here on a moment-to-moment basis to distinguish Midnight Movie from many, many other similar films, and whatever humour or cleverness the film goes for simply falls flat. So many opportunities lost here — it’s almost as if the script goes out of its way to neuter its ideas, and writer-director Jack Messitt makes sure to execute it with as little distinction as possible. The spark of the premise goes out quickly, and what’s left are not-so-good actors doing their best with gore effects. An underwhelming ending caps it all off as something not really worth the bother. Sure, I was interested in what Midnight Movie had to offer. But it didn’t have anything much to offer.