As with all of my reviews of films for The Creepercast, I fully recommend that you check each and every one of them out. I am one man and this is my opinion. I've seen plenty of movies that received reviews that were the complete opposite of how I saw the film. These writers, directors, producers and actors all put a lot of time and love into these projects. They deserve to be seen and appreciated for what they are. Everyone has a dream and I fully support the people that take the time to make theirs a reality. With that being said....
Everybody wants to make their mark in life. Everybody wants to leave something behind that people remember. In the horror world, it's an iconic character that people latch onto and that takes on a life and a fandom of its own. For example, Wes Craven with Freddy Krueger or Sean S. Cunningham with Jason Voorhees. These were horror legends in the vein of Dracula or Frankenstein's monster. Because of this desire, we see a lot of masked killers and attempts at unique monsters, which the majority of the time just fade into the background after the credits roll. With the film 'Minutes to Midnight', you could tell that there was a lot of effort put into the character design of each of the three main villains and even the fourth, to a degree. The problem is that it was almost a bit too much. I fully gave everyone involved credit for putting forth a hell of an effort, but I think they missed the mark. Angus was a bit of a mess and although the bone crafted weapons looked cool, they weren't very practical and felt a bit forced. Calypso felt like she was taken straight out of the 'Mortal Kombat' franchise and Gimble.... well, he was a mixture of two of Bill Moseley's most memorable characters: Chop Top and Otis Firefly. I'll casually leave the fourth member out of this equation, as there's a hook I don't want to spoil for any new viewers. There's also a lot of unanswered questions, which are left to exposition throughout the story line, but a lot of things just don't make sense. For example, the little 'bunker' that the family lives in. Why has no one come across this and realized what was going on sooner? I know they had some protection in town, but that can't keep them hidden forever and they'd been doing bad things for a while now. There's also the main protagonists in the film. You don't really care about any of them, so when they're killed, it's kind of meaningless. The cast and the choices for each role isn't too bad. William Baldwin did his best and Richard Grieco felt a little out of place, as the long haired sheriff, but he tried. Overall though, everyone did their best to make a horror film that stood above a lot of the other fodder that's being churned out these days. Not just indie horror, but big budget nonsense that could learn a few things from it's lower budget cousins.
The story takes place on New Year's Eve, as a group of friends are settling into a night of partying at a local lodge that happens to be in an area where some horrible murders had happen. During the first part of the film, we see a younger couple, as the man is proposing to his girlfriend in an off limits wooded area. They're quickly dispatched by our trio of bad guys or so we think. Meanwhile, the group of friends is starting the party early at their mutual place of employment. Their boss is a bit of an overly friendly man towards his manager and there's another guy who's wandering around looking for his brother, who happens to be the guy that's murdered in the opening. The sheriff shows up and warns them all that a big storm is coming and to stay away from the lodge, as it's not going to be safe. The kids go anyway. Two of their friends are headed to the same lodge to meet them, as they're also quickly laid to rest. (One of them happens to be Dominique Swain, in a “blink or you'll miss her” role) As the night goes one, the killers begin to terrorize the aforementioned people, as one by one they're killed in creative and horrible ways. By the end, it's an all out battle of brains and brawn, as the sheriff, the drifter and the last two of the friends are trying to stay alive before the storm comes.
The film is directed by Christopher Ray, son of the film maker Fred Olen Ray. A director who has 153 craptacular entries on IMDB and is a bit of a legend in the b-movie world. Written by Victoria Dadi and Christopher M. Don, they do their best to build something of substance and in some ways they succeed, but overall.... it ends up being kind of a mess. The film itself, looks fairly well done. Composition wise and some of the choices that are made, but when the rest of it doesn't maintain the same level of quality, it kind of makes the whole thing fall flat. I don't want you to think this is something that's not worth your time. For all I know, you may love it. I've seen so many horror films and grown up in the genre, that I tend to hold the movies I watch to a higher standard. All in all, I think this could have used with some scaling back in regards to the number of main characters and the scoring of the film. Sometimes less is more and in this film, it felt like the desire was to throw in as much as possible in the hopes that it would stick but it didn't. There's also a big problem with the ending. By the third act, I found myself drifting a bit, as it seemed like the movie should have already ended, but then the last 3 minutes happened. In quite possibly the most “What the hell just happened?” ending ever, things just kind of were done. I don't understand what happened or why, but it almost felt like the money ran out or the editor clipped it a few minutes too early. Maybe the idea was to go for the vague and ambiguous ending, but it felt like someone hit stop on the film and never hit play again. It was jarring, to say the least.
Sadly, this one doesn't really get beyond a 2 out of 5 star film for me. I give a lot of credit to John Hennigan, as he was the shining star in this film. He's not quite got the same level charisma as a Dave Bautista or Dwayne Johnson, but he's very likable and I could see him continuing on as an action hero. Just looking at his career over the last decade, it looks like I'm not the only one who feels this way. Also, Christopher Ray has some talent. With 'Minutes to Midnight' he's proven that he can get the most out of the materials he's handed and that could prove to be a really strong asset as he continues his film making career. This isn't his film outing and I have a feeling it won't be his last. Do I ever need to see this again? No, probably not. There's just not enough here to hold my interest for another go, but give it a shot. Maybe you'll find something in it that I didn't. Plus, any time you can watch Bill Moseley practice his craft, it's a good day. (ps: the poster is incredibly misleading)
Minutes to Midnight is on VOD July 3 and DVD September 4.
If you want to see where this borrows from, check out: 'Friday the 13th' (2009), 'House of 1000 Corpses' and 'The Strangers'
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