A young woman, Nancy, runs away from home to escape her abusive stepfather (played by Lawrence Tierney). She plans to hitchhike to San Francisco to stay with her sister. She tags along with two young men who are going that way. They stop off in a small town in which a family just happen to be satanists and practice rituals involving sacrificing young women to resurrect their dead mother.

Midnight is based on the book of the same name by John Russo (yes, the co-writer of Night of the Living Dead). There are other George A Romero overlaps here as the gore is courtesy of Tom Savini (brilliant as ever) and John Amplas stars.

There’s nothing sugar coated about proceedings as some elements of the narrative are very dark. The racism one of the van drivers experiences and then his murder at the hands of the small town cops is extremely pertinent and brings to mind the ending of Night of the Living Dead showing that things really hadn’t changed for the better in the time gap of the two films.

There are obvious comparisons to be made with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (the family who are psychotically murderous) and the religious aspects of Children of the Corn as many in the small town have traditional biblical names.

I enjoyed Midnight as it was left-field, original in spite of it’s reference points and is genuinely unsettling. One of the unsettling plot twists is that *spoiler alert* the hero of the piece at the end is the abusive stepfather.

It’s not some long forgotten masterpiece (some of the acting is a bit ham-fisted and the ending is a bit of an anti-climax).

But there’s more than enough to satisfy the most discerning horror fan.

3 out of 5 stars