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This unfairly neglected made-for-TV Canadian horror movie has so much more going for it than its current obscurity might suggest. Set in the small rural 'nothing ever happens here' community of Holsten B. C, the sleepy town's bucolic ennui shattered by the brutal slaying of a female cinema goer during a special screening of splattery slasher 'Bad Blood' and two years later with the pending horror festival to include a premiere screening of 'Bad Blood II' the increasingly angsty locals fear yet another tragedy and sleazy local reporter, Geoff (Timothy Webber) is keen to capitalize on the escalating mania as stolid, ex-city cop Al (Ron White) investigates the escalating midnight movie madness!
From the tense slasher-movie-within-slasher-movie opening whereby the histrionic screams upon the screen echo bloodily in the packed theatre, Midnight Matinee provides some ironical, B-Horror escapism. This playful Canadian chiller is a bargain Bin Bobby Dazzler, packed with more red herrings than Lenin's lunch box! Relatively bloodless, there are a number of splendiferous, Giallo-esque set pieces evoking the sinister stylings of maestro, Lamberto Bava. There's even one gnarly kill mirroring the audacious slicing n' dicing behind the flickering screen from 'Demons'! The inventively dispatched victims are a likable cotton-tailed bunch, the nimble narrative maintains interest and it's always cool to see, William B. (Smoking Man) Davis appear in anything! The feisty final curtain proves suitably fatal and I, for one, would certainly stay up late for the welcome return of this mental midnight matinee!
Shudder savouring fans of similarly quirky cult shockers 'Fade to Black' and 'Popcorn' should get a moderately blissful B-Horror buzz from, Richard Martin's Giallo-centric Canadian creep-fest 'Midnight Matinee', as it resolutely remains a late night terror treat ideally suited for stupefied schlock rockers, B-Slasher epicureans, macabre murder misfits and avid Canuxploitation completists alike!
From the tense slasher-movie-within-slasher-movie opening whereby the histrionic screams upon the screen echo bloodily in the packed theatre, Midnight Matinee provides some ironical, B-Horror escapism. This playful Canadian chiller is a bargain Bin Bobby Dazzler, packed with more red herrings than Lenin's lunch box! Relatively bloodless, there are a number of splendiferous, Giallo-esque set pieces evoking the sinister stylings of maestro, Lamberto Bava. There's even one gnarly kill mirroring the audacious slicing n' dicing behind the flickering screen from 'Demons'! The inventively dispatched victims are a likable cotton-tailed bunch, the nimble narrative maintains interest and it's always cool to see, William B. (Smoking Man) Davis appear in anything! The feisty final curtain proves suitably fatal and I, for one, would certainly stay up late for the welcome return of this mental midnight matinee!
Shudder savouring fans of similarly quirky cult shockers 'Fade to Black' and 'Popcorn' should get a moderately blissful B-Horror buzz from, Richard Martin's Giallo-centric Canadian creep-fest 'Midnight Matinee', as it resolutely remains a late night terror treat ideally suited for stupefied schlock rockers, B-Slasher epicureans, macabre murder misfits and avid Canuxploitation completists alike!