THE MIDNIGHT MAN (2016)

Studio:       IFC Midnight
Director:    Travis Zariwny
Writer:       Travis Zariwny, Rob Kennedy, Jimmy Loweree
Producer:  Frankie Lindquist, Cassian Elwes, Jeff Beesley
Stars:     Lin Shaye, Gabrielle Haugh, Grayson Gabriel, Emily Haine, Louise Linton, Michael Sirow, Robert Englund

Review Score:

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Summary:

A young woman uncovers her grandmother’s sinister secret when she plays a mysterious game that summons a murderous entity.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

1953 – As a little girl, Anna Luster plays an urban legend summoning ritual called ‘The Midnight Game’ with her little brother Max and their friend Mary. A pagan deity known as ‘The Midnight Man’ manifests and murders Mary. Max breaks one of the game’s rules by trying to flee outside the house. The Midnight Man kills him too, leaving Anna as the sole survivor.

Present Day – Anna’s granddaughter Alex moves back into the family home to care for Anna, who lives alone and now suffers from dementia. Anna sends Alex to find her missing hand mirror. In the attic, Alex discovers a strangely sealed old box.

Alex’s longtime friend Miles comes over. The two of them open the box and find a saltshaker, candles, a pencil, a list of names with a blood drop next to each one, and photographs of people with their fears written on the backs. Anna unexpectedly enters the attic. She screams, “you opened the game” before fainting onto the floor.

Dr. Tommy Harding and his associate Allen examine Anna on a house call. Surprised to hear that Anna was in the attic, Dr. Harding advises keeping Anna in bed and locking her door. Dr. Harding and Allen discuss the Luster family’s history of tragedies on their way out of the house.

Alex and Miles return to the box where they find a page of rules for ‘The Midnight Game.’ The rules instruct that in order to call the Midnight Man, players must write their names on a piece of paper, put a blood drop next to each name, light a candle for each person, turn off the lights, attach the paper to a front door made of wood, knock 22 times at midnight, go outside to blow out a candle, and then return inside to relight it. With the Midnight Man now summoned, players must avoid him at all costs until 3:33am. The rest of the rules page is torn away.

Alex and Miles follow the instructions. While Alex goes to check on her grandmother, Miles looks for the rest of the rules. Miles finds additional instructions that advise against falling asleep or staying in the same place or else the Midnight Man will take you. Also, if a candle blows out, it must be relit within 10 seconds. Otherwise, the player must be surrounded by a salt circle for protection until the candle can be relit.

In the bathroom, Alex has a confrontation with the Midnight Man. The Midnight Man exploits Alex’s fear of blood by immersing her in a vision in which she nearly drowns in a bathtub of blood.

Miles shakes Alex out of her vision. Miles then explains the rest of the rules by recounting how he intentionally blew out his candle to see if the Midnight Man would come. The Midnight Man exploited Miles’ fear of pain with a vision of tearing his head apart. The Midnight Man was then drawn away by Anna’s voice over the intercom as well as Alex’s cries.

Having been invited earlier by Miles, Alex’s friend Kelly comes over. Alex and Miles explain what is happening. Having more familiarity with the urban legend than the other two, Kelly chooses to join the game in order to help them survive.

Alex reveals that her mother Annie hanged herself in the house and Alex witnessed the suicide as a little girl. Alex wonders if her mother was playing the game and lost. Alex also recalls Anna showing no emotion over the death and staring into her hand mirror. Alex sees the Midnight Man reflected in Anna’s mirror.

Kelly’s candle goes out for longer than 10 seconds. Miles and Alex confine Kelly to a salt circle while they search for a replacement candle. Miles and Alex kiss during a bonding moment.

Dr. Harding returns to the house. Harding confesses that he was in the attic during the game in 1953, but Anna wouldn’t let him play. Explaining more about the game as well as the Midnight Man’s role as a supernatural executioner, Harding adds that Anna is still trapped in the game and supplying the entity with new victims, although Harding doesn’t know why. Harding warns that the Midnight Man cheats. Harding suggests going to the attic to destroy the game.

The Midnight Man uses a water bucket to wash away Kelly’s salt circle. He then exploits her trauma of having slaughtered a bunny as a child by giving Kelly terrifying visions. Kelly eventually slits her own throat and dies in brutal fashion.

After finding Kelly’s body, Alex, Miles, and Dr. Harding make their way to the attic. In the game box, Alex uncovers her mother’s photograph with “fear of heights” written on the reverse, confirming that the Midnight Man killed her. Alex realizes that Anna tricked her mother into playing the game and also drove Alex to play it by sending her to find the mirror.

Dr. Harding has Miles and Alex make a salt circle around themselves. Anna enters the attic. Possessed by the Midnight Man, Anna viciously beats Dr. Harding to death.

Alex pulls a gun on her grandmother. Anna raves about how her own mother tricked her into playing the game. When Anna flashes a demonic face, Alex shoots her dead.

Miles and Alex hear the clock downstairs strike 3:30am. Realizing they only have to survive three more minutes, they taunt the Midnight Man from the safety of the salt circle. The Midnight Man drags Anna’s body away as he leaves the room.

When the clock strikes 4am, Miles steps out of the circle while Alex prepares to destroy the game. Miles sees that Dr. Harding’s watch only reads 3:30am. Miles realizes that the Midnight Man reset the house’s clock to fool them. The Midnight Man twists Miles’ head around before moving to confront Alex.

Epilogue – The house hosts an estate sale. A little boy named Jaden leaves with the game.

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Review:

It’s still relatively fashionable to slam “found footage” in certain circles.  I hit the snooze button whenever vampires come into play.  Others throw shade at haunted house horrors.  Now that we’ve endured the one-after-another mediocrity of “Don’t Knock Twice” (review here), “The Crooked Man” (review here), “The Bye Bye Man” (review here), etc., can we add ‘conjuring creepypasta boogeypeople’ to the list of tired terror tropes to be put on ice for a while?  Travis Zariwny’s “The Midnight Man” provides further proof that this subgenre has had all the energy, originality, and entertainment value fully sucked out of it, dropping the concept for dead along the side of a routine road.

Alex had ample warning not to play ‘The Midnight Game.’  The crusty old box containing the components was tied up tighter than a clam’s ass.  One of the papers inside had more blood on it than writing.  Alex’s dementia-afflicted grandmother Anna even stumbled into the creepy attic, accusingly screamed at Alex and her friend Miles for opening the box, and promptly collapsed on the floor.

Then there are the rules.  My God, the rules.  If ‘Bloody Mary’ equates to ‘Tic Tac Toe,’ and ‘The Charlie Charlie Challenge’ can be considered ‘Go Fish,’ then ‘The Midnight Game’ equals ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ for having the most complicated rule set of any urban legend summoning ritual.

Should you choose to play, first write your name on a piece of paper.  Next, put a drop of blood by the name, light a candle, turn off the lights, attach the paper to the front door (which must be made of wood), knock 22 times at midnight (and finish before 12:01), go outside to extinguish the candle, reenter the house, relight the candle, and finally pet a partridge in a pear tree.  Congratulations, you’ve just summoned the Midnight Man.

Wait, there’s more!  Sigh.  You must avoid the Midnight Man at all costs until 3:33am.  Don’t fall asleep.  Don’t stay in the same place.  Also, if a candle blows out, it must be relit within 10 seconds.  If not, the player must be surrounded with a circle of salt until the candle’s flame burns again.

Whatever happened to simply saying Candyman’s name into a mirror five times?  This is convoluted enough to make an audience wish the characters just pulled out a good old-fashioned Ouija board, getting exposition out of the way 40 minutes faster.

Because that’s literally how long it takes for “The Midnight Man” to start moving.  Ploddingly paced following a semi-splattery prologue, the overlong first act involves Alex and Miles belaboring the setup while Anna vogue-poses as a crazy old woman in excessive cutaways.  Poor Lin Shaye.  The much-beloved “Insidious” icon features as Alex’s sinisterly senile grandmother, yet her inconsequential rambling reads like ineffective improvisation.  A flat script and flatter direction condemn the actress to freeze in a performance doghouse here.

Shaye’s borderline campiness still supersedes Gabrielle Haugh’s passive portrayal of Alex.  Haugh has the look of a conventional college girl at the center of one of these standard scary movie situations.  But her passionless voice directly reflects the monotone momentum of the movie.  Haugh droops, lists, and shuffles as though sedated, ready to drop like a bored narcoleptic at any moment.  Easy there, Alex.  The audience has that covered.

Haugh’s drone is merely dull.  The Midnight Man on the other hand, comically speaks with the generic growl of a cartoon gargoyle tormenting one of the Disney ducks.  He can’t be taken as serious or as scary, which is obviously a problem because the film itself thinks it is both when it most certainly is neither.

Most of “The Midnight Man” involves a feckless drag of hollow pop scares with long lulls of dimly-lit house exploration or secondary characters arriving at serendipitous intervals.  Alex and Miles’ friend Kelly shows up midway through as a late addition to the game.  She supposedly knows more about the legend than anyone else, yet becomes the first person cornered and the first person killed.  Then there is Robert Englund wedging his way in to verbally vomit the final bits of background in Act Three.  Remember when Englund played compelling characters in memorable movies instead of Old Man Exposition in forgettable fright flicks?

The latter of course is what “The Midnight Man” is.  A strange structure that includes a flashback to five minutes earlier when it would play the same sequentially contributes to clunkiness.  So does a forced romantic moment burning with all the heat of an igloo in Antarctica.  Uninspired efforts in indie horror are nothing new.  But with notable names on the marquee and a pinch of press promoting public awareness, it’s not unreasonable to expect a better effort we simply don’t receive.

“The Midnight Man” sums up its unjustified sense of self in the following pretentious exchange during the ‘Epilogue,’ which is specifically identified as such in case viewers are too dim to get it.  A boy touring the house in the aftermath asks of the victims, “what happened to them?”  His father responds, “sorrow happened.”  Huh?

A better question to conclude the movie would be, “what happened to kill everyone’s interest in this flaccid film?”  Actually, never mind.  That answer is a longer list than the rules for playing ‘The Midnight Game.’

Review Score:  30

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