The basic idea is that the people who play the game have to survive from midnight to 3:34 whilst avoiding the midnight man and his shenanigans. The midnight man supposedly finds out your worst fear and intends on using against you. Each person playing has a candle which when lit means they are essentially safe but if it goes out they have 10 seconds to relight it (a nice way of introducing sudden jeopardy) or circle themselves with salt.
The problem with this film is it doesn't build up suspense well, each character only seems to come in to contact with the midnight man twice, *Spoiler Alert* once to reveal their fear to the audience and the second to kill them. Unfortunately a lot of the time this film feels tedious and lacking inspiration. For example it is revealed that Alex has a fear of blood and yet the midnight man never uses this against baring one scene (and for someone who's worst fear is blood, she sure didn't seem to mind the rather gory ending).
Obviously the characters are in a horror film so they have their stupidness dialled up to 11. Alex and Max find a box, open it and immediately start playing whatever it is they have found, to the point where they do a sort of blood ritual before they even finish reading the 1 page of rules explaining what they are committing to. Their friend Kelly (who knows a little bit about the midnight man game and apparently wasn't busy at 1am) immediately joins in rather than leaving and going home. Later in the film the characters go to the greenhouse for no good reason other than it's a way to introduce water (which is inconveniently great at putting out candles)
The film adds some star power with it's casting of Robert Englund as Dr. Harding (I like him as an actor but his character is so minor, it basically could have been played by anyone) and Lin Shaye as Anna. She is undoubtedly excellent as 'old lady in horror film' but her character motivations make no sense. She was one of the original kids shown playing the game in the introduction (and only survivor) and it's revealed she has since been getting others to play the game, but why? Is it like the film Truth or Dare where the only way to survive is to distract the 'bogeyman' with others, is she possessed into doing these things by the midnight man or is she just a horrible person (she seemingly showed no remorse for getting her daughter killed and certainly did nothing to stop the midnight man).
The Midnight Man played by Kyle Strauts is probably underutilised, he is a suitably creepy bad guy, he lurks in the shadows and passes quickly across the screen every now and again but it would have been nice to see him have more 1-on-1 contact with the characters. He has several creepy masks/faces (that's a good thing but I see no reason why he keeps changing his look at the end of the film) and I love the fact that he plays the game but he cheats (*Spoiler Alert* he forces Kelly out of her salt circle by tipping over pots of water ~just on a side note this whole scene was excellent~ and by changing the clocks to trick Alex and Miles in to thinking that they had survived)
Overall this was a disappointing film considering that I liked the concept and thought that it had all the ingredients to be good but was perhaps let down by poor writing.
The problem with this film is it doesn't build up suspense well, each character only seems to come in to contact with the midnight man twice, *Spoiler Alert* once to reveal their fear to the audience and the second to kill them. Unfortunately a lot of the time this film feels tedious and lacking inspiration. For example it is revealed that Alex has a fear of blood and yet the midnight man never uses this against baring one scene (and for someone who's worst fear is blood, she sure didn't seem to mind the rather gory ending).
Obviously the characters are in a horror film so they have their stupidness dialled up to 11. Alex and Max find a box, open it and immediately start playing whatever it is they have found, to the point where they do a sort of blood ritual before they even finish reading the 1 page of rules explaining what they are committing to. Their friend Kelly (who knows a little bit about the midnight man game and apparently wasn't busy at 1am) immediately joins in rather than leaving and going home. Later in the film the characters go to the greenhouse for no good reason other than it's a way to introduce water (which is inconveniently great at putting out candles)
The film adds some star power with it's casting of Robert Englund as Dr. Harding (I like him as an actor but his character is so minor, it basically could have been played by anyone) and Lin Shaye as Anna. She is undoubtedly excellent as 'old lady in horror film' but her character motivations make no sense. She was one of the original kids shown playing the game in the introduction (and only survivor) and it's revealed she has since been getting others to play the game, but why? Is it like the film Truth or Dare where the only way to survive is to distract the 'bogeyman' with others, is she possessed into doing these things by the midnight man or is she just a horrible person (she seemingly showed no remorse for getting her daughter killed and certainly did nothing to stop the midnight man).
The Midnight Man played by Kyle Strauts is probably underutilised, he is a suitably creepy bad guy, he lurks in the shadows and passes quickly across the screen every now and again but it would have been nice to see him have more 1-on-1 contact with the characters. He has several creepy masks/faces (that's a good thing but I see no reason why he keeps changing his look at the end of the film) and I love the fact that he plays the game but he cheats (*Spoiler Alert* he forces Kelly out of her salt circle by tipping over pots of water ~just on a side note this whole scene was excellent~ and by changing the clocks to trick Alex and Miles in to thinking that they had survived)
Overall this was a disappointing film considering that I liked the concept and thought that it had all the ingredients to be good but was perhaps let down by poor writing.