We’ve moved into November, and after a slight delay things are back on track. Just needed to add a month to the train track.

The gist of this movie is incredibly complicated in a very simple way. It starts with a man in an asylum. The man was the actor in a movie. A movie that is about to be screened decades after it was released. The asylum winds up becoming the site of an unknown massacre.

And then we get to the movie theater where our cast of victims, I mean characters, are gathering to watch the movie. The movie has a Texas Chainsaw Massacre vibe, even starting with a van full of young college kids breaking down in the middle of nowhere.

I realize it gets complicated talking about a movie within a movie. And that is part of the fun, because as the movie begins, well… things get complicated. Because shortly after the movie starts, reality itself bends and twists. The movie watchers begin to become part of the movie as the villain escapes the screen to kill theater patrons off one by one. Victims who are then seen being dragged into the home, as seen by their friends sitting in the theater. The viewers begin to understand the gravity of the situation but find themselves trapped in the theater. All doors and windows are unable to open. And they have to try and figure out how to deal with the villain. A live celluloid monster rampaging through the theater and able to jump back to the screen and take his victims with him.

In case you haven’t noticed yet, I love a movie that is a good mindfuck. Can I say that here? I suppose I should check, but as a third of the ownership and content creators here, I guess I can if I want to. Be weird for my kids to come at me and say “Dad, you can’t do that.” That’s my job to say to them, not theirs! (Mostly writing this hoping they read it, just for fun.)

Midnight Movie is a wild romp with moments of good acting and moments of mediocre acting. But the story is the sort of twisting and winding plot that gets my juices flowing.

I watched this pretty much at the same time as Behind the Mask: Rise of Leslie Vernon. And both of these movies instantly rocketed into my top 20 horror movies (maybe higher, depends on the day.) And both of them have kept me waiting over a decade for a potential sequel that is likely to never happen. And that saddens me to no end (as I just saw an ad for Amityville Origin story (yes, I know it technically came out a year ago)) because studios throw money at crap every day and let fascinating tales wither on the side of the road.

The movie starts off with a young girl, Lucie, who has been held captive but escapes into the streets. We don’t know what is happening yet other than a sick person was torturing her. In the aftermath of that, Lucie winds up in an institute where she is recovering. There’s only one person she confides in there, Anna.

Jumping forward about a decade, Lucie breaks into a home and murders the family living there. Mom, dad, son, and daughter. She then calls Anna telling her what she did and claiming to have found and killed the ones who had tortured her. Lucie finds a woman there who was being tortured and is helping her to escape the torment she had endured. The mother wasn’t dead though, and Anna tries to help her escape what Lucie did to her family. Realizing Anna doesn’t believe her, Lucie kills herself.

Anna then finds a secret room leading to the basement where everything Lucie suspected is proven. Before she can get help though a group of very official looking intruders arrive. This group not only knew about what was going on, but they are an organization that sanctions and facilitates things.

And Anna is now their captive.

What we find out is that this group is actually trying to achieve something. Something that transcends religious beliefs. Something metaphysical that transcends the knowledge and experiences of humanity. They believe there is something beyond death and believe that the pathway to discovery can only be found through profound pain.

And that is where Anna comes in. She is now the current recipient and victim of the organization. As she endures the pain and machinations they inflict on her, she completely dissociates from reality. Which we then learn they believe is the penultimate step towards the answers they are seeking. And then Anna does experience the discovery they were hoping for.

This is a brutal movie. And it has such a wild concept laced throughout it. What they are trying to accomplish is, in many ways, part of the human condition. What is coming? What are we doing here? What comes next? Answers that have been sought for millennia.

In many ways this movie reminds me of the Saw franchise. I have loved the concept of the Saw movies, even if I disagree with the over the top gore they use. I feel like this movie will be overlooked by people who don’t want to endure the brutality, and that is a shame. Because I have a friend who would never watch this as it would open up personal wounds, but knowing them as I do, the discussion that would take place after it would be fantastic.