The Midnight Man

Image credit: Prime Video

I’m not really a horror movie fan. I will not go to the movies to see a horror film, and I do tend to get scared prettily easily. However, I find horror one of the most enjoyable genres in cinema to talk about because I find the trends, subgenres, and analysing what makes a horror movie work, fascinating. So while not being fan, I can still certainly find enjoyment in a good horror movie or a deliberately stupid one. And I can also get annoyed at the time lost in watching what turns out to be a bad horror movie too: like The Midnight Man.

In 1953 a group of kids play a game deadly game that calls the infamous Midnight Man to their house. Now, years later the sole survivor, Anna, is still suffering from the horror of that night… and the game isn’t over. Anna’s granddaughter Alex finds the game with half of the rules, and she and her boyfriend flippantly start a round. By the time they find the rest of the game, the Midnight Man is already in the house, and they must stick to the rules of they are to survive the night.

Beware: this is 93 minutes of your life that you will never get back. The time could be better spent. At its most basic, molecular level The Midnight Man could have been interesting. From the very little that we get to learn about the creepypasta villain during the film, he’s an ancient Pagan executioner who uses violent and psychological torment to kill his victims, either by his hand or their own. Sadly, the film is terrible in practically every layer that is used to give it shape, making it profoundly predictable, insultingly lazy, and downright uninteresting.

The performances are wooden and the characters lack any personality or charisma that inspires you to get on side. Indeed, the only “thrill” that you get is from yelling at the screen about their stupidity. When they do receive a little taste of the torment the Midnight Man dishes out on his turn, it falls on an emotionally barren audience and seems to be unnecessarily gross for the sake of being unnecessarily gross. 

The lack of narrative exposition is very frustrating. In pitiful attempts to ‘show, don’t tell’, the film uses tasteless depictions of dementia and suicide to try and establish character backstories and thus, some rational reason behind their actions and bevahiours. But it really doesn’t work, and even a solid chunk of narrative exposition from Robert Englund, who inexplicably appears at a pivotal moment in the third act, doesn’t help to provide any clarity into what the monster’s deal is, how the game works, or why everyone in the house is either a dumbass or lunatic.

Image credit: Heaven of Horror

By the time credits are rolling, you’re left trying to see if there was even a point to it all. The ending drifts away on a semi-eerie threat of the Midnight Man eventually being invited into yet another house, as the dreaded pieces of ‘the game’ remain intact, but this really does feel like a last-minute death rattle rather than a good, final scare. 

There is no saving factor for this movie. Honestly, even beginning with a solid, bloody butchering of young children kind of made it feel like it was dead on arrival. And then it just proceeds to raise more questions than it answers, and providing absolutely no payoff for the audience's time and attention.

Human life is too short, so I would recommend not spending a chunk of it watching this film.

Director: Travis Zariwny, 2016

Cast: Gabrielle Haugh, Grayson Gabriel, Em Haine, Michael Sirow, Summer H. Howell, Keenan Lehmann, Meredith Rosse, Kyle Strauts, Lin Shaye, & Robert Englund.

Hungry

Image credit: Wikipedia

With our weekend habits of watching dumb eco-horror movies, Partner and I are fast learning that – while the classic predatory animals tend to be favoured – people will make monster movies featuring just about any animal. Last night we discovered a film called Hungry, guess what animal it’s about… 

A group of holidaymakers set out on a guided gator sail on the Louisiana Bayou, hoping to get a glimpse of the largest recorded gator in the region. But the trip takes a sinister turn when they discover the mangled and gored remains of ‘Big Ben’. Not keen to find out what creature is responsible, they attempt to head back but their boat is rammed by something heavy and huge in the water and they end up stranded and under siege by the culprit: a giant hippo. 

 Quite often with these types of monster movies, even ones that feature predators like sharks and crocodiles, you have to take them with a grain of salt because of the creative license that the filmmakers take with explaining the monsters’ (often unnatural) behaviour. With this movie you need a whole bag. 

Hungry, so named for the popular game ball and board game to give a clue was to what the monster is, rides on the fact that hippos are notoriously aggressive when it comes to their territory and offspring. And that’s about the only thing believable about this film. The reason as to why there’s a hippo rampaging around the Louisiana Bayou is flimsy at best and unfortunately, the film struggles to paper over this crack with the besieged characters and their backstories. 

The central group is made up of a mother travelling with her dad and her teenage son, two young women trying to get away from the harsh circumstances of their home lives, and a businesswoman who is the narrative catalyst for the misfortune, although I’m still not sure why she even goes on the tour. Rather than having civility break down under the pressure of siege, like most monster movies do, the film works to inspire little pockets of hope in having the characters work together to keep each other safe and come up with solutions to their dire predicament. Of course, these hopes are mercilessly dashed when something happens that leaves one or more of them a vulnerable target, paving way for the suspense and jump scares that are all part of the horror movie experience. 

Image credit: Bloody Disgusting

The performances are all fine and there are characters that you like, don’t mind, and hate so we have to give credit where it is due in that the film does manage stir up some emotional attachment to the characters. 

But at the end of the day, Hungry is a pretty typical eco-horror that veers more towards being boring than thrilling. Indeed, the only reason we pulled it up was because of its absurdity: how do you make a horror movie about a killer hippo? 

Director: James Nunn, 2026 

Cast: Madison Davenport, Tracey Bonner, Joaquim de Almeida, Michel Curiel, Samantha Coughlan, Olivia Bernstone, Jim Meskimen, & River Codack

Needful Things

Image credit: IMDb

There are various levels of fun that come with finding a movie that is based on a book you’ve never heard of. One is the joy of discovering a new story from a writer that you enjoy. Another is being able to see influences from other literary works within those stories. Last night, Partner and I were in the mood for an older horror/thriller and we came across Needful Things: an adaptation of a Stephen King novel neither of us had heard of that reminded me of The Master and Magarita only with more murders.

When a mysterious and kindly gentleman opens an antique shop in the small town of Castle Rock, Maine, the locals are immediately intrigued. Somehow the shop seems to have the exact items they desire: rare and autographed baseball cards, varsity jackets from their youth, porcelain trinkets that were lost years ago. But getting what you wish for comes at a price and the shop proprietor, Mr. Gaunt, asks only for a little bit of money and a favour. Soon, everyone in town is playing ‘harmless’ pranks on each other, but things take a horrifying turn when petty grudges and grievances bubble to the surface and the town falls into chaos and violence.

Based on a Stephen King novel, Needful Things is a religious horror that explores the darker sides of humanity and how they can be fanned into infernos. The community spirit of small towns is inverted with a lot of the inhabitants of Castle Rock being resentful people, usually with sad backstories, making them perfect prey for the villain. There’s a fun sense of irony then in the fact that the hero is the sheriff who moved to Castle Rock to escape the disturbing crimes committed in the big city. When the town slowly starts to descend into chaos, it falls to him to try and make everyone see that they are good people that should be banding together rather than tearing each other apart.

Ed Harris delivers a compelling performance as the hero, especially in the climactic third act where he delivers a rousing speech that confronts the villain but also appeals to the townsfolk by conveying a real sense of bitter disappointment in the way things have played out. Max Von Sydow plays Leland Gaunt and he is quietly charming with a delightfully sinister edge underlying his gentlemanly façade.

Image credit: LiveReal.com

It’s not the most original story in the world, we are pretty quickly reminded of the tale of Faust and The Master and Margarita (as I mentioned before), which instantly takes away the mystery as to who the villain is, but it’s a perfectly compelling little thriller.

Director, Fraser C. Heston, 1993

Cast: Ed Harris, Max Von Sydow, Bonnie Bedelia, Amanda Plummer, J.T. Walsh, Ray McKinnon, Duncan Fraser, Valri Bromfield, Shane Thomas Meier, Don S. Davis, William Morgan Sheppard, Campbell Lane, Eric Schneider, Frank C. Turner, & Gillian Barber

The Thursday Murder Club

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A cool and rainy afternoon is always the appropriate setting for a cosy British comedy. For me there is a definite romanticism about making a cup of tea and settling in for a couple of hours of breathtaking architecture, dry wit, and plenty of cake. So, this afternoon I decided to sit down with The Thursday Murder Club.

Four retirees living in a beautiful countryside retirement community meet regularly on Thursdays to discuss cold cases and see if they can’t find any leads that the police overlooked. A means of socialising and keeping their keen minds sharpened, their deduction skills are put to the test when a real murder takes place that threatens the future of their home and community. Calling on their various areas of expertise as well as a few canny contacts, the group find themselves delving into a case that unearths some disturbing truths about those closest to them. Analysing a murder turns out to be different when the case is still warm.

I have not read the book of this and I had heard that it received mixed reviews. I believe fans of the book were left quite disappointed while ignorant people, like myself, enjoyed it fine but found it nothing to write home about. My take, it’s a fine movie with a compelling story, interesting characters, a good smattering of British humour, and enjoyable performances.

It’s a cosy movie that is perfectly pleasant to while away some free time with, but it’s not a film that I think I will be constantly recalling over the next week. In a way, it felt like a film that was dealing with a bunch of edgy or distasteful themes and trying to bring humour to them without becoming a full-on black comedy. This is a grey comedy. I can appreciate that it rides heavily on the narrative and the pull of the central cast but unfortunately, it doesn’t really add anything else that could have spiced it up. I found it easy to pause and leave the room a few times during the duration.

It’s a balanced, tiered cake of macabre, comedy, drama, and social attitudes towards the elderly. The story is compelling enough and the characters are very charming, with the chemistry between the central four providing some fun banter. I did appreciate that a few of the usual tropes were left by the roadside, the main one being that the local police work competently, which was refreshing. I would have to say that the real star of the show is the absolutely beautiful architecture of the countryside mansion that is Cooper Chase Retirement village. The building is stunning!

Image credit: Netflix

Filled with enthusiastic discussion, intrigue, humour, and friendship, The Thursday Murder Club is a pleasant means of whiling away a rainy afternoon.

Director: Chris Columbus, 2025

Cast: Helen Mirren, Celia Irmie, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kinsgley, Naomi Ackie, Daniel Mays, Hendry Lloyd-Hughes, Tom Ellis, Jonathan Pryce, Paul Freeman, Geoff Bell, Ingrid Oliver, Richard E. Grant, & David Tennant

The Reef

Image credit: IMDb

After breaking up our routine of Friday night shark movies with a little bit of mystery and classic literature adaptations, last Friday night we went right back to toothy monsters of the big blue. Our chosen shark movie this week was The Reef.

A group of friends are travelling along the Great Barrier Reef and having a lovely time exploring little islands, snorkeling, and marveling at the beauty of the underwater world. But their relaxing and romantic trip takes a turn when their boat capsizes and they are faced with a choice: either stay put in the hope of being rescued or try to swim to the nearest land. Opting for the latter, the group salvages what provisions and floating devices they can and strike out into the open ocean. It’s smooth swimming for a little while until they discover that a great white shark is also in the area.

Based on a true story, The Reef is an eco-horror movie that aims to achieve its thrills by being as ‘real’ as possible. Like many shark movies, there is not much of a narrative to follow: group of friends make a decision, start getting picked off, and the fear of their impending doom starts to traumatise them and fray their relationships. 

I guess to give credit where it is due, it was nice to see real shark footage spliced into the film: shots of the shark listing slowly through the misty blue water, coming close to the camera and then turning away like it hasn’t noticed it, and then quickening its pace and opening its mouth to find out what’s the source of splashing. While it doesn’t achieve the same orchestrated jump scares that a stylised computer shark could, using the nature documentary shots of the shark raises the tension and anxiety of the situation, causing audiences to go a through a reasonable rollercoaster of emotions as they empathise with the characters: anxiety, hope, relief, terror, and shock.

Image credit: Rotten Tomatoes

And that’s pretty much all I’ve got on this one. The performances are all fine but nothing to write home about, and the ending is kind of abrupt, which I guess does work but there’s only so much closure that can be leeched out from a small written epilogue.

The Reef was a shark movie that was different enough from the others that we have been watching that it made me remember it, but I do not think that I would recommend it as a must-see.

Director: Andrew Taucki, 2010

Cast: Damian Walshe-Howling, Gyton Grantley, Adrienne Pickering, Zoe Naylor, Keiren Darcy-Smtih, & Mark Simpson

The Sign of Four

Image credit: IMDb

Having had such a lovely time with Partner watching The Hound of the Baskervilles, I was interested to see if there were any other Richardson Sherlock Holmes movies and was elated to discover that a version of The Sign of Four had also been made.

Famous detective and his partner Doctor Watson are hired by a young woman named Mary Morstan to investigate the recent death of her father’s friend from the army as well as the mysterious letter she received along with the Great Mogul, the second largest diamond in the world. What starts as an innocent mystery of a strange letter sent, soon turns immeasurably sinister with the renowned duo becoming immersed in a plot of murder and revenge.

The Sign of Four takes on a little more of a macabre edge than The Hound of the Baskervilles but nevertheless proves to be another enjoyable adaptation of a classic literary thriller. A timeless race against the clock to find a killer on the loose, the excitement of TSOF comes from the known human aspect of the plot rather than the supernatural course that HOFB travels.

Ian Richardson continues to be charming with a little more of an added heroic streak and a fiercer determination that colours some of the more memorable and action-packed scenes within the climactic third act. David Healy plays a lovestruck Watson adorably: slightly flustered, but mostly, sweet, sincere, and sometimes even cool (well, as cool as Watson can get).

The ominous settings of elaborate mansions, dust-filled attics, and carnival fairgrounds are shot in ways that nicely heighten the tension and the sinister and macabre elements of the plot, and the climactic final confrontation, while shot in brilliant daylight in an unlikely and constrictive location, is very memorable. The drama of the plot is also beefed up with the use of montage that conveys the passing of time and teasingly hints that there is a chance that the trail to the killer might even go cold.

Image credit: Beautiful Fraud

A different story and thus, a different vibe of film, The Sign of Four is still an exciting and enjoyable thriller filled with mystery, action, romance, and gore. It felt a little more serious than Hound of the Baskervilles, but still served us perfectly for a cosy Friday night in.

Director: Desmond Davis, 1983

Cast: Ian Richardson, David Healy, Cherie Lunghi, Thorley Walters, Terence Rigby, Clive Merrison, Richard Heffer, John Melia, John Pedrick, & John Benfield

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Image credit: IMDb

I cannot speak for anyone but myself, but when I consider great literature and its adaptation into the visual mediums of the play, movie, or TV series, I think of England. The homeland of the Royal Shakespeare Company, the most memorable sitcom casts and comedy groups, the BBC, and the delightful telemovie. The British telemovie is a wondrous thing: a feature-length adaptation of history’s most captivating novels, made for a specific audience and not marred by the pressures of the mainstream box office and theatrical release. Some of the best adaptations that I have come across have been telemovies, discovered purely by chance and treasured for years afterward. I’m not sure what it is that tickles me about them, maybe it’s the sparing budget, maybe it’s the love for the story that they are retelling, or maybe it’s the idea that a large portion of the population may not even know it exists. Whatever the reason, I do enjoy a modest British telemovie and recently came across a classic on Amazon Prime: an adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles starring Ian Richardson.

Renowned detective Sherlock Holmes and his partner Doctor Watson accept an intriguing escort assignment when Sir Henry Baskerville arrives from Canada to take up residence in his ancestral home after the death of Sir Charles Baskerville. Upon his arrival, he receives a mysterious letter urging him to stay away from the house and the surrounding moors, which prompts him to hire Holmes to find the sender and their motive. The case takes turn when the superstitious story about a spectral hound that has been terrorising the Baskervilles for generations comes to light and Sir Henry’s own life might be at risk.

The Hound of the Baskervilles is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s most celebrated Sherlock Holmes mystery and has been adaptated for the screen time and time again. In true, polite, British fashion, this telemovie is made captivating by the brilliance of the story, the wonderful depictions of these beloved characters by the cast, and the natural allure of the landscape. There is no glossy coating of an extravagant budget, but a modest, misty, and grainy texture to the film: an all-natural vibe that keeps you focused on the narrative as well as feeling the love and respect that the cast and filmmakers have for the story.

Image credit: TV Tropes

Ian Richardson is a very charming Sherlock Holmes: dapper and gentlemanly, but still with a level of snarkiness and pride in his own brilliance, which comes across most delightfully in the cute and teasing way he leads Watson down the paths of his deductive reasoning. Donald Churchill plays a Watson that is consistently awestruck by his friend and partner’s brilliance while also harbouring a strong desire to prove his worth to him. The chemistry between the two leads is endearing and amusing; a very good pairing.

Filled with mystery, murder, romance, and action, the 1983 telemovie adaption of The Hound of the Baskervilles is an exciting little romp that’s perfect for a Friday night in.

Director: Douglas Hickox, 1983

Cast: Ian Richardson, Donald Churchill, Denholm Elliot, Glynis Barber, Nicholas Clay, Ronald Lacey, Connie Booth, & Bryan Blessed