Extremely low budget, which shows and can be off putting but this film moves with confidence. Scenes may be a little dark or slower than we would like and the dialogue somewhat less than snappy but we have a terrible feeling the tale that is told may not be too far off the mark. Filmed in the backwoods northwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, this is bleak looking country and pretty bleak people seem to lurk. There is gleeful and brutal killing for the sake of it and then as we proceed more serious devil worship based cult killing involving the kidnap of girls and their being held in cages awaiting their sacrifice. These later scenes are particularly well done and the lighting, dialogue and performances all seem to be upped a gear as we head to the ending with Lawrence Tierney lumbering across the screen to attempt an heroic rescue after all his own misdeeds.

This dull, bargain basement John Russo quickie is a relatively obscure entry on his resume, and once you immerse yourself into Midnight's clueless craftsmanship, sluggish pace, and atrocious acting, you'll quickly realize why that's the case.The film is largely centered around the plight of Nancy, a teenage girl who runs away from home after fending off the icky advances of her drunken, lecherous stepfather. She hitches a ride with two guys and joins them on their road trip, and along the way the trio are menaced by racist hick townsfolk, trigger-happy rednecks posing as police officers, and a giggling, obese lunatic in overalls. Despite being warned about a series of unsolved local murders by a monotonous but kindly preacher they pick up during a pit-stop, the group opts to pull off the road and camp in a deserted, isolated field in the middle of the indicated killing grounds, a decision that predictably doesn't turn out well for them.It takes more than half of the movie to guide us through this basic set-up, and by the time Russo finally clues us in to what Midnight is actually about, we're so bored that we don't really care much anymore. The first act is liberally padded with pointless conversations between ancillary characters, on-the-road antics, and the omnipresence of an impressively saccharine AM radio soft rock jam called "Midnight Again," which you'll ultimately get to hear three times in its entirety. If you opt to make it the finish line, you'll eventually discover that the mostly alluded-to murders are the work of a family of sibling Satanists, who ensnare Nancy and lock her in a dog cage with the intention of sacrificing her to their dark lord. Though these Lucifer enthusiasts slit people's throats and force-feed goblets of blood to their mother's corpse, the ritual scenes are so cheesily orchestrated that even the more ghoulish elements become inherently humorous by default.Early FX work by Tom Savini provides a bit of curiosity value for die-hard fans, but unfortunately the maestro isn't given many opportunities to open up his toolbox, and most of the deaths on display are decidedly tame and unimaginative (one girl meets her end when the homicidal Farmer John behemoth turns on a bathtub spigot and runs the water on her face). The final act has a couple more explicit set-pieces, but there's nothing here even casual fans haven't seen Savini do better a dozen times before, and the grand total of the bloodshed in the entirety of Midnight is roughly equivalent to 30 seconds of Dawn Of The Dead.Nancy's would-be molester is played by Lawrence Tierney, which will offer a point of meager interest for some viewers, but he seems just as disinterested in the proceedings as the rest of the amateur hour ensemble, so any hopes of a seasoned actor elevating the film are quickly quashed. The unspectacular climax, where Nancy and Tierney team up to dispatch the murderous cohort, is clumsily staged and brings this mess to the plodding finale that the rest of the movie has led you to expect, upon which Midnight ends so abruptly that we're left with the impression that Russo ran out of film.Fans of awful cinema might find themselves mildly amused by the ineptness on display here, but most of Midnight is so insufferably tedious that even the unintentional comedy doesn't justify a peek. Discerning horror fans should just stay away completely. As for myself, I mostly just sat there scratching my head, quietly amazed that the same dude who made this had anything to do with Night Of The Living Dead.

Plot = Nancy runs away from home after her stepfather tries to rape her. She hitch-hikes with two nice boys who are headed for Florida and they get along really well right from the start. However, Nancy will soon regret her decision to run away from home as a satanic family kidnaps her in order to sacrifice her to the devil.Midnight is a wannabe slasher from the early 80s but with more of a 70s feel due to the poor condition of the film and plus it's just another bad "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" clone. I read some mixed reviews about this flick, but I've read mixed reviews for other slasher movies before and I was pleased with some of them, unfortunately not in this case. Don't get me wrong the storyline sounded really good but once Nancy gets kidnapped the movie slows down and we are left with an unoriginal "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" rip off. The beginning of the movie was quite interesting and I was even willing to pass the terrible acting but when Nancy's friends gets killed off that's when the movie starts to go downhill.All in all "Midnight" is a really terrible backwoods slasher, the beginning showed potential but the last half is rushed so I wouldn't recommend this to anyone.

Backwoods hillbilly Satanists murder locals and capture a runaway after dispatching of the two "grocery thieves" she was hitching a ride with. The reason our heroine run away in the first place was because of her alcoholic policeman step-father's trying to molest her. The hillbillies include this portly cackling menace who murders a black priest with a knife and, shortly after, strangles and drowns the man's daughter in her own bathtub. Romero vet, John Amplas(the "vampire" star of Martin)has a creepy role as one of the Satanists who shoots two men in cold blood..one black man point-blank in the forehead. The runaway is Nancy(Melanie Verlin)and her step-father, Bert Johnson, is played by the great Lawrence Tierney. An odd occurrence takes place in this film..Bert, the man who is quite a liar(he tells his wife, in a subtle way of course, that Nancy was trying to seduce him, for petesake), becomes the hero of this flick! He, through fine police work, will find Nancy's recent whereabouts and face-off with the Satanists in a bloody finale.This is a film from author of "Night of the Living Dead" John Russo, who I guess wanted to make his way into the horror genre. I've read that many feel Russo, at the very least, captures the aesthetic of Romero's "Night of the Living Dead." As I watched it again for the second time, it feels more akin to Wes Craven's "Last House on the Left." That feeling of hopelessness for several female sacrifices to Satan and how the villains have no regard for the human lives they destroy(in the backwoods where even the local police are afraid to enter)certainly reminded me of Craven's film. "Midnight" also felt as raw, sick, and exploitive(except for the lack of rape and nudity)as "Last House on the Left." And, also, the acting is about as lacking as Craven's film. In my mind, "Midnight" is about as backwoods and independent a horror picture as can be made. When someone mentions "Backwoods slasher", "Midnight" will probably stem to my mind for now on. One thing I can say positive about this is Russo's choice of location as the setting..the cold dead woods lend to the feeling of dread and there's a garbage-beauty this film has I came away with liking. It's the acting that causes me to ache. That and the CORNY theme song..the type you would find on a record titled, "AM GOLD". Damn thing is that title tune gets stuck in your head..to the point you'll just be chiming away realizing in horror what you humming to.I'm guessing that the reason the acting is less than stellar is because Russo uses local talent, shoots his film in local areas, and shoots as low-income as possible. I guess it could be viewed as a grindhouse flick. It looked like one to me. Most of the violence is blood splatter as large blades slash across throats.