John Russo, co-writer of Night of the Living Dead, somehow took the goodwill he had from horror fans and decided to cash it in for this. Midnight is a dirt-under-the-fingernails backwoods Satanic cult movie that somehow manages to make human sacrifice boring, racial tension ham-fisted, and Lawrence Tierney look like he’s regretting his entire film career on camera.
Hitchhiking to Hell – and Somehow Past Pennsylvania’s Gas Stations
Nancy Johnson (Melanie Verlin) flees her home after her stepdad—played by a visibly sweaty and perpetually scowling Lawrence Tierney—tries to rape her. So far, so grim. She hits the road with two guys who look like they just missed their audition for a low-budget Buddy Holly biopic, and they head toward San Francisco. Because, naturally, the shortest route from Pennsylvania to California is through every cliché about Deliverance country Russo could find.
Somewhere between the bar where racist locals refuse to serve them and the dirt road of doom, our trio stumbles into a Satanic clan so inbred they probably consider the concept of second cousins as “city folk nonsense.”
Satan by Way of Kmart Halloween Aisle
The cult’s rituals involve midnight Black Masses, a rotting corpse of “Mama” in bed like a decomposed Norman Bates cosplay, and stabbing victims to feed blood to her in the hopes of resurrecting her. It’s evil in theory, but in execution, it feels like a PTA meeting gone very, very wrong. Tom Savini’s gore effects do their job, but they’re stuck in a film where “Satanic dread” is mostly people chanting in a living room that smells like boiled cabbage.
Lawrence Tierney: Cop, Predator, Worst Dad Ever
Tierney’s Bert Johnson is a local cop, a stepfather, and possibly the least subtle sexual predator in horror history. He delivers his lines like he’s reading them off the wall of a dive bar restroom. When he shows up later in the film to “rescue” Nancy, it’s almost comical—this is a man who could barely rescue a beer from a fridge without sweating through his shirt. He still gets one great scene, though: killing two cultists by accident when his gun goes off as he’s being stabbed. Call it poetic justice or just clumsy screenwriting—either way, it’s the loudest laugh in the movie.
The Cult That Shoots First and Rituals Later
The family’s most distinctive trait, besides their aversion to dental care, is that they wear stolen police uniforms after killing the real officers. This should be terrifying, but it mostly makes them look like extras from a porn parody called Deputy Dingus and the Devil’s Kids. They shoot Nancy’s companions execution-style, setting a tone that says, “We’re scary,” and a pace that says, “We will now spend the next 40 minutes wandering around our own house like we forgot what scene we’re in.”
Satan Needs Better Hired Help
Luke, Abraham, Cyrus, and Cynthia are the names of our murder-happy hillbilly siblings, and they feel less like a unified evil force and more like the world’s most dysfunctional bowling team. There’s a lot of staring, shuffling, and half-muttered dialogue that makes you wonder if Russo just didn’t give them a script and told them to “act culty.” By the time Cynthia finally gets her throat slashed by Nancy in a barn, it’s hard to tell whether you’re supposed to cheer for the heroine or just be relieved someone ended the scene.
Russo’s Sense of Geography (and Sanity)
One of the great unintentional jokes of Midnight is its geography. We’re supposed to believe Nancy’s headed to San Francisco, yet she spends the entire runtime within a 15-mile radius of rural Pennsylvania hellholes. Either she has the worst sense of direction in film history or Russo figured, “Eh, backwoods is backwoods.” Add to that the fact that the cult somehow thinks blood sacrifices will resurrect their mother by Easter, and you have a movie that treats Satanism like a seasonal craft project.
The “Thrilling” Climax – or, Everyone Dies in the Dumbest Way Possible
The ending plays like a drunken improv sketch. Bert bursts in, gets stabbed by Cynthia, his gun accidentally kills two of the brothers, Nancy burns Luke alive, and then… she just sits there watching him roast like she’s waiting for a hotdog on a campfire. No police backup, no dramatic escape—just a young woman covered in trauma, soot, and the realization that her cross-country trip has been permanently delayed.
Midnight as a Viewing Experience
There’s an argument to be made that Midnight could work as a sleazy little exploitation flick if it had a sharper script, tighter pacing, or any consistent tone. But it doesn’t. Instead, it lurches between grim exploitation (attempted rape, racial violence, animal traps) and bizarre comedy (Lawrence Tierney’s “heroic” death, the cult keeping Mama like a grotesque houseplant) without ever committing.
The Satanic cult genre can be terrifying—Rosemary’s Baby proved that. This isn’t that. This is a film where you keep waiting for someone to turn to the camera and ask if you’ve seen their teeth.
Final Verdict: Midnight is Best Watched at Noon, With Plenty of Alcohol
If you’re looking for Texas Chain Saw Massacre-style menace, Midnight delivers about 20% of that and 80% of people standing around waiting for the next awkwardly blocked scene to start. It’s got cults, gore, Tierney at his sleaziest, and a finale that could be a PSA about why rural Pennsylvania should have better law enforcement.
Watch it for the Savini effects, laugh at the rest, and remember: if you ever find yourself hitchhiking through rural America, don’t get in the car with someone named Nancy, Luke, or Mama.
