The Midnight Man Review (Film, 2018) #31DaysofHorror

The Midnight Man is a horror film inspired by a creepypasta. I went into that idea a little bit yesterday, but it’s essentially urban legends created online. Some might be inspired by real events, or preexisting urban legends/myths, but they gain their popularity online. There’s a fascinating discussion to be had about fair use and Internet phenomena, but this is not the time; I wish it was, but it’s not.

The Midnight Man is based off of “The Midnight Game,” a very specific type of creepypasta. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of these games floating around that claim to have deadly consequences if you choose to play. They have overly elaborate rules that sometimes even contradict each other in an attempt to add more tension.

I can see how writer/director Travis Zariwny and writer Rob Kennedy could envision a film in this story. For one thing, another film was already made and released in 2013 called The Midnight Game with the same source material. For another, it’s actually a pretty solid creepypasta that has gained a good bit of popularity in the real world.

The game is essentially hide and seek with a boogeyman figure. You sign your name on a piece of paper and seal it with blood. You hang it on your front door and knock 22 times at midnight to let him in. You light a candle and must keep the candle lit while wandering around your house until 3:33 am. If the room gets cold, the Midnight Man is near. If your candle goes out, the Midnight Man is preparing to attack you. You must relight the candle in 10 seconds or else. If you fail to light the candle, you must surround yourself in a circle of salt and stay there until the game ends. If you leave the house or fall asleep, you lose.

The Midnight Man takes that concept and adds an utterly illogical and dull framing device to it. The opening scene is an over the top gore fest showing children essentially be crushed by the Midnight Man, releasing giant waves of blood. The sole survivor grows up to be a grandmother living in the same home. Her teenage granddaughter is her live in caretaker to deal with her symptoms of dementia. The granddaughter finds the game locked away in the attic with her friend and starts it all over again. The grandmother is very clearly not suffering from actual dementia but instead suffering from the trauma of seeing so many friends die from the game.

Is that a spoiler? Technically, yes. But is a spoiler a spoiler when there’s no attempt at misdirection or subtlety? Not really. Grandma actively becomes involved in the game right at the start by sabotaging her granddaughter. It’s just thrown out there and done again and again with no nuance. The grandmother is constantly lurking in the background and seen grabbing objects or blowing out candles. Any reveal beyond that is far less satisfying than actually committing to the character having dementia AND an evil deadly game happening at the same time.

The Midnight Man is a film constantly at odds with itself. On one hand, you have these over the top gore sequences that look just ridiculous. The very fluid blood is used well—this film commits to rivers and pools in the wake of a victim and it looks good. Everything else feels like cheap Halloween prosthetics and masks. It’s sad when a gore film looks better when the gore is hidden in the shadows or not shown at all.

On the other hand, the cast has clearly been directed to give very grounded, naturalistic performances. They are working in small strokes with little variance in the tone of voice regardless of circumstances. I could see that approach working in a deadly game of hide and seek if everything else wasn’t so over the top. The acting is so dry and disconnected from the expected emotional response of a horror film that I found myself waiting for an “it was all a dream” twist ending that never came. No, director Travis Zariwny really wanted to make a splatter film with a cast instructed to deliver their lines like they were asking which brand of toilet paper to pick up at the supermarket.

The Midnight Man has one really effective sequence in the third act with one of the players in the game. Conceptually, this version of the story claims the Midnight Man attacks you with what you fear the most. This girl’s fear involves her late pet rabbit and the result is a series of scenes that wouldn’t be out of place in A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Overall, it’s hard to recommend The Midnight Man. I think the whole thing is just so tonally inconsistent with too many visible seams to really be effective. I’d suggest just searching for Midnight Game creepypasta fan fiction; it exists and the best has far better structure, characters, scares, and emotional stakes than The Midnight Man.

The Midnight Man is currently streaming on Hulu Plus.

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