Review: ‘Midnighters’ has devious doings and creepy atmosphere
“Midnighters,” a sinister crime thriller marking the feature debut of siblings Julius (director) and Alston (screenwriter) Ramsay, plays like “Blood Simple’s” impressionable but less proficient kid brother, nevertheless has some devious touches of its own.
Released, appropriately, under the IFC Midnight banner, the film takes place on an ill-fated New Year’s Eve, as young couple Lindsey (Alex Essoe) and Jeff (Dylan McTee), returning home from festivities, accidentally run over a man appearing in the middle of a dark, heavily wooded road.
Realizing that neither of them would pass a Breathalyzer test, they panic, stashing his body in their car until they can come up with a viable Plan B.
In the interim, they discover that their encounter with the heavily bleeding victim lying in their backseat wasn’t as random as believed — what with the slip of paper they find in his wallet with their address written on it.
Like Joel and Ethan Coen and Danny and Oxide Pang before them, the Ramsay brothers are attracted to all the grisly stuff found at the junction between noir-tinged thrillers and scarlet-hued horror, although the plotting here isn’t as tightly coiled and the characters aren’t as delineated as obviously intended.
Even so, the amount of creepy atmosphere they’ve resourcefully squeezed from a limited budget — and those spine-tingling Rhode Island backdrops — are enough to make you curious about what they’ll do for an encore.
-------------
‘Midnighters’
Not rated
Running time: 1 hour, 33 minutes
Playing: Arena Cinelounge Sunset, Hollywood; also on VOD
See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour »
Movie Trailers
Only good movies
Get the Indie Focus newsletter, Mark Olsen's weekly guide to the world of cinema.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
